Truly Crondall had said that the Canadian preachers accomplished more

than they knew. The sense of duty, individual and national, burned in

England for the first time since Nelson's day: a steady, white flame.

The acceptance by all classes of the community of the Imperial

Parliament's programme of work proved this. The public had been shown

that our duty to the whole Empire, and to our posterity, demanded this

thing. That was enough. Five years before, one year before, the country

had been shown very clearly where its duties lay; and the showing had

not moved five men in a hundred from their blind pursuit of individual

pleasure and individual gain. Army, Navy, Colonies, Imperial

prestige--all might go by the board.

But now, all that was changed. My old friend, Stairs, with Reynolds, and

their following, had given meaning and application to the teaching of

our national chastisement. Religion ruled England once more; and it was

the religion, not of professions and asseverations, but of Duty. The

House of Commons and, more even than our first Free Government, the

Imperial Parliament in Westminster Hall had behind them the absolute

confidence of a united people. If England could have been convinced at

that time that Duty demanded a barefoot pilgrimage to Palestine, I

verily believe Europe would have speedily been dissected by a

thousand-mile column of marching Britishers.

But the Canadian preachers taught a far more practical faith than that;

and, behind them, John Crondall and his workers opened the door upon a

path more urgent and direct than that of any pilgrimage; the path to be

trodden by all British citizens who respected the white hairs of their

fathers, and the innocent trust of their children; the path of Duty to

God and King and Empire; the path for all who could hear and understand

the call of our own blood.

XIII

ONE SUMMER MORNING

To humbler functions, awful Power!

I call thee: I myself commend

Unto thy guidance from this hour;

O, let my weakness have an end!

Give unto me, made lowly wise,

The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of Truth thy bondman let me live.

_Ode to Duty._

Winter rushed past us like a tropical squall that year, and, before one

had noted the beautiful coming of spring, young summer was upon the

land. For me, serving as I did the founder and leader of _The Citizens_,

life was filled as never before. I had never even dreamed of a life so

compact of far-reaching action, of intimate relation with great causes.

I know now that the speed and strenuousness of it was telling upon all

of us. But we did not realize it then. John Crondall seemed positively

tireless. The rest of us had our moments of exhaustion, but never, I

think, of depression. Our work was too finely productive and too richly

rewarded for that. But we were thin, and a little fine-drawn, like

athletes somewhat overtrained.

Published records have analyzed our progress through the country, the

Canadian preachers' and our own; but nothing I have read, or could tell,

gives more than a pale reflection of that triumphal progress, as we

lived it. In our wake, harlots forsook harlotry to learn something of

nursing by doing the rough domestic work of hospitals; famous misers and

money-grubbers gave fortunes to _The Citizens'_ cause, and peers' sons

left country mansions to learn defensive arts, in the ranks; drunkards

left their toping for honest work, and actresses sold their wardrobes to

provide funds for village rifle corps.

There was no light sentiment, no sort of hysteria, at the back of these

miracles. Be it remembered that the streets of English towns had never

been so orderly; public-houses and places of amusement had never been so

empty; churches and chapels had never been one-half so full. During that

year, as the records show, it became the rule in many places for curates

and deacons to hold services outside the churches and chapels, while

packed congregations attended the services held within. And it was then

that, for the first time, we saw parsons leading the young men of their

flocks to the rifle-ranges, and competing with them there.

The lessons we learned in those days will never, I suppose, seem so

wonderful to any one else as to those of us who had lived a good slice

of our lives before the lessons came; before the need of them was felt

or understood. "For God, our Race, and Duty!" Conceive the stirring

wonder of the watchword, when it was no more than a month old!

The seasons rushed by us, as I said. But one short conversation served

to mark for me the coming of summer. We had reached the Surrey hills in

our homeward progress toward London. On a Saturday night we held a huge

meeting in Guildford, and very early on Sunday morning I woke with a

curiously insistent desire to be out in the open. Full of this

inclination I rose, dressed, and made my way down to the side entrance

of the hotel, where a few servants were moving about drowsily. As I

passed out under a high archway into the empty, sunny street, with its

clean Sabbath hush, Constance Grey stepped out from the front entrance

to the pavement.

"I felt such a longing to be out in the open this morning," she said,

when we had exchanged greeting. "It's months since I had a walk for the

walk's sake, and now I mean to climb that hill that we motored over from

Farnham--the Hog's Back, as they call it."

We both thought it deserved some more beautiful name, when we turned on

its crest and looked back at Guildford in the hollow, shining in summer

morning haze.

"Now surely that's King Arthur's Camelot," said Constance.

And then we looked out over the delectable valley toward the towers of

Charterhouse, across the roofs of two most lovable hamlets, from which

blue smoke curled in delicate spirals up from the bed of the valley,

through a nacreous mist, to somewhere near our high level.

We gazed our fill, and I only nodded when Constance murmured:

"It's worth a struggle, isn't it?"

I knew her thought exactly. It was part of our joint life, of the cause

we both were serving. I had been pointing to some object across the

valley, and as my hand fell it touched Constance's hand, which was cool

and fresh as a flower. Mine was moist and hot. I never was more at a

loss for words. I took her hand in mine and held it. So we stood, hand

in hand, like children, looking out over that lovely English valley. My

heart was all abrim with tenderness; but I had no words. I had been a

good deal moved by the curious instance of telepathic sympathy or

understanding which had brought me from my bed that morning and led to

our meeting.

"You have given me so much, taught me so much, Constance," I said at

last.

"No, no; I am no teacher," she said. "But I do think God has taught all

of us a good deal lately--all our tribe--Dick."

There was a rare hint of nervousness in her voice; and I felt I knew the

cause. I felt she must be thinking of John Crondall. And yet, if my life

had depended on it, I could not help saying:

"It is love that taught me."

Constance drew her hand away gently.

"Would not the Canadian preachers say we meant the same thing?" she

said. I had my warning; but, though haltingly, the words would come,

now.

"Ah, Constance, it is love of you, I mean--love of you. Oh, yes, I

know," I hurried on now. "I know. Have no fear of me. I understand. But

it is love of you, Constance, that rules every minute of my life. I

couldn't alter that if I tried; and--and I would not alter it if I had

to die for it. But--you must forgive me. Tell me you do not want me to

stop loving you, Constance. You see, I do not ask any more of you. I

understand. But--let me go on loving you, dear heart, because that means

everything to me. It has guided me in everything I have done since that

day you came to me in _The Mass_ office. Constance, you do not really

want me to stop loving you?"

I was facing her now; kneeling to her, in my mind, though not in fact.

Her head was bowed toward me. Then she raised her glorious eyes, and

gave to me the full tender sweetness of them.

"No, Dick," she said, quite firmly, but soft and low; "I don't want you

ever to stop loving me."

Whatever else Fate brings or takes from me, I shall never lose the

lovely music of those words. That is mine for ever.

XIV

"FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY"

Soldiers, prepare! Our cause is Heaven's cause;

Soldiers, prepare! Be worthy of our cause:

Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky:

Prepare, O troops that are to fall to-day!

Prepare, prepare.

Alfred shall smile, and make his harp rejoice;

The Norman William, and the learned Clerk,

And Lion-Heart, and black-browed Edward, with

His loyal queen shall rise, and welcome us!

Prepare, prepare.

BLAKE.

We had two other meetings before finally taking train for London; but

virtually our campaign was brought to an end at Guildford. Our

peregrination ended there, but the Canadian preachers continued their

pilgrimage till long afterwards. Scores of rich men were anxious to

finance these expounders of the new teaching, and even to build them

churches. But Stairs and Reynolds were both agreed in wanting no

churches. Their mission was to the public as a whole.

When we returned to our headquarters in London, the membership of _The

Citizens_ stood within a few hundreds of three million and a half of

able-bodied men. And still new members were being sworn in every day.

