among non-combatants almost as ghastly as that of the
battlefield. This was due not so much to inaction
resulting from callousness as to unwise action and
ignorance. During the past century political science
and economic inquiry have made vast strides, and consequently
the injurious social effects of warfare may be minimised,
though not averted; and a considerable body of public
opinion, far more enlightened than during any previous
European war, is almost certain to exercise some pressure
in the direction of wise and far-reaching action both
during the war and after it is ended. These considerations
must be borne in mind in discussing both the present
position and possible future developments.
It is clear that four great European Powers and some
smaller ones cannot engage in war without shaking
the fabric of European civilisation to its foundations.
The tramp of fifteen million armed men is the greatest
social and economic fact of the present day, and indeed
of the present generation. These millions of
combatants have to be clothed, fed, armed, transported,
and tended in health and in sickness; they are non-producers
for the time, consuming in large quantities the staple
commodities of life, and calling in addition for all
the paraphernalia of war; sooner or later, they will
desire to return to the plough and the mine, the factory
and the railroad. These two facts alone are of
tremendous importance. But besides this, the
activity of those who stay at home is called into play
in a thousand different ways, and economic and social
life leave their well-trodden paths in answer to the
imperious call of national necessity. Social institutions
of all kinds are inevitably led into new fields of
thought and action, and States are driven to untried
experiments in communal activity. The usual channels
of thought dry up, the flood of new ideas and of old
ideas throbbing with a new life rushes on unconfined,
here in the shallows, there in the deeps, presently
to overflow into the old channels, cleansing their
beds and giving them a new direction, and linking up
in fruitful union but remotely connected streams.
When fighting ceases and there comes the calm of peace,
society will tend to revert to its normal functions,
based on peace; but the society of yesterday can never
return. Social life cannot be the same as it
was before, not merely because those activities called
forth by the war may persist in some form, but because
of the growth of new ideas under the stimulus of the
war. The struggle will almost certainly set in
progress trains of thought not only connected with
questions of war and peace, but with the wider questions
of human destiny.
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