sult out
of our national efforts. But in Germany there is a greater tradition of
subordination; in France there is a greater clarity of mind than in any
other country.

Great Britain and Russia in this, as in so many other matters, are at
once close kindred and sharp antithesis. Each is mentally crippled by
the corruption of its educational system by an official religious
orthodoxy, and hampered by a Court which disowns any function of
intellectual stimulus. Neither possesses a scientifically educated
_class_ to which it can look for the powerful handling of this great
occasion; and each has acquired under these disadvantages the same
strange faculty for producing sane resultants out of illogical
confusions. It is the way of these unmethodical Powers to produce
unexpected, vaguely formulated, and yet effective cerebral
action--apparently from their backbones.

As I sit playing at prophecy, and turn over the multitudinous
impressions of the last year in my mind, weighing the great necessities
of the time against obstacles and petty-mindedness, I become more and
more conscious of a third factor that is neither need nor obstruction,
and that is the will to get things right that has been liberated by the
war.

The new spirit is still but poorly expressed, but it will find
expression. The war goes on, and we discuss this question of economic
reconstruction as though it was an issue that lay between the labour
that has stayed behind and the business men, for the most part old men
with old habits of mind, who have stayed behind.

The real life of Europe's future lies on neither side of that
opposition. The real life is mutely busy at present, saying little
because of the uproar of the guns, and not so much learning as casting
habits and shedding delusions. In the trenches there are workers who
have broken with the old slacking and sabotage, and there are
prospective leaders who have forgotten profit. The men between eighteen
and forty are far too busy in the blood and mud to make much showing
now, but to-morrow these men will be the nation.

When that third factor of the problem is brought in the outlook of the
horoscope improves. The spirit of the war may be counted upon to balance
and prevail against this spirit of individualism, this spirit of
suspicion and disloyalty, which I fear more than anything else in the
world.

I believe in the young France, young England, and young Russia this war
is making, and so I beli