Some few of these members had contributed as much as five thousand

pounds to our funds. Very many had contributed a fifth of that sum, and

very many more had given in hundreds of pounds. There were some who gave

us pence, and they were very cordially thanked, giving as they did from

the slenderest of purses. There were women who had sold dresses and

jewels for us, hundreds of them; and there were little children whose

pocket-money had helped to swell the armament and instruction funds.

Joseph Farquharson, the well-known coal and iron magnate, who had been

famous for his "Little England" sentiments--a man who had boasted of his

parochialism--must have learned very much from the invasion and the

teaching of the new movement. He gave one hundred thousand pounds to

_The Citizens_ after John Crondall's first address in Newcastle.

When Crondall attended the famous Council at the War Office, he did so

as the founder and representative of the most formidable organization

ever known in England. He had no official standing at the Council: he

took his seat there as an unofficial commoner. Yet, in a sense, he held

the defensive strength of Britain in his hand. But several of the

Ministers and officials who formed that Council were members of our

Executive, and our relations with the Government were already well

defined and thoroughly harmonious. It was from the War Office that we

received the bronze badge which was supplied to every sworn _Citizen_

and bore our watchword--"For God, our Race, and Duty"; and the

Government had given substantial aid in the matter of equipment and

instruction. But now John Crondall represented three million and a half

of British men, all sworn to respond instantly to his call as President

of the Executive. And every _Citizen_ had some training--was then

receiving some training.

"The Canadian preachers waked and inspired the people; we swore them

in," said John Crondall modestly. "Their worth is the faith in them, and

their faith spells Duty. That's what makes _The Citizens_ formidable."

"The grace of God," Stairs called it; and so did many others.

Crondall bowed to that, and added a line from his favourite poet: "Then

it's the grace of God in those 'Who are neither children nor gods, but

men in a world of men!'" he said.

No wise man has ever doubted, so far as I know, that simple piety,

simple religion, "British Christianity," was the motive force at work

behind the whole of the revival movement. Without that foundation, the

enduring results achieved must have been impossible. But this was

entirely unlike any previously known religious revival, in that it

supplied no emotional food whatever. There was no room for

sentimentality, still less for hysteria, in the acceptation of George

Stairs's message from that "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," whose

name is Duty. Tears and protestations were neither sought nor found

among converts to the faith which taught all to be up and doing in

Duty's name.

From the records, I know that eight weeks passed after the famous

Council at the War Office before England spoke. When I say that during

that time I acted as my chief's representative in controlling an office

of over ninety clerks (all drilled men and fair shots), besides several

times traversing the length and breadth of the kingdom on special

missions, it will be understood that the period was to me a good deal

more like eight days. During that time, too, I was able to help

Constance Grey in her organization of the women helpers' branch of _The

Citizens_, in which over nine thousand members were enrolled. Constance

had an executive committee of twenty-five volunteer workers, who spent

money and energy ungrudgingly in helping her.

We kept in close touch with the heads of provincial committees during

the whole of that period, and several times we communicated by means of

printed circular letters, franked gratis for us by the War Office, with

every single _Citizen_.

Then came the day of the now historic telegram which the Post Office was

authorized to transmit to every sworn _Citizen_ in the kingdom:

"Be ready! 'For God, our Race, and Duty.'"

This was signed by John Crondall, and came after some days of detailed

instruction and preparation.

It has been urged by some writers that the Government was at fault in

the matter of its famous declaration of war with Germany. It has been

pointed out that for the sake of a point of etiquette, the Government

had no right to yield a single advantage to an enemy whose conduct

toward us had shown neither mercy nor courtesy. There is a good deal to

be said for this criticism; but, when all is said and done, I believe

that every Englishman is glad at heart that our Government took this

course. I believe it added strength to our fighting arm; I believe it

added weight and consequence to the first blows struck.

Be that as it may, there was no sign of hesitancy or weakness in the

action of the Government when the declaration had once been made; and it

speaks well for the deliberate thoroughness of all preparations that,

twenty-four hours after the declaration, every one of the nine German

garrisons in the kingdom was hemmed in by land and by sea. On the land

side the Germans were besieged by more than three million armed men.

Almost the whole strength of the British Navy was then concentrated upon

the patrolling of our coasts generally, and the blockading of the

German-garrisoned ports particularly. Thirty-six hours had not passed

when the German battle-ships _Hohenzollern_ and _Kaiserin_, and the

cruisers _Elbe_ and _Deutschland_, were totally destroyed off Portsmouth

and Cardiff respectively; Britain's only loss at that time being the

_Corfe Castle_, almost the smallest among the huge flotilla of armed

merchantmen which had been subsidized and fitted out by the Government

that year.

I believe all the authorities had admitted that, once it was known that

our declaration had reached Berlin, the British tactics could not have

been excelled for daring, promptitude, and devastating thoroughness. It

is true that Masterman, in his well-known _History of the War_, urges

that much loss of life might have been spared at Portsmouth and

Devonport "if more deliberate and cautious tactics had been adopted,

and the British authorities had been content to achieve their ends a

little less hurriedly." But Masterman is well answered by the passage in

General Hatfield's Introduction to Low's important work, which tells us

that:

"The British plan of campaign did not admit of leisurely tactics or

great economy. Britain was striking a blow for freedom, for her very

life. Failure would have meant no ordinary loss, but mere extinction.

The loss of British life in such strongly armed centres as Portsmouth

was very great. It was the price demanded by the immediate end of

Britain's war policy, which was to bring the enemy to terms without the

terrible risks which delay would have represented, for the outlying and

comparatively defenceless portions of our own Empire. When the price is

measured and analyzed in cold blood, the objective should be as

carefully considered. The price may have been high; the result purchased

was marvellous. It should be borne in mind, too, that Britain's military

arm, while unquestionably long and strong (almost unmanageably so,

perhaps), was chiefly composed of what, despite the excellent

instructive routine of _The Citizens_, must, from the technical

standpoint, be called raw levies. Yet that great citizen army, by reason

of its fine patriotism, was able in less than one hundred hours from the

time of the declaration, to defeat, disarm, and extinguish as a fighting

force some three hundred thousand of the most perfectly trained troops

in the world. That was the immediate objective of Britain's war policy;

or, to be exact, the accomplishment of that in one week was our object.

It was done in four days; and, notwithstanding the unexpected turn of

events afterwards, no military man will ever doubt that the achievement

was worth the price paid. It strengthened Britain's hand as nothing else

could have strengthened it. It gave us at the outset that unmistakable

lead which, in war as in a race, is of incalculable value to its

possessors."

And, the General might have added, as so many other writers have, that

no civilized and thinking men ever went more cheerfully and bravely to

their deaths, or earned more gladly the eternal reward of Duty

accomplished, than did _The Citizens_, the "raw levies," with their

stiffening of regulars, who fell at Portsmouth and Devonport. They were

not perfectly disciplined men, in the professional sense, or one must

suppose they would have paid some heed to General Sir Robert Calder's

repeated orders to retire. But they were British citizens of as fine a

calibre as any Nelson or Wellington knew, and they carried the Sword of

Duty that day into the camp of an enemy who, with all his skill, had not

learned, till it was written in his blood for survivors to read, that

England had awakened from her long sleep. For my part, if retrospective

power were mine, I would not raise a finger to rob those stern converts

of their glorious end.

It is easy to be wise after the event, but no Government could have

foretold the cynical policy adopted by Berlin. No one could have guessed

that the German Government would have said, in effect, that it was

perfectly indifferent to the fate of nearly three hundred thousand of

its own loyal subjects and defenders, and that Britain might starve or

keep them at her own pleasure. After all, the flower of the German Army

was in England, and only a Government to the last degree desperate,

unscrupulous, and cynical could have adopted Germany's callous attitude

at this juncture.

