now
between German imperialism and the empire of the world. I do not want to
exaggerate the quality of greater Britain. If the inner set are narrowly
educated, the outer set if often crudely educated. If the inner set is
so close knit as to seem like a conspiracy, the outer set is so
loosely knit as to seem like a noisy confusion. Greater Britain is only
beginning to realise itself and find itself. For all its crudity there
is a giant spirit in it feeling its way towards the light. It has quite
other ambitions for the ending of the war than some haggled treaty of
alliance with France and Italy; some advantage that will invalidate
German competition; it begins to realise newer and wider sympathies,
possibilities of an amalgamation of interests and community of aim that
is utterly beyond the habits of the old oligarchy to conceive, beyond
the scope of that tawdry word 'Empire' to express...."

I descended from my rhetoric to find M. Reinach asking how and when this
greater Britain was likely to become politically effective.

V. THE SOCIAL CHANGES IN PROGRESS

1

"Nothing will be the same after the war." This is one of the consoling
platitudes with which people cover over voids of thought. They utter
it with an air of round-eyed profundity. But to ask in reply, "Then how
will things be different?" is in many cases to rouse great resentment.
It is almost as rude as saying, "Was that thought of yours really a
thought?"

Let us in this chapter confine ourselves to the social-economic
processes that are going on. So far as I am able to distinguish among
the things that are being said in these matters, they may be classified
out into groups that centre upon several typical questions. There is
the question of "How to pay for the war?" There is the question of the
behaviour of labour after the war. "Will there be a Labour Truce or a
violent labour struggle?" There is the question of the reconstruction of
European industry after the war in the face of an America in a state
of monetary and economic repletion through non-intervention. My present
purpose in this chapter is a critical one; it is not to solve problems
but to set out various currents of thought that are flowing through
the general mind. Which current is likely to seize upon and carry human
affairs with it, is not for our present speculation.

There seem to be two distinct ways of answering the first of the
questions I have noted. They do not necessarily