WAR AND THE COMMON PEOPLE

Grey River Argus, 7 April 1921, Page 5

WAR AND THE COMMON PEOPLE

(By Jerome K. Jerome.) War will always be popular with common people—so wrote Carlyle—because in war-time there is a demand for common people. The worker has only one thing to sell—himself. As a general rule, the market is overstocked. Any line morning he may be faced with the .fact that there is no customer for him. Tie can take his goods home again, fling them, indignantly upon the truckle bed or drop then dejectedly into the Windsor chair be foie the meagre lire —and starve. At best, exist through days of growing fear by drawing on his scanty savings, or, by pleading nith whining voice and humble mien for the gritty bread of charity. In war time all is changed. The common man is sought after; is actually praised and flattered. The ‘‘horny Laud” is grasped ami shaken with (dl'iision: it might be that of a. long-lost brother. 'l'he ‘‘great uuwashled ’ ’ become ‘‘fellow-citizens,’’ “sons ,of tihe Lmprr.e. ’’ Maybe unlimited hot water —to say nothing of soap—is not always available in slumland; the idea had. not presented itself. The ‘‘British workingman’’ of the comic journals finds himself—somewhat to his bewilderment, until he gets used to it — a “British hero.'' no longer held up to the contempt of a universally industrious and unselfish middle-class. His King and country can hardly express their pew found admiration for him. Even the plumber! Evon he, it seems, was after all an .Englishman.

A Demand, for Common People. I'here is a demand for common people. The price goes up. .Mr I’ett Ridge, in his delightfull v amusing book. “Well-to-do Arthur.'’ describes the di(liculiies and ihdcmmas of many ot these simple folk in face of unaccustomed affluence. 'J’he feather-brain-ed llappur, ex-factory girl, typist, teashop wailres, finding her.-clf suddenly in fairyland, where all the dreams come line—the fur coal, the high-heeled shoes, the peek boo stockings. Poor worried “Mother,” her life long fight wiih penury behind her—the new carpel for the parlour, the lace curtains she has longed for all these years in sc'-j’el, now well within her means. Can <oie wonder that war should be popular with common people. The farm labourer, his pittance of l-l/ti a week changed as by the wand of some kindly magician, to 3-S/-. ('an one lie stir-piisi-d that he, 100. should raise his glass to the farmer's toast, ‘“A long war ami a bloody one.’’ T talked a time ago to a village carrier. a man who, prior to 1914 had eked out. a precarious existence with the help of a broken-w imletl pony. The war had transformed him into a. ‘‘haulage contractor.’’ He owned two mo i"i - lollies; and his three girls, among ikeni, were earning El I a week as munition winkers. Ilis idea (quite popular then) was that, to make the world safe for Democracy, the war should be continued until every German man, woman and child had been killed. 1 pointed out to him that there were (’>5.000,1)11(1 of them and it might lake i lime. But the prospect did not. appal him. Bribery and corruption are the methods by which governments set out Io make war popular with common p'-ople. It, is in time of war that the common man can sell himself to best a.h antage.

Escape front a Grey World. There is another and a more re>p''ctalde reason why war is always pope la r with common people. The lives of rommon people —especially in this modern world, as we have made it—are. pretty drab affairs. The labourer, the miner, the factory hand, the shopman, the clerk, arc condemned I rom i iii ir birth to an existence of grim monotony. War comes to them with adventure in both hands. It oilers them, at least, change, variety. H awakens their ambitions — ribbons. D.H.O.’s, Victoria Crosses, paragraphs in t tie newspaeprs, perhaps. They w ill return to their mean street, to their \illage, famous, honoured. Neighbours will gather round them. Mothers, sisters. sweethearts, will be proud of them. Their children in the years to come! 'l'he tale will be told anewThings quite marvellous may happen. Who knows'? Does not every soldier carry a marshal’s baton in his knapsack? Are not cases on record? 'I here i> the reverse side to be thought 01. it i> true. But a grateful King and country have promised not to forget.ln Era nee, during the. war, .1 came across a business-like schedule of these pio:u h( s, issued 1 iron de a.-ft by the Gcucial htaff: so much a year for lhe l''s- ; <>f a. leg more still for an arm - one eye, two eyes, permanent disablement; really almost a career! Am! ir by almost impossible chance the worst should happen? A grateful King and country answers with line gesture. The wife ami bairns, the aged iiwluer? There ne.ed be no anxiety. Broken men, crouching under arches, 'lying iu workhouse wards—wheezy old Icharwomen flitting pale ami ghostlike th rough the dawn, might utter warnings; were they not dumb. Besides, who would heed them. Is not this war going to be different to all other wars. Do not the papers say so'? Look at the men in blue on lhe Brighton Parade, ' laughing and joking iu spite ot the flapping trouser, the sleeve; smiled at by line ladies, petI ted. stroked • and praised. Has not a land fit for heroes to dwell in been promised them. Work for all and wages trebled. Free passes io the cinema and Heaven upon earth when ' the war is won. Who doubts it but