Britain's aim was not at all the annihilation of Germany, but the

freeing of her own soil; and it was natural that our Government should

have acted on the assumption that this could safely be demanded when we

held a great German army captive, by way of hostage. The British aim was

a sound one, and it was attained. That it did not bring about the

results anticipated was due to no fault in our Government, nor even to

any lack of foresight upon their part; but solely to the cynical

rapacity of a ruler whose ambition had made him fey, or of a Court so

far out of touch with the country which supported it as to have lost its

sense of honour.

In the meantime, though saddled with a huge army of prisoners, and the

poorer by her loss of eighteen thousand gallant citizens, Britain had

freed her shores. In an even shorter time than was occupied over the

invasion, the yoke of the invader had been torn in sunder, and not one

armed enemy was left in England. And for our losses--the shedding of

that British blood partook of the nature of a sacrament; it was

life-giving. By that fiery jet we were baptized again. England had found

herself. Once more His people had been found worthy to bear the Sword of

the Lord. Britain that had slept, was wide-eyed and fearless again, as

in the glorious days which saw the rise of her Empire. Throughout the

land one watchword ran: "For God, our Race, and Duty!" We had heard and

answered to the poet's call:

Strike--for your altars and your fires;

Strike--for the green graves of your sires;

God, and your native land!

I find it easy to believe and read between the lines of the grim

official record which told us that outside Portsmouth "white-haired men

smiled over the graves of their sons, and armed youths were heard

singing triumphant chants while burying their fathers."

Meantime, simple folk in the southern country lanes of Dorset and of

Hampshire (Tarn Regis yokels among them, no doubt) heard the dull,

rumbling thunder of great guns at sea, and the talk ran on naval

warfare.

XV

"SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD"

Yea, though we sinned--and our rulers went from righteousness--

Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garment's hem.

. . . . . .

Hold ye the Faith--the Faith our fathers sealed us;

Whoring not with visions--overwise and overstale.

Except ye pay the Lord

Single heart and single sword,

Of your children in their bondage shall he ask them treble-tale!

RUDYARD KIPLING.

The learned German, Professor Elberfeld, has told the world, in

sentences of portentous length and complication, that "the petty

trader's instincts which form the most typical characteristic of the

British race" came notably to the fore in our treatment of the German

prisoners of war who were held under military surveillance in the

British ports which they had garrisoned.

The learned professor notes with bitter contempt that no wines, spirits,

cigars, or "other customary delicacies" were supplied to our prisoners,

and that the German officers received very little more than the rations

served to their men. The professor makes no mention of one or two other

pertinent facts in this connection; as, for example, that none of these

"customary delicacies" were supplied to the British troops. We may

endure his reproaches with the more fortitude, I think, when we remember

that the German Government absolutely ignored our invitation to send

weekly shipments of supplies under a white flag for the towns they had

garrisoned on British soil.

It is known that the officers in command of the German forces in England

had previously maintained a very lavish and luxurious scale of living;

in the same way that, since the invasion of England, extravagance was

said to have reached unparallelled heights in Germany itself. But the

British Government which had reached depletion of our own supplies, by

assisting our prisoners to maintain a luxurious scale of living while

held as hostages, would certainly have forfeited the confidence of the

public, and justly so. Upon the whole, it is safe to say that German

sneers at British parsimony and Puritanism may fairly be accepted as

tribute, and, as such, need in no sense be resented.

As soon as we received Germany's cynical reply to Britain's demand for a

complete withdrawal of all the invasion claims, it became evident that

the war was to be a prolonged and bitter one, and that no further

purpose could be served by the original British plan of campaign, which,

as its object had been the freeing of our own soil, had been based on

the assumption that the defeat and capture of the invader's forces would

be sufficient. Troops had to be despatched at once to South Africa,

where German overlordship had aroused the combined opposition of the

Boers and the British. This opposition burst at once into open

hostility immediately the news of England's declaration of war reached

South Africa. While the Boers and the British, united in a common cause,

were carrying war into German Southwest Africa, troops from German East

Africa were said to have landed in Delagoa Bay, and to be advancing

southward.

In all this, the British cause was well served by Germany's initial

blunder; by the huge mistake which cost her four-fifths of her naval

strength at a blow. This mistake in Germany's policy was distinctly

traceable to one cause: the national arrogance which, since the

invasion, had approached near to madness; which had now led Germany into

contemptuously underrating the striking power still remaining in the

British Navy. It was true that, prior to the invasion, our Navy had been

consistently starved and impoverished by "The Destroyers." It was that,

of course, which had first earned them their title. But Germany herself,

when she struck her great blow at England, hardly wounded the British

Navy at all. Her cunning had drawn our ships into a Mediterranean

impasse when they were sadly needed upon our coasts, and her strategy

had actually destroyed one British line of battle-ship, one cruiser, and

two gunboats. But that was the whole extent of the naval damage

inflicted by her at the time of the invasion. But the lesson she gave at

the same time was of incalculable value to us. The ships she destroyed

had been manned by practically untrained, short-handed crews, hurriedly

rushed out of Portsmouth barracks. Yet German arrogance positively

inspired Berlin with the impression that the Navies of the two countries

had tried conclusions, and that our fleet had been proved practically

ineffective.

Prior to the invasion our Navy had indeed reached a low ebb. Living

always in barracks, under the pernicious system gradually forced upon

the country by "The Destroyers" in the name of economy, our bluejackets

had fallen steadily from their one high standard of discipline and

efficiency into an incompetent, sullen, half-mutinous state, due solely

to the criminal parsimony and destructive neglect of an Administration

which aimed at "peace at any price," and adopted, of all means, the

measures most calculated to provoke foreign attack. But, since the

invasion, an indescribable spirit of emulation, a veritable fury of

endeavour, had welded the British fleet into a formidable state of

efficiency.

First "The Destroyers," actuated by a combination of panic and remorse,

and then the first Free Government, representing the convinced feeling

of the public, had lavished liberality upon the Navy since the invasion.

Increased pay, newly awakened patriotism, the general change in the

spirit of the age, all had combined to fill the Admiralty recruiting

offices with applicants. Almost all our ships had been kept practically

continuously at sea. "The Destroyers'" murderous policy in naval matters

had been completely reversed, and our fleet was served by a great

flotilla of magnificently armed leviathans of the Mercantile Marine,

including two of the fastest steamships in the world, all subsidized by

Government.

We know now that exact official records of these facts were filed in

the Intelligence Department at Berlin. But German arrogance prohibited

their right comprehension, and Britain's declaration of war was

instantly followed by an Imperial order which, in effect, divided the

available strength of the German Navy into eight fleets, and despatched

these to eight of the nine British ports garrisoned by German troops,

with orders of almost childish simplicity. These ports were to be taken,

and British insurrection crushed, ashore and afloat.

If the German Navy had been free of its Imperial Commander-in-Chief, and

of the insensate arrogance of his entourage, it could have struck a

terrible blow at the British Empire, while almost the whole fighting

strength of our Navy was concentrated upon the defence of England. As it

was, this fine opportunity was flung aside, and with it the greater part

of Germany's fleet. Divided into eight small squadrons, their ships were

at the mercy of our concentrated striking force. Our men fell upon them

with a Berserker fury born of humiliation silently endured, and followed

by eight or nine months of the finest sort of sea-training which could

possibly be devised.

The few crippled ships of the German fleet which survived those terrible

North Sea and Channel engagements must have borne with them into their

home waters a bitter lesson to the ruler whom they left, so far as

effective striking power was concerned, without a Navy.

Here, again, critics have said that our tactics showed an extravagant

disregard of cost, both as to men and material. But here also the

hostile critics overlook various vital considerations. The destruction

of Germany's sea-striking power at this juncture was worth literally

anything that Britain could give; not perhaps in England's immediate

interest, but in the interests of the Empire, without which England

would occupy but a very insignificant place among the powers of

civilization.

