ENDING SHAMS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXVII, Issue 9125, 22 October 1917, Page 7

ENDING SHAMS

WHAT THE WAR IS DOING.

IMMENSE CHANGES

In the London "Daily Mail " "An Omcer on Leave '' writes: —

The old England■' of the great Harries—Henry V". and Henry V HI. —of the Ironsides, of the Napoleonic Wars, has found itself. Slow to anger, it has at length been aroused; slow to move, it has at length fastened its bulldog grip on the, enemy; slovv to comprehend, but quick _to adapt itself to great emergencies, it has revealed its wonderful aptness., at improvisation. Lbrig-suffering, ; God-fearing, tenacious old England has been born

jigiun. It will be for the historian to examine and analyse the immense changes, deeper and more far-reaching than any since the Civil War, which this country has undergone hince that fateful August' 4, 1914. Yet one must be very blind not to be aware of the revolution which has taken place in the mental outlook of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. Old barriers have been broken down, a steady fusion of tho classes has set in, ancient prejudices have been swept away, political formulae have been upset, and the-professional politician, with air his mumbo-jumbo of catchwords and copybook maxims, has l>TOn""exposed as a humbug. A sane and hiealthy. democracy is on the march to govern England a*» she was wont to be governed— by a Parliament representing the people. The more one, examines the abstract issues of the war, the clearer it becomes that it is the conflict between despotism, as represented by the Hohcnzollerns and the Hapsbnrgs, and democracy as represented by tho peoples of the British Empire and France and Russia. ' ,

, But .this is infringing,on the task of the historian.' ,We are r stilT'top close to this great revolution to be able' to weigh and?appraise/correctly its whole scope and effects. It bears on its surface, however, certain, -symptoms which are worth noting if only as indications of what that new England will be upon which the survivors, of this war will have to lay the foundations of the great work of reconstruction. ,

One of the most remarkable changes which this war has brought about is, in my opinion, the triumph of efficiency over the old traditions of birth and age. It is true that in modern England the young man has always; had his chance, but almost solely in business and in one or two professions. What is happening now is that* the young man is getting .his opportunity in the Services and in- tho Sfcnte Departments ns well, and this altogether irrespective of his family tree, and wealth. Nor does this triumph of the i younc man mean that we have adopted <he " Too Old at Forty " theory. The senior, and the' junior are working hand in hand —but only the efficient senior and the efficient the incompetent is being .weeded out. and neither his grey hairs nor his pedigree nor. .his influence shall save him. Tn conteinnlating this most Satisfac- ' tory innovation, let me remark on another feature of this ' symptom of our renascence. The yoking man is disappear in gc. It js .the a<p\. orf . precosity. A boy loaves sehooV nas t.lnv"* months of intensive training at "Woolwich or Sandhurst or in a cadet corps, get his commission, and, hey presto ! before he is out of his teenes you find him earnest, self-possessed, responsible, and, by some trick of Nature, wearing the air and the mariner of a man 10 years his' senior. And the surprising thing is that the boy does his work every bit as well as-that man would, though 10 years ago the idea of an officer commanding a company at the age of 20 would have struck dovvn with apoplexy half thei**denizens of the smoking room at the :TJnited lv'Be'rvic'e v Club. : :V:.,_,^■,.:■;••/ ■•■.■■■

■ One. of the most visible, effects of this breaking down of old barriers* has been to simplify life. It is only by the process of retrospection "that one can really understand how utterly life in England, up to the war, wa.s controlled by snobbishness. There is/no space here to enumerate the things which in different '-grades of society, from May fair to Wigan, one might and might not know. The- quicker way is to reflect on the things which the roost 1 " exclusive-", folk are doing, from necessity, ,from r patriotism, or because it is the'fashion (English ' snobbishness will always have its say) in war time. All of us have each and severally discovered that we can got on quite well without Monte Carlo, racing, yachting, professional football, champagne for supper; and even'if the post office carries out its 1 threat to,desnobbify our addresses, and^call West Kensington Hammersmith, and fehear Hyde Park oil' the letter paper' of the Maida-Valens, we shall doubilesw manage to put with that also. one ot the Discoveries of The War.

Margarine has been one oi the discoveries of this war. In our topsyturvy English way of doing things, lots of people who can afford butter at 2s <lei a pound are eating margarine, while many others, who cannot afford butter, but who would not 'demean themselves by eating margarine,' are still eating butter. Thousands of moneyed folk, who hardly knew what margarine was except as an inexpensive} necessity for the servants' hall, a,re now eating margarine and discovering how little different in taste it is from' butter.

JNTecessity is simplifying our life. With eggs at 3s or 4s a dozen, and the nation put on its honour in the matter of the meat ration, people arc finding out that the "English bieak--Ins I" of bacon and eggs is an honotirjibio erudition rather than ,a necessity of life. Let us, hope that the army, when it return*, from the wars, will bring back from France the French breakfast habit of a cup of cofleo and n roll, and abolish foi ever this? "English breukfast" superstition. Darkened streets and the taxi-cab shortage have revived home life. 80 much nonsense is written about Iho necessity of amusements for officers and men home on.leave from the front that people do ..not know that most men back from the front prefer to spend the greater part of their furlough with their.families...at home, for the home-circle is the best and most enjjoyable' rest-cure after life in the trenches. Tango Wives Tabooed. Maternity is the fashion. Tango wives—-the gadabquts who lived , for pleasure, who haunted the shops by day and.the night .clubs by night—are

taboo. -"Look at the- picture -papers, full of photographs. of mondaines with tbeir babies.

We are widening our view. We are • learning Geography. The Canadians, the Newfoundlanders, the..Jtfe\y. Brimswickers, the Australians, the New Zealanders, the South Africans, -spread the geography of the Empire wherever they go. In the village about the camps of our overseas troops, Alberta, Adelaide, Buluwayo, are something more than a dot on a led maj> square. They are the home towns of Mike and Bill or Jack, described and depicted with all the overseas Briton's love of home, which must blow like a clean, fresh wind into some of the apathetic backward villages of our island. Everyone is talking trench slang as a t fad, but unconsciously our speech has assimilated many military expressions. We "carry on" or "stand by'%; we "consolidate our grip" of a question, we ,talk about "platooas" of waiters. Perhaps in the confusion of new accentss heard in England in wartime we shall eradicate tho slovenly speech which has Largely replaced the old Cockney. The coster mongers, after all, did speak a, tongue of their own, which was practically a patois and a nobler.thing than the affected and ugly mannerisms of the average Board Scbool^product.