In Berlin I was eagerly asked what was the spirit of the British people, and nothing- I told them impressed my hearers more than the story of the quiet young man who sat next to me on the top of a "bus just before T left for Germany. I' had asked him the rank of an officer near us, apon logizing for my ignorance by saying that I Was an. American.
-He said: "You have come to Londón at an unhappy time. It is too bad that you should see it now." I explained that it' was not a new city to me; but' that I was deeply grieved that' wat had come to it again.
Very quietly and'simply he replied "Well, it had to come. You see, I am a young mam. I shall probably have to go and may not come back. But there is no use going on in this way. I don't wattto'livein a Europe like the one we have lived in for the last" five years. How can a young man like myself build a home and found a family if he's told every six months. he must béready to go to war?"
That, I assured peóplé in Germany, is just the spirit in which England went into the war, Those are the words used to me by porters, taxicabments; of course, there will be views rivers, F all the work-of every varying shade: but that, ers I have had time and opportunity again, is the magnificent English to meet.
My chambermaid tradition.
we get rid of that man."
T "Well have to-go-on-tift] One has only to look across the Channel to Germany—where no man Calm: Self Coüfrol dare venture an opinion as to what the peace should be; where I heard Underneath, I know, the currents mó.sge man discuss the terms of of the spirit run fast. Under that a just settlement or what the Europe self-control that has of the future should be—to únder-stand the difference between. slayes turies, feelings are deep and deeply and free men, to know why it is that stirred. _Underneatip the' emotions of two systems for the government of men are in death-grapple to-day.
Unforgettable Picture country' than in any other.
My great fear for England is lest the war weaken that passion, lest the zeal for individual liberty, which has been England's greatest contribution to the progress of the race, be weakened and even destroyed by the war and the war spirit. For war means, as everyone here knows today, the extension of controls, the putting on of checks and reins, the infringement of liberty, which it is sought to justify on the ground that one must fight fire with fire, that to defeat a ruthless dictator one must be as ruthless as the dictator: himself:
Fortunately, it is in the finest English tradition that criticism is still heard in the British Parliament, The very impatience with war restrictions, the widespread disapproval of phases of the evacuation and of the compulsory" billeting, the vigorous- opposition to Mr. Keynes's scheme for a forced levy on wages for saving, the great desire to keep Parliament in session—all these are signs of health; signs that the finest thing in British life, its jealousy of its rights and privileges, is still intact
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.