Then, too, the moral of our bluejackets has to be considered. Since the

invasion and the sinking of the _Dreadnought_, ours had become a Navy of

Berserkers. The Duty teaching, coming after the invasion, made running

fire of our men's blood. They fought their ships as Nelson's men fought

theirs, and with the same invincible success. It was said the

_Terrible's_ men positively courted the penalty of mutiny in time of war

by refusing to turn in, in watches, after forty-two hours of continuous

fighting. There remained work to be done, and the "Terribles" refused to

leave it undone.

The commander who had lessened the weight of the blow struck by

Britain's Navy, in the interests of prudence or economy, would have

shown himself blind to the significance of the new spirit with which

England's awakening had endowed her sons; the stern spirit of the

twentieth-century faith which gave us for watchword, "For God, our Race,

and Duty!"

With the major portion of our Navy still in fighting trim, and

twenty-five-knot liners speeding southward laden with British troops, it

speedily became evident that Germany's chance of landing further troops

in South Africa was hardly worth serious consideration, now that her

naval power was gone. On the other hand, it was known that the enemy

had already massed great bodies of troops in East and Southwest Africa,

and it became the immediate business of the British Admiralty to see

that German oversea communications should be cut off.

Further, we had to face ominous news of German preparations for

aggression in the Pacific and in the near East, with persistent rumours

of a hurriedly aggressive alliance with Russia for action in the Far

East. The attitude of Berlin itself was amazingly cynical, as it had

been from the very time of the unprovoked invasion of our shores. In

effect, the Kaiser said:

"You hold a German Army as prisoners of war, and you have destroyed my

Navy; but you dare not invade my territory, and I defy you to hit upon

any other means of enforcing your demands. You can do nothing further."

The British demands, made directly the German troops in England were in

our hands, were, briefly, for the complete withdrawal of the whole of

claims enforced by Germany at the time of the invasion.

That, then, was the position when I returned to our London headquarters

from a journey I had undertaken for my chief in connection with the work

of drafting large numbers of _Citizens_ back from the camps into private

life. Various questions had to be placed in writing before every

_Citizen_ as to his attitude in the matter of possible future calls made

upon his services. I had only heard of seven cases of men physically fit

failing to express perfect readiness to respond to any future call for

active service at home or abroad, in case of British need. Here was a

shield of which I knew both sides well. The thing impressed me more than

I can tell, or most folk would understand nowadays. I knew so well how

the god of business (which served to cover all individual pursuit of

money or pleasure) would have been invoked to prove the utter

impracticability of this--one short year before. I looked back toward my

Fleet Street days, and I thanked God for the awakening of England, which

had included my own awakening.

My return to London was a matter of considerable personal interest to

me, for Constance Grey was there, having been recalled by John Crondall

from her active superintendence of nursing at Portsmouth.

XVI

HANDS ACROSS THE SEA

There is a Pride whose Father is Understanding, whose Mother is

Humility, whose Business is the Recognition and Discharge of Duty.

That is the true Pride.--MERROW'S _Essays of the Time_.

I was impatient to reach London, but I should have been far more

impatient if I had known that Constance Grey stood waiting to meet me on

the arrival platform at Waterloo.

"They told me your train at the office," she said, as I took one of her

hands in both of mine, "and I could not resist coming to give you the

news. Don't say you have had it!"

"No," I told her. "My best news is that Constance has come to meet me,

and that I am alive to appreciate the fact very keenly. Another trifling

item is that, so far as I can tell, practically every member of _The

Citizens_ would respond to-morrow to a call for active service in

Timbuctoo--if the call came. I tell you, Constance, this is not reform,

it's revolution that has swept over England. We call our membership

three and a half millions; it's fifty millions, really. They're all

_Citizens_, every mother's son of them; and every daughter, too."

We were in a cab now.

"But what about my news?" said Constance.

"Yes, tell me, do. And isn't it magnificent about the Navy? How about

those 'Terrible' fellows? Constance, do you realize how all this must

strike a man who was scribbling and fiddling about disarmament a year

ago? And do you realize who gave that man decent sanity?"

"Hush! It wasn't a person, it was a force; it was the revolution that

brought the change."

"Ah, well, God bless you, Constance! I wish you'd give me the news."

"I will, directly you give me a chance to get in a word. Well, John is

at Westminster, in consultation with the Foreign Office people, and

nothing definite has been done yet; but the great point is, to my

thinking, that the offer should ever have been made."

"Why, Constance, whatever has bewitched you? I never knew you to begin

at the end of a thing before."

And indeed it was unlike Constance Grey. She was in high spirits, and

somehow this little touch of illogical weakness in her struck me as

being very charming. She laughed, and said it was due to my persistent

interruptions. And then she gave me the news.

"America has offered to join hands with us."

"Never!"

"Yes. The most generous sort of defensive alliance, practically without

conditions, and--'as long as Great Britain's present need endures.'

Isn't it splendid? John Crondall regards it as the biggest thing that

has happened; but he is all against accepting the offer."

There had been vague rumours at the time of the invasion, and again, of

a more pointed sort, when Britain declared war. But every one had said

that the pro-German party and the ultra-American party were far too

strong in the United States to permit of anything beyond expressions of

good-will. But now, as I gathered from the copy of the _Evening

Standard_ which Constance gave me:

"The heart of the American people has been deeply stirred by two

considerations: Germany's unwarrantable insolence and arrogance, and

Britain's magnificent display of patriotism, ashore and afloat, in

fighting for her independence. The patriotic struggle for

independence--that is what has moved the American people to

forgetfulness of all jealousies and rivalries. The rather indiscreet

efforts of the German sections of the American public have undoubtedly

hastened this offer, and made it more generous and unqualified. The

suggestion that any foreign people could hector them out of generosity

to the nation from whose loins they sprang, finally decided the American

public; and it is fair to say that the President's offer of alliance is

an offer from the American people to the British people."

"But how about the Monroe Doctrine?" I said to Constance, after running

through the two-column telegram from Washington, of which this passage

formed part.

"I don't know about that; but you see, Dick, this thing clearly comes

from the American people, not her politicians and diplomatists only.

That is what gives it its tremendous importance, I think."

"Yes; to be sure. And why does John Crondall want the offer declined?"

"Oh, he hadn't time to explain to me; but he said something about its

being necessary for the new Britain to prove herself, first; our own

unity and strength. 'We must prove our own Imperial British alliance

first,' he said."

"I see; yes, I think I see that. But it is great news, as you say--great

news."

How much John Crondall's view had to do with the Government's decision

will never be known, but we know that England's deeply grateful Message

pointed out that, in the opinion of his Majesty's Imperial Government,

the most desirable basis for an alliance between two great nations was

one of equality and mutual respect. While in the present case there

could be nothing lacking in the affection and esteem in which Great

Britain held the United States, yet the equality could hardly be held

proven while the former Power was still at war with a nation which had

invaded its territory. The Message expressed very feelingly the deep

sense of grateful appreciation which animated his Majesty's Imperial

Government and the British people, which would render unforgettable in

this country the generous magnanimity of the American nation. And,

finally, the Message expressed the hope, which was certainly felt by the

entire public, that those happier circumstances which should equalize

the footing of the two nations in the matter of an alliance would

speedily come about.

To my thinking, our official records contain no document more moving or

more worthy of a great nation than that Message, which, as has so

frequently been pointed out, was in actual truth a Message from the

people of one nation to the people of another nation--from the heart of

one country to the heart of another country. The Message of thanks, no

less than the generous offer itself, was an assertion of blood-kinship,

an appeal to first principles, a revelation of the underlying racial and

traditional tie which binds two great peoples together through and

beneath the whole stiff robe of artificial differences which separated

them upon the surface and in the world's eyes.

The offer stands for all time a monument to the frank generosity and

humanity of the American people. And in the hearts of both peoples there

is, in my belief, another monument to certain sturdy qualities which

have gone to the making and cementing of the British Empire. The shape

that monument takes is remembrance of the Message in which that kindly

offer was for the time declined.

