"THERE'S A WAR ON.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16171, 27 March 1918, Page 8

"THERE'S A WAR ON.

A PROTEST AGAINST AN IMPERTINENCE. (Bv Corporal Basil Mac Donald Hastings. the well-known dramatist, in London "Daily Mail.") In the olden days this country was periodically inflicted with the annoyance of a popular catch-phrase. All of us can remember some of them: "Get your hair cut," "Not in these trousers," and, forsooth, "How is your father?" These inanities were harmless enough. But they will be damned in history as the unconscious forbears of the impertinent bleat "There's a war on.'" Go where you will in this year of the lord of misrule the maddening phrase will haunt you. In street, on sea, on golf-course, yea, even in the air; in club, in bank, in shop, in post joHice—everywhere, this supreme imbecility "There's a war on/' chafes your indignant ears. And when and how, pray, is it most frequently used? You will mid this phrase just where roguery and inefficiency—sinister twin enemies of patriotism —have their vogue and licence. . . , Go to the grocer and complain or his monstrous surcharge. What does he reply? "There's a war on;' Go to your employer and complain that you cannot work twelve hours a day by artificial light. What does he reply? "There's a war on." Go to the Post Office and point out that a i letter posted in one London district took three days to be delivered at ail I address in another London district. What is the retort? "There's a war on." Go to the policeman to complain of a big toe fractured in a 'bus stampede. Note the "There s a war on" look in his blase eye?. ray a shilling for a glass of whisky, a p.~> when you've lost the shilling, ask the retailer why he has robbed you. "There's a war on," ho gloats. . . . Ask a Minister of the Crown why a (scandal is hushed up and the guilty aro unpunished. What docs he reply r "It is not in the national interest, etc., etc." Which is precisely synonymous with the less exalted inefficient s "There's a war on." Is there none among; us to trumpet to these contemptible phrasemongers that war is not an excuse for roguery and, above all, not an excuse for inefficiency? * Take the case of the Post Office— the terrible, tragical case of the Post Office. Is there the slightest particle of excuse for the second-rate service it now supplies? Is there a single iob from top to bottom of that office whicn. cannot be done to perfection by women? Does anything but complacence in the midst of inefficiency explain its melancholy breakdown.. Make me> Postmaster-General. Then bring before me an approved member of the public and the culprits in the particular instance of which he complains. I would make very short work of the matter. The blameworthy, if male— into the Army; if female—out into the labour market again with what seamen call a "bad discharge." Why —wliv so brutal? Well, what was the customer's complaint? He posted a letter which was not delivered for 72 hours. Before the war it would have been delivered in 12. In wartime the letter should have been delivered in 6! You see ? I would not punish them just because they delayed a letter, but because they didn't get it delivered in less time than wad usual before August, 1914. Why? Because there's a war on! Ah, my phrase-makers, you know only too well that there is a war on to cover your crimes. AH the time you are fleecing and cheating and wrangling, remember there's a chap in the trenches. While you are charging over the top price, he is charging over the top. Have you ever known him falter ? Have you • ever know n him shirk? And if he did, can you imagine him explaining to his astounded company officer that, after all, "There's a war on"?

Btcause there's a war on we won't have your high prices and yonr •'refficiency. We must liave our dead— ah, yes!—but you shall not make sandbags of their poor bodies. Someone pleaded the other day for ,the release of cartridges for the destruction of pigeons. I ask for them for the extermination of vultures.