cranks and traitors. Cau one bo sur- 1 prised that war is popular with com- . mon people? The Love of Killing? 1 here.is yet another and an uglier | reason why war is wanted by common i people. “The greatest game of all,’’ so our national poet cans it. This game ot killing—of sticking a bayonet into a fellow human creature’s entrails and there twisting it round and round—the common man, together with his betters, likes playiug il. During the war it was the common people—the invalided soldiers who broke up the peace meetings, stoned the peacemakers. [But only we think, when organised lor the purpose either by | har Oilice agency, or through the in- |- s l l umen tali ly of so-called patriotic societies.— Ed. ‘‘Foreign Affairs.] The l"\c of killing, the lust for war is a human instinct that has grown strongVl ' lather than weaker with civilisaDon. The notion, that coiiinioii people I arc superior to it w ill not bear exam-

' | inalion. Republican Fiance is more, i| ‘ ‘ imperialistic ” than the Frame of Loui.> the Fourleeiith. 'l'he Polish prolelarial today arc supporting wars of | aggress’ion. American mobs drag from the pulpit and beat Io death preachers who dtire to plead for peace. In England the. common people have always recollections is seeing Charles Bradkiugh being hunted, torn and bleeding, through Hyde Park because he had oared to raise, bis voice against, our being dragged into a war for the suplH,iT ol lurki'y; while not so many years ago, Air Lloyd George had to disgiuse himself as a policeman to cs- I cape from the futy of the common people ot' Birmingham for having protested against the policy of the knockout blow being applied to the Boer l'o insist that the control of

foreign shall be under democraitic control is right. Jt is monstrous I that one small group of men should have the power to send millions of common peolc to kill ami to be killed without their approval ami consent. But as regards the practical issue. .1 am very much afraid that were lite question, ‘Peace or War.’"— no mat ter what the circumstances, no matter) Jwliai the cause—pul to the vote of the English nation, the majority would be for war. Tell the People tjie Truth. P i> nut with any wish to discourDial I draw attention, to the dan- !• is with the hope of helping. ■ Pari passu, with our cifort to oblaut lor lhe people the control of foreign policy there needs to be instilled into 1 Ijciii the will to peaceable solutions. 1 n tci na t ion a 1 ism—un i versal brotherhood is not enough. There was no lack of “internationalism'’ in 1914. The lust for war must be driven out of the people. 'lhe universal acceptance of the marriage institution; the universal, submission of man to laws and social ’ j codes shows that man’s brute iji.stiiols al least, he kept under controlIlf prolti hl ion wins through in America lit will prove the argument. The lust lor war might, quite easily, have Ira I \ idled the same toad, but for lhe fact thai civilisation instead of opposing il, has fostered and encouraged it. From the earliest limes war has been lludd up to our children as a thing vir|luo;i> ami nolde -as a pursuit honuur- • able above all oilier callings. The soldier lover is still lhe dream of every wull-broughi-iip young woman. \rl, hlciaiure and music unite iu chanting the piaisus ot war. Religion lends to it her halo. Our god is the god ol battles. Before a generation shall arise that, docs not lust fur war there has to be undone the evil wurk of ucn- | 11 will be no swill wuu victory. We I have io set about it with patience and with confidence. And to-day is a g"ud lime to begin.-- 1 Foreign Affairs.’