The declining of the American offer has been called the expression of a

nation's pride. It was that, incidentally. First and foremost--and this,

I think, is the point which should never be forgotten--it was the

expression of a nation's true humility. Pride we had always with us in

England, of the right sort and the wrong sort; of the sort that adds to

a people's stature, and sometimes, of late, of the gross and senseless

sort that leads a people into decadence. But in the past year we had

learned to know and cherish that true pride which has its foundations in

the rock of Duty, and is buttressed all about and crowned by that

quality which St. Peter said earned the grace of God--humility.

For my part, I see in that Message the ripe fruit of the Canadian

preachers' teaching; the crux and essence of the simple faith which came

to be called "British Christianity." I think the spirit of it was the

spirit of the general revival in England that came to us with the

Canadian preachers; even as so much other help, spiritual and material,

came to us from our kinsmen of the greater Britain overseas, which,

before that time, we had never truly recognized as actually part, and by

far the greater part, of our State.

XVII

THE PENALTY

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters

Cannot be truly followed.

_Othello._

It would be distinctly a work of supererogation for me to attempt to

tell the story of the Anglo-German war--of all modern wars the most

remarkable in some ways, and certainly the war which has been most

exhaustively treated by modern historians. A. Low says in the concluding

chapter of his fine history:

"Putting aside the fighting in South Africa, and after the initial

destruction of both the German Navy and its Army in England (as

effective forces), we must revert to the wars of more than a century ago

to find parallels for this remarkable conflict. There can be no doubt

that at the time of the invasion of England Germany's effective fighting

strength was enormous. Its growth had been very rapid; its decline must

be dated from General von Fuechter's occupation of London on Black

Saturday.

"At that moment everything appeared to bode well for the realization of

the Emperor's ambition to be Dictator of Europe, as the ruler of by far

the greatest Power in the Old World. From that moment the German people,

but more particularly the German official and governing class, and her

naval and military men, would appear to have imbibed of some

distillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and found it too

heady an elixir for their sanity. It would ill become us to dilate at

length upon the extremes into which their arrogance and luxuriousness

led them. With regard, at all events, to the luxury and indulgence, we

ourselves had been very far from guiltless. But it may be that our

extravagance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of slower

growth. Certain it is, that before ever an English shot was fired the

fighting strength of Germany waned rapidly from the period of the

invasion. By some writers this has been attributed to the insidious

spread of Socialism. But it must be remembered that the deterioration

was far more notable in the higher than in the lower walks of life; and

most of all it was notable among the naval and military official

nobility, who swore loudest by lineage and the divine privileges of

ancient pedigrees.

"When the German army of occupation in England was disarmed, prisoners

in barracks and camps, and the German Navy had, to all intents and

purposes, been destroyed, the Imperial German Government adopted the

extraordinary course of simply defying England to strike further blows.

Germany practically ceased to fight (no reinforcements were ever landed

in South Africa, and the German troops already engaged there had no

other choice than to continue fighting, though left entirely without

Imperial backing), but emphatically refused to consider the extremely

moderate terms offered by Britain, which, at that time, did not even

include an indemnity. But this extraordinary policy was not so purely

callous and cynical as was supposed. Like most things in this world, it

had its different component parts. There was the cynical arrogance of

the Prussian Court upon the one side; but upon the other side there was

the ominous disaffection of the lesser German States, and the rampant,

angry Socialism of the lower and middle classes throughout the Empire,

which had become steadily more and more virulent from the time of the

reactionary elections of the early part of 1907, in which the Socialists

felt that they had been tricked by the Court party. In reality Germany

had two mouthpieces. The Court defied Britain; the people refused to

back that defiance with action."

For a brief summary of the causes leading up to the strange half-year

which followed our receipt of the American offer of assistance, I think

we have nothing more lucid than this passage of Low's important work.

That the forces at work in Germany, which he described from the

vantage-point of a later date, were pretty clearly understood, even at

that time, by our Government, is proved, I think, by the tactics we

adopted throughout that troublous period.

In South Africa our troops, though amply strong, never adopted an

aggressive line. They defended our frontiers, and that defence led to

some heavy fighting. But, after the first outbreak of hostilities, our

men never carried the war into the enemy's camp. There was a

considerable party in the House of Commons which favoured an actively

aggressive policy in the matter of seizing the Mediterranean

strongholds ceded to Germany at the time of the invasion. It was even

suggested that we should land a great _Citizen_ army in Germany and

enforce our demands at the point of the sword.

In this John Crondall rendered good service to the Government by

absolutely refusing to allow his name to be used in calling out _The

Citizens_ for such a purpose. But, in any case, wiser counsels prevailed

without much difficulty. There was never any real danger of our

returning to the bad old days of a divided Parliament. The gospel of

Duty taught by the Canadian preachers, and the stern sentiment behind

_The Citizens'_ watchword, had far too strong a hold upon the country

for that.

Accordingly, the Government policy had free play. No other policy could

have been more effective, more humane, or more truly direct and

economical. In effect, the outworking of it meant a strictly defensive

attitude in Africa, and in the north a naval siege of Germany.

Germany had no Navy to attack, and, because they believed England would

never risk landing an army in Germany, the purblind camarilla who stood

between the Emperor's arrogance and the realities of life assumed that

England would be powerless to carry hostilities further. Or if the

Imperial Court did not actually believe this, it was ostensibly the

Government theory, the poor sop they flung to a disaffected people while

filling their official organs with news of wonderful successes achieved

by the German forces in South Africa.

But within three months our Navy had taught the German people that the

truth lay in quite another direction. The whole strength of the British

Navy which could be spared from southern and eastern bases was

concentrated now upon the task of blocking Germany's oversea trade.

Practically no loss of life was involved, but day by day the ocean-going

vessels of Germany's mercantile marine were being transferred to the

British flag. The great oversea carrying trade, whose growth had been

the pride of Germany, was absolutely and wholly destroyed during that

half-year. The destruction of her export trade spelt ruin for Germany's

most important industries; but it was the cutting off of her imports

which finally robbed even the German Emperor of the power to shut his

eyes any longer to the fact that his Empire had in reality ceased to

exist.

The actual overthrow of monarchical government in Prussia was not

accomplished without scenes of excess and violence in the capital. But,

in justice to the German people as a whole, it should be remembered that

the revolution was carried out at remarkably small cost; that the people

displayed wonderful patience and self-control, in circumstances of

maddening difficulty, which were aggravated at every turn by the

Emperor's arbitrary edicts and arrogant obtrusion of his personal will,

and by the insolence of the official class. One must remember that for

several decades Germany had been essentially an industrial country, and

that a very large proportion of her population were at once strongly

imbued with Socialistic theories, and wholly dependent upon industrial

activity. Bearing these things in mind, one is moved to wonder that the

German people could have endured so long as they did the practically

despotic sway of a Ruler who, in the gratification of his own insensate

pride, allowed their country to be laid waste by the stoppage of trade,

and their homes to be devastated by the famine of an unemployed people

whose communications with the rest of the world were completely severed.

That such a ruler and such a Court should have met with no worse fate

than deposition, exile, and dispersal is something of a tribute to the

temperate character of the Teutonic race. Bavaria, Wuerttemberg, Saxony,

and the southern Grand Duchies elected to retain their independent forms

of government under hereditary rule; and to this no objection was raised

by the new Prussian Republic, in which all but one of the northern

principalities were incorporated.

Within, forty-eight hours of the election of Dr. Carl Moeller to the

Presidency of the new Republic, hostilities ceased between Great Britain

and Germany, and three weeks later the Peace was signed in London and

Berlin. Even hostile critics have admitted that the British terms were

not ungenerous. The war was the result of Germany's unprovoked invasion

of our shores. The British terms were, in lieu of indemnity, the cession

of all German possessions in the African continent to the British Crown,

unreservedly. For the rest, Britain demanded no more than a complete and

unqualified withdrawal of all German claims and pretensions in the

matter of the Peace terms enforced after the invasion by General Baron

von Fuechter, including, of course, the immediate evacuation of all those

points of British territory which had been claimed in the invasion

treaty, an instrument now null and void.

