which not only curries favour
with the military caste for social reasons, but has large direct
interests in war as a method of raising the price of money, the only
commodity the moneyed class has to sell. But I am quite unable to see
that our Junkers are less susceptible to the influence of the Press than
the people educated by public elementary schools. On the contrary, our
Democrats are more fool-proof than our Plutocrats; and the ravings our
Junkers send to the papers for nothing in war time would be dear at a
halfpenny a line. Plutocracy makes for war because it offers prizes to
Plutocrats: Socialism makes for peace because the interests it serves
are international. So, as the Socialist side is the democratic side, we
had better democratize our diplomacy if we desire peace.

II.

*RECRUITING.*

And now as to the question of recruiting. This is pressing, because it
is not enough for the Allies to win: we and not Russia must be the
decisive factor in the victory, or Germany will not be fairly beaten,
and we shall be only rescued _proteges_ of Russia instead of the
saviours of Western Europe. We must have the best army in Europe; and we
shall not get it under existing arrangements. We are passing out of the
first phase of the war fever, in which men flock to the colours by
instinct, by romantic desire for adventure, by the determination not, as
Wagner put it, "to let their lives be governed by fear of the end," by
simple destitution through unemployment, by rancour and pugnacity
excited by the inventions of the Press, by a sense of duty inculcated in
platform orations which would not stand half an hour's discussion, by
the incitements and taunts of elderly non-combatants and maidens with a
taste for mischief, and by the verses of poets jumping at the cheapest
chance in their underpaid profession. The difficulty begins when all the
men susceptible to these inducements are enlisted, and we have to draw
on the solid, sceptical, sensible residuum who know the value of their
lives and services and liberties, and will not give them except on
substantial and honourable conditions. These Ironsides know that it is
one thing to fight for your country, and quite another to let your wife
and children starve to save our rich idlers from a rise in the supertax.
They also know that it is one thing to wipe out the Prussian drill
sergeant and snob officer as the enemies of manhood and honour, and
another to let that sacred m