“A NEW ENGLAND.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19811, 1 December 1919, Page 6

“A NEW ENGLAND.”

WHAT FOLLOWS THE WAR? A young barrister sits in his room | in the Temple, where the dust gathered in his absence. Ho had plenty of briefs before he put ou khaki. Now—it is queer and alarming—nothing comes his way (writes Mr Philip Gibbs in an article entitled " A New England," in the London " Daily Chronicle"). There is a gunner officer 'who wrote short stories before tho war. In a Battersoa Park fiat he is trying to think out an idea—an idea—an idea but tho noiso of gunfire in the Ypres salient seems to have stunned him; and meanwhile his tailors' bill is pretty big, and tho cost of living is the I Devil. ... I Before the war I used to know tho Intellectuals of London, who are now groping their way back to old haunt? and habits. I do not moan, of course-, tho Big Intellects, who governed the Empire (and found themselves aghast with their governance on tho edge of the precipice, in 1914), nor those who gained large sums of money by prodigies of brain power in high financial circles; but the little "Intellectuals," who were busy thinking, and talking, and writing, and painting, and tinkling on pianos, and experimenting in life and art, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Battersea Park, or between IMham [load and King's Road, Ghdsea, and in tho outer Kensingtons. But they, after all, were tho peoplewho counted—more than tho Keallv Great—for their ideas and experiments and conversations (with farthing bmis for tea in Chelsea, and coffee and cakes at ten o'clock in Kensington), sowed tho seeds of tho new philosophy which now is working a change in the heart ot England and in all its social customs- They were the rebels whoso ideas are being adopted by the lawmakers. They were advocates, in a idealistic way, of the "uplift" inlhe lives of working people which is now the acknowledged gospel, even among those who are afraid of it. They were amiable Bolsheviks, before Lenin and Trotsky, but with a disbelief in violence, cruelty and blood. . . . And then the war came crashing into the midst of them. It smashed up the tea parties with farthing buns in Chelsea. The- artists models went into munitions, and the artists cut their hair short and nut on khaki. Conversation languished *in tho outer Kensingtons because there were no calces with the coffee; and. anyhow the little "Intellectuals" had' been scattered like chaff by tho strong wind and flamo of war. Ghosts! ... I often used to think of them during the years of war and won.deine<l what had happened to them all. heir ideals had been smashed to ?.? by , n J! the 1)Iood y business in the fields of Europe.