The new Republic was well advised in its grateful acceptance of these

terms, for they involved no monetary outlay, and offered no obstacle to

the new Government's task of restoration. At that early stage, at all

events, the Prussian Republic had no colonial ambitions, and needed all

its straitened financial resources for the rehabilitation of its home

life. (In the twelve months following the declaration of war between

Great Britain and Germany, the number of Germans who emigrated reached

the amazing total of 1,134,378.)

To me, one of the most interesting and significant features of the

actual conclusion of the Peace--which added just over one million square

miles to Britain's African possessions, and left the Empire, in certain

vital respects, infinitely richer and more powerful than ever before in

its history--is not so much as mentioned in any history of the war I

have ever read, though it did figure, modestly, in the report of the

Commissioner of Police for that year. As a sidelight upon the

development of our national character since the arrival of the Canadian

preachers and the organization of _The Citizens_, this one brief passage

in an official record is to my mind more luminous than anything I could

possibly say, and far more precious than the fact of our territorial

acquisitions:

"The news of the signature of the Peace was published in the early

editions of the evening papers on Saturday, 11 March. Returns show that

the custom of the public-houses and places of entertainment during the

remainder of that day was 37-1/2 per cent. below the average Saturday

returns. Divisional reports show that the streets were more empty of

traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, than on any ordinary week-day.

Police-court cases on the following Monday were 28-1/2 per cent. below

the average, and included, in the metropolitan area, only five cases of

drunkenness or disorderly conduct. All reports indicate the prevalence

throughout the metropolitan area of private indoor celebrations of the

Peace. All London churches and chapels held Thanksgiving Services on

Sunday, 12 March, and the attendances were abnormally large."

Withal, I am certain that the people of London had never before during

my life experienced a deeper sense of gladness, a more general

consciousness of rejoicing. Not for nothing has "British Christianity"

earned its Parisian name of "New Century Puritanism." As the President

of the French Republic said in his recent speech at Lyons: "It is the

'New Century Puritanism' which leads the new century's civilization, and

maintains the world's peace."

XVIII

THE PEACE

Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage!

(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)

For the Lord our God Most High

He hath made the deep as dry,

He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

At a very early stage of the war with Germany, before the end of the

first month, in fact, it became evident that, our own soil having once

been freed, this was to be a maritime and not a land war. A little later

on it was made quite clear that there would be no need to draw further

upon our huge reserve force of _Citizen_ defenders. It was then that

John Crondall concentrated his efforts upon giving permanent national

effect to our work of the previous year.

Fortunately, the Government recognized that it would be an act of

criminal wastefulness and extravagance to allow so splendid a defensive

organization as ours to lapse because its immediate purpose had been

served. Accordingly, special legislation, which was to have been

postponed for another session, was now hurried forward; and long before

the German Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England was

secure in the possession of that permanent organization of home defence

which, humanly speaking, has made these shores positively impregnable,

by converting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of the Empire,

into a nation in arms. There is no need for me to enlarge now upon the

other benefits, the mental, moral, and physical advancement which this

legislation has given us. Our doctors and schoolmasters and clergymen

have given us full and ample testimony upon these points.

Prior to the passing of the National Defence Act, which guaranteed

military training as a part of the education of every healthy male

subject, the great majority of _The Citizens_ had returned to private

life. Yet, with the exception of some few hundreds of special cases,

every one of _The Citizens_ remained members of the organization. And it

was that fact which provided incessant employment, not alone for John

Crondall and myself, and our headquarters staff, during the progress of

the war, but for our committees throughout the country.

Before reentering private life, every _Citizen_ was personally

interviewed and given the opportunity of being resworn under conditions

of permanent membership. The new conditions applied only to home

defence, but they included specific adherence to our propaganda for the

maintenance of universal military training. They included also a

definite undertaking upon the part of every _Citizen_ to further our

ends to the utmost of his ability, and, irrespective of State

legislation, to secure military training for his own sons, and to abide

by _The Citizens'_ Executive in whatever steps it should take toward

linking up our organization, under Government supervision, with the

regular national defence force of the country.

It should be easy to understand that this process involved a great deal

of work. But it was work that was triumphantly rewarded, for, upon the

passage into law of the Imperial Defence Act, which superseded the

National Defence Act, after the peace had been signed, we were able to

present the Government with a nucleus consisting of a compact working

organization of more than three million British _Citizens_. These

_Citizens_ were men who had undergone training and seen active service.

They were sworn supporters of universal military training, and of a

minimum of military service as a qualification for the suffrage.

All political writers have agreed that the knowledge of what was taking

place in England, with regard to our organization, greatly strengthened

the hands of the Imperial Parliament in its difficult task of framing

and placing upon the Statute Book those two great measures which have

remained the basis of politics and defence throughout the Empire: the

Imperial Defence Act and the Imperial Parliamentary Representation Act.

At the time there were not wanting critics who held that a short reign

of peace would bring opposition to legislation born of a state of war;

but if I remember rightly we heard the last of that particular order of

criticism within twelve months of the peace, it being realized once and

for all then, that the maintenance of an adequate defence system was to

be regarded, not so much as a preparation for possible war, as the one

and only means of preventing war.

Constance Grey worked steadily throughout the progress of the war, and

it was owing almost entirely to her efforts that the Volunteer Nursing

Corps, which she had organized under _Citizens'_ auspices, was placed on

a permanent footing. Admirable though this organization was as a nursing

corps, its actual value to the nation went far beyond the limits of its

nominal scope. By her tireless activity, and as a result of her own

personal enthusiasm, Constance was able before the end of the war to

establish branches of her corps in every part of the country, with a

committee and headquarters in all large centres. Meetings were held

regularly at all these headquarters, every one of which was visited in

turn by Constance herself; and in the end _The Citizens' Nursing Corps_,

as this great league of Englishwomen was always called, became a very

potent force, an inexhaustible spring of what the Prime Minister called

"the domestic patriotism of Britain."

In the earliest stage of this work of hers Constance had to cope with a

certain inertia on the part of her supporters, due to the fact that no

active service offered to maintain their enthusiasm. But Constance's

watchword was, "Win mothers and sisters, and the fathers and brothers

cannot fail you." It was in that belief that she acted, and before long

the Nursing Corps might with equal justice have been called _The Women

Citizens_. It became a great league of domestic patriots, and it would

not be easy to overstate the value of its influence upon the rising

generation of our race.

War has always been associated in men's minds with distress and want,

and that with some reason. But after the first few months of the

Anglo-German war it became more and more clearly apparent that this war,

combined with the outworking of the first legislation of the Imperial

Parliament, was to produce the greatest commercial revival, the greatest

access of working prosperity, Britain had ever known. Two main causes

were at work here; and the first of them, undoubtedly, was the

protection afforded to our industries by Imperial preference. The time

for tinkering with half-measures had gone by, and, accordingly, the

fiscal belt with which the first really Imperial Parliament girdled the

Empire was made broad and strong. The effect of its application was

gradual, but unmistakable; its benefits grew daily more apparent as the

end of the war approached.

Factories and mills which had long lain idle in the North of England

were hastily refitted, and they added every day to the muster-roll of

hands employed. Our shipping increased by leaps and bounds, but even

then barely kept pace with the increased rate of production. The price

of the quartern loaf rose to sixpence, in place of fivepence; but the

wages of labourers on the land rose by nearly 25 per cent., and the

demand exceeded the supply. Thousands of acres of unprofitable

grass-land and of quite idle land disappeared under the plough to make

way for corn-fields. Wages rose in all classes of work; but that was not

of itself the most important advance. The momentous change was in the

demand for labour of every kind. The statistics prove that while wages

in all trades showed an average increase of 19-1/2 per cent.,

unemployment fell during the year of the Peace to a lower level than it

had ever reached since records were instituted.

