but, if it had not been for the rapid change of parts
which the war has brought, they would have had a good many more
fellow-captives than they have. The writer of this article was,
from his first entrance into public affairs, a Pacificist to the
backbone. He believed that war was the greatest of preventible
evils, and that no war which had occurred in his lifetime had been
justified by the laws of right and wrong. To-day that Pacificist is
heart and soul with his countrymen in their struggle; and, having
lived to see England engaged in a righteous war, he has changed
his motto from "Rub lightly" to "Mak sicker."

Not less remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers
(among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself).
Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detect
the slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodies
to invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly what
we like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into the
willing subjects of a despotism. We tumble over each other in our
haste to throwaway the liberties which we used to consider vital
to our being; and some of us have been not merely the victims, but
the active agents, of an administrative system which we believe
to be necessary for the safety of the State.

But is there not a remnant? Have all the lovers of Liberty changed
their garb and conned new parts? Not all. A remnant there is, and
it is to be found in the House of Lords. This is perhaps the most
astonishing feature of the "humorous stage"; and if, among superlatives,
a super-superlative is possible, I reserve that epithet for the fact
that the most vigorous champion of personal freedom in the House
of Lords has been an ecclesiastical lawyer. From Lord Stowell to
Lord Parmoor is indeed a far cry. Who could have dreamt that, even
amid the upheaval of a world, a spokesman of liberty and conscience
would emerge from the iron-bound precincts of the Consistory Court
and the Vicar-General's Office?

Bishops again--not even these most securely placed of all British
officials can escape the tendency to change which pervades the
whole stage of public life. The Bishop of Winchester, whom all
good Progressives used to denounce as a dark conspirator against
the rights of conscience; the Bishop of Oxford, whom we were taught
to regard as a Hildebrand and a Torquemada rolled into one--these
admirable prelates emerge from the safe