In that year the cost of living among working people was 5-1/2 per cent.

higher than it had been five years previously. The total working

earnings for the year were 38-1/2 per cent. greater than in any previous

year. Since then, as we know, expenditure has fallen considerably; but

wages have never fallen, and the total earnings of our people are still

on the up grade.

Another cause of the unprecedented access of prosperity which changed

the face of industrial and agricultural England, was the fact that some

seven-tenths of the trade lost by Germany was now not only carried in

British ships, but held entirely in British hands. Germany's world

markets became Britain's markets, just as the markets of the whole

Empire became our own as the result of preference, and just as the great

oversea countries of the Empire found Britain's home markets, with fifty

million customers, exclusively their own. The British public learned

once and for all, and in one year, the truth that reformers had sought

for a decade to teach us--that the Empire was self-supporting and

self-sufficing, and that common-sense legislative and commercial

recognition of this fundamental fact spelt prosperity for British

subjects the world over.

But, as John Crondall said in the course of the Guildhall speech of his

which, as has often been said, brought the Disciplinary Regiments into

being, "We cannot expect to cure in a year ills that we have studiously

fostered through the better part of a century." There was still an

unemployed class, though everything points to the conclusion that before

that first year of the Peace was ended this class had been reduced to

those elements which made it more properly called "unemployable." There

were the men who had forgotten their trades and their working habits,

and there were still left some of those melancholy products of our

decadent industrial and social systems--the men who were determined not

to work.

In a way, it is as well that these ills could not be swept aside by the

same swift, irresistible wave which gave us "British Christianity," _The

Citizens'_ watchword, Imperial Federation, and the beginning of great

prosperity. It was the continued existence of a workless class that gave

us the famous Discipline Bill. At that time the title "Disciplinary

Regiments" had a semidisgraceful suggestion, connected with punishment.

In view of that, I shared the feeling of many who said that another name

should be chosen. But now that the Disciplinary Regiments have earned

their honourable place as the most valuable portion of our

non-professional defence forces, every one can see the wisdom of John

Crondall's contention that not the name, but the public estimate of that

name, had to be altered. Theoretically the value and necessity of

discipline was, I suppose, always recognized. Actually, people had come

to connect the word, not with education, not with the equipment of

every true citizen, but chiefly with punishment and disgrace.

At first there was considerable opposition to the law, which said, in

effect: No able-bodied man without means shall live without employment.

Indeed, for a few days there was talk of the Government going to the

country on the question. But in the end the Discipline Act became law

without this, and I know of no other single measure which has done more

for the cause of social progress. Its effects have been far-reaching.

Among other things, it was this measure which led to the common-sense

system which makes a soldier of every mechanic and artisan employed upon

Government work. It introduced the system which enables so many men to

devote a part of their time to soldiering, and the rest to various other

kinds of Government work. But, of course, its main reason of existence

is the triumphant fact that it has done away with the loafer, as a

class, and reduced the chances of genuine employment to a minimum. Some

of the best mechanics and artisans in England to-day are men who learned

their trade, along with soldiering and general good citizenship, in one

of the Disciplinary Regiments.

Despite the increase of population, the numerical strength of our police

force throughout the kingdom is 30 per cent. lower to-day than it was

before the Anglo-German war; while, as is well known, the prison

population has fallen so low as to have led to the conversion of several

large prisons into hospitals. The famous Military Training School at

Dartmoor was a convict prison up to three years after the war. There

can be no doubt that, but for the Discipline Bill, our police force

would have required strengthening and prisons enlarging, in place of the

reverse process of which we enjoy the benefit to-day.

Its promoters deserve all the credit which has been paid them for the

introduction of this famous measure; and I take the more pleasure in

admitting this by token that the chief among them has publicly recorded

his opinion that the man primarily responsible for the introduction of

the Discipline Bill was John Crondall. At the same time it should not be

forgotten that we have John Crondall's own assurance that the Bill could

never have been made law but for that opening and awakening of the

hearts and minds of the British people which followed the spreading of

the gospel of Duty by the Canadian preachers.

XIX

THE GREAT ALLIANCE

Truly ye come of the Blood; slower to bless than to ban;

Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.

. . . . .

Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether;

But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.

. . . . .

Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands,

And the law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

During all this time I was constantly with John Crondall, and saw a good

deal of Constance Grey; yet the announcement that I had once expected

every day, the announcement which seemed the only natural sequence to

the kiss of which I had been an unwilling witness, never came. Neither

did any return come, in John Crondall, of his old frank gaiety of

manner. There remained always the shadow of reserve, of gravity, and of

a certain restraint, which dated in my mind from the day of my

inadvertent intrusion upon the scene between himself and Constance.

Knowing John Crondall as I knew him then, it was not possible for me to

think ill of him; but he perplexed me greatly at times. For at times it

did seem to me that I read in Constance's face, when we three were

together, a look that was almost an appeal to my chief--a

half-sorrowful, half-abashed appeal. Then I would recall that kiss, and

in my puzzlement I would think: "John Crondall, if you were any other

man, I should say you----"

And there my thought would stop short. Of what should I accuse him?

There was the kiss, the long silence, John Crondall's stiffness, and

then this look of distress, this hint of appeal, in the face of

Constance. Well! And then my intimate knowledge of my chief would

silence me, giving me assurance that I should never be a good enough man

justly to reproach John Crondall. But it was all very puzzling, and

more, to me, loving Constance as I loved her.

You may judge, then, of my surprise when Crondall came into my room at

_The Citizens'_ headquarters office one morning and said:

"You have been the real secretary for some time, Dick, not only mine,

but _The Citizens'_; so there's no need for me to worry about how you'll

manage. I'm going to America."

"Going to America! Why--when?"

"Well, on Friday, I believe I sail. As to why, I'm afraid I mustn't tell

you about that just yet. I've undertaken a Government mission, and it's

confidential."

"I see. And how long will you be away?"

"Oh, not more than two or three months, I hope."

That simplified the thing somewhat. My chief's tone had suggested at

first that he was going to live in the United States. Even as it was,

however, surely, I thought, he would tell me something now about

himself and Constance. But though I made several openings, he told me

nothing.

While John Crondall was away a new State Under-Secretaryship was

created. It was announced that for the future the Government would

include an Under-Secretary of State for the Civilian Defence Forces,

whose chief would be the Secretary of State for War. A few days later

came the announcement that the first to hold this appointment would be

John Crondall. I had news of this a little in advance of the public, for

my work in connection with _The Citizens'_ organization brought me now

into frequent contact with the War Office, particularly with regard to

supplies and general arrangements for our different village

rifle-ranges.

This piece of news seemed tolerably important to Constance Grey and

myself, and we talked it over with a good deal of interest and

enthusiasm. But before many weeks had passed this and every other item

of news was driven out of our minds by a piece of intelligence which, in

different ways, startled and excited the whole civilized world, for the

reason that it promised to affect materially the destiny of all the

nations of civilization. Every newspaper published some kind of an

announcement on the subject, but the first full, authoritative statement

was that contained in the great _London Daily_ which was now the

recognized principal organ of Imperial Federation. The opening portion

of this journal's announcement read in this way:

"We are able to announce, upon official authority, the completion of a

defensive and commercial Alliance between the British Empire and the

United States of America, which amounts for all practical purposes to a

political and commercial Federation of the English-speaking peoples of

the world.

"Rumours have been current for some time of important negotiations

pending between London and Washington, and, as we pointed out some time

ago, Mr. John Crondall's business in Washington has been entirely with

our Ambassador there.

"The exact terms of the new Alliance will probably be made public within

the next week. In the meantime, we are able to say that the Alliance

will be sufficiently comprehensive to admit United States trade within

the British Empire upon practically British terms--that is to say, the

United States will, in almost every detail, share in Imperial

Preference.

"Further, in the event of any foreign Power declaring war with either

the British Empire or the United States, both nations would share

equally in the conduct of subsequent hostilities, unless the war were

the direct outcome of an effort upon the part of either of the high

contracting parties in the direction of territorial expansion. The

United States will not assist the British Empire to acquire new

territory, but will share from first to last the task of defending

existing British territory against the attack of an enemy. Precisely the

same obligations will bind the British Empire in the defence of the

United States.

"It would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the importance to

Christendom of this momentous achievement of diplomacy; and future

generations are little likely to forget the act or the spirit to which

this triumph may be traced: the United States' offer of assistance to

Britain during the late war.

"The advantages of the Alliance to our good friends and kinsmen across

the Atlantic are obviously great, for they are at once given free entry

into a market which has four hundred and twenty millions of customers,

and is protected by the world's greatest Navy and the world's greatest

citizen defence force. Upon our side we are given free entry into the

second richest and most expansive market in the world, with eighty

million customers, and an adequate defence force. Upon a preferential

footing, such as the Alliance will secure to both contracting Powers,

the United States offer us the finest market in the world as an

extension of our own. In our own markets we shall meet the American

producer upon terms of absolute equality, to our mutual advantage, where

a couple of years ago we met him at a cruel disadvantage, to our great

loss.

"We have said enough to indicate the vast and world-wide importance of

the Alliance we are able to announce. But we have left untouched its

most momentous aspect. The new Alliance is a guarantee of peace to that

half of the world which is primarily concerned; it renders a breach of

the peace in the other half of the world far more unlikely than it ever

was before. As a defensive Alliance between the English-speaking

peoples, this should represent the beginning of an era of unexampled

peace, progress, and prosperity for the whole civilized world."

Before I had half-digested this tremendous piece of news, and with never

a thought of breakfast, I found myself hurrying in a hansom to

Constance Grey's flat. In her study I found Constance, her beautiful

eyes full of shining tears, poring over the announcement.

XX

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

TENNYSON.

I had hoped to be the bearer of the Alliance news to Constance, and

seeing how deeply she was moved by it made me the more regretful that I

had not arrived at the flat before her morning paper. Constance had been

the first to give me the news of the American offer of help at the

beginning of the war; she had been the first to give me any serious

understanding of the invasion, there in that very room of the little

South Kensington flat, on the fateful Sunday of the Disarmament

Demonstration. Now she raised her gleaming eyes to me as I entered:

"A thing like this makes up for all the ills one's ever known, Dick,"

she said, and dropped one hand on the paper in her lap.

"Yes, it's something like a piece of news, is it not? I had hoped to

bring it you, but I might have known you would be at your paper

betimes."

"Oh, it's magnificent, Dick, magnificent! I have no words to tell you

how glad I am about this. I see John Crondall's hand here, don't you?"

"Yes," I said; and thought: "Naturally! You see John Crondall

everywhere."

"He was dead against any sort of an Alliance while we were under a

cloud. And he was right. The British people couldn't afford to enter any

compact upon terms of less than perfect equality and independence. But

now--why, Dick, it's a dream come true: the English-speaking peoples

against the world. It's Imperial Federation founded on solid rock. No!

With its roots in the beds of all the seven seas. And never a hint of

condescension, but just an honourable pact between equals of one stock."

"Yes; and a couple of years ago----"

"A couple of years ago, there were Englishmen who spat at the British

Flag."

"There was a paper called _The Mass_."

Constance smiled up at me. "Do you remember the Disarmament

Demonstration?" she said.

"Do you remember going down Fleet Street into a wretched den, to call on

the person who was assistant editor of _The Mass_?"

"The person! Come! I found him rather nice."

"Ah, Constance, how sweet you were to me!"

"Now, there," she said, with a little smile, "I think you might have

changed your tense."

"But I was talking of two years ago, before---- Well, you see, I thought

of you, then, as just an unattached angel from South Africa."

"And now you have learned that my angelic qualities never existed

outside your imagination. Ah, Dick, your explanations make matters much

worse."

"But, no; I didn't say you were the less an angel; only that I thought

of you as unattached, then--you see."

Constance looked down at her paper, and a silence fell between us. The

silence was intolerable to me. I was standing beside her chair, and I

cannot explain just what I felt in looking down at her. I know that the

very outline of her figure and the loose hair of her head seemed at once

intimately familiar and inexpressibly sacred and beautiful to me.

Looking down upon them caused a kind of mist to rise before my eyes. It

was as though I feared to lose possession of my faculties. That must

end, I felt, or an end would come to all reserve and loyalty to John

Crondall. And yet--yet something in the curve of her cheek--she was

looking down--held me, drew me out of myself, as it might be into a

tranced state in which a man is moved to contempt of all risks.

"Dear, I loved you, even then," I said; "but then I thought you free."

"So I was." She did not look at me, and her voice was very low; but

there was some quality in it which thrilled me through and through, as I

stood at her side.

"But now, of course, I know---- But why have you never told me,

Constance?"

"I am just as free now as then, Dick."

"Why, Constance! But, John Crondall?"

"He is my friend, just as he is yours."

"But I--but he----"

"Dick, I asked him if I might tell you, and he said, yes. John asked me

to marry him, and when I said I couldn't, he asked me to wait till our

work was done, and let him ask me again. Can't you see, Dick, how hard

it was for me? And John is--he is such a splendid man. I could not deny

him, and--that was when you came into the room--don't you

remember--Dick?"

The mist was thickening about me; it seemed my mind swam in clouds. I

only said: "Yes?"

"Oh, Dick, I am ashamed! You know how I respect him--how I like him. He

did ask me again, before he went to America."

"And now--now, you----"

"It hurt dreadfully; but I had to say no, because----"

And there she stopped. She was not engaged to John Crondall. She had

refused him--refused John Crondall! Yet I knew how high he stood in her

eyes. Could it be that there was some one else--some one in Africa? The

suggestion spelled panic. It seemed to me that I must know--that I could

not bear to leave her without knowing.

"Forgive me, Constance," I said, "but is there some one else who--is

there some one else?" To see into her dear face, I dropped on one knee

beside her chair.

"I--I thought there was," she said very sweetly. And as she spoke she

raised her head, and I saw her beautiful eyes, through tears. It was

there I read my happiness. I am not sure that any words could have given

it me, though I found it sweeter than anything else I had known in my

life to have her tell me afterwards in words. It was an unforgettable

morning.

Why did she love him? Curious fool! be still;

Is human love the growth of human will?

John Crondall was my best man, as he has been always my best friend. He

insisted on my taking over the permanent secretaryship of _The Citizens_

when he went to the War Office. And since then I hope I have not ceased

to take my part in making our history; but it is true that there is not

much to tell that is not known equally well to everybody.

Assuredly peace hath her victories. Our national life has been a daily

succession of victories since we fought for and won real peace and

overcame the slavish notion that mere indolent quiescence could ever

give security. Our daily victory as a race is the triumph of race

loyalty over individual self-seeking; and I can conceive of no real

danger for the British Empire unless the day came, which God forbid,

when Englishmen forgot the gospel of our "New Century Puritanism"--the

Canadian preachers' teaching of Duty and simple living. And that day can

never come while our _Citizens'_ watchword endures:

"FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY!"

For me, I feel that my share of happiness, since those sombre days of

our national chastisement, since those stern, strenuous months of

England's awakening to the new life and faith of the twentieth century,

has been more, far more, than my deserts. But I think we all feel that

in these days; I hope we do. If we should ever again forget, punishment

would surely come. But it is part of my happiness to believe that, at

long last, our now really united race, our whole family, four hundred

and twenty millions strong, has truly learned the lesson which our great

patriot poet tried to teach in the wild years before discipline came to

us, in the mailed hand of our one-time enemy:

_God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine--

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!_

_The tumult and the shouting dies;

The captains and the kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget--lest we forget!_

. . . . .

_For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word--

Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!_

_Amen!_

Transcriber's Note:

Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without

note. Archaic, dialect and variant spellings remain as printed.