Prior to the passing of the National Defence Act, which guaranteed military training as a part of the education of every healthy male subject, the great majority of The Citizens had returned to private life. Yet, with the exception of some few hundreds of special cases, every one of The Citizens remained members of the organization. And it was that fact which provided incessant employment, not alone for John Crondall and myself, and our headquarters staff, during the progress of the war, but for our committees throughout the country.

Before reentering private life, every Citizen was personally interviewed and given the opportunity of being resworn under conditions of permanent membership. The new conditions applied only to home defence, but they included specific adherence to our propaganda for the maintenance of universal military training. They included also a definite undertaking upon the part of every Citizen to further our ends to the utmost of his ability, and, irrespective of State legislation, to secure military training for his own sons, and to abide by The Citizens' Executive in whatever steps it should take toward linking up our organization, under Government supervision, with the regular national defence force of the country.

It should be easy to understand that this process involved a great deal of work. But it was work that was triumphantly rewarded, for, upon the passage into law of the Imperial Defence Act, which superseded the National Defence Act, after the peace had been signed, we were able to present the Government with a nucleus consisting of a compact working organization of more than three million British Citizens. These Citizens were men who had undergone training and seen active service. They were sworn supporters of universal military training, and of a minimum of military service as a qualification for the suffrage.

All political writers have agreed that the knowledge of what was taking place in England, with regard to our organization, greatly strengthened the hands of the Imperial Parliament in its difficult task of framing and placing upon the Statute Book those two great measures which have remained the basis of politics and defence throughout the Empire: the Imperial Defence Act and the Imperial Parliamentary Representation Act. At the time there were not wanting critics who held that a short reign of peace would bring opposition to legislation born of a state of war; but if I remember rightly we heard the last of that particular order of criticism within twelve months of the peace, it being realized once and for all then, that the maintenance of an adequate defence system was to be regarded, not so much as a preparation for possible war, as the one and only means of preventing war.

Constance Grey worked steadily throughout the progress of the war, and it was owing almost entirely to her efforts that the Volunteer Nursing Corps, which she had organized under Citizens' auspices, was placed on a permanent footing. Admirable though this organization was as a nursing corps, its actual value to the nation went far beyond the limits of its nominal scope. By her tireless activity, and as a result of her own personal enthusiasm, Constance was able before the end of the war to establish branches of her corps in every part of the country, with a committee and headquarters in all large centres. Meetings were held regularly at all these headquarters, every one of which was visited in turn by Constance herself; and in the end The Citizens' Nursing Corps, as this great league of Englishwomen was always called, became a very potent force, an inexhaustible spring of what the Prime Minister called "the domestic patriotism of Britain."

In the earliest stage of this work of hers Constance had to cope with a certain inertia on the part of her supporters, due to the fact that no active service offered to maintain their enthusiasm. But Constance's watchword was, "Win mothers and sisters, and the fathers and brothers cannot fail you." It was in that belief that she acted, and before long the Nursing Corps might with equal justice have been called The Women Citizens. It became a great league of domestic patriots, and it would not be easy to overstate the value of its influence upon the rising generation of our race.

War has always been associated in men's minds with distress and want, and that with some reason. But after the first few months of the Anglo-German war it became more and more clearly apparent that this war, combined with the outworking of the first legislation of the Imperial Parliament, was to produce the greatest commercial revival, the greatest access of working prosperity, Britain had ever known. Two main causes were at work here; and the first of them, undoubtedly, was the protection afforded to our industries by Imperial preference. The time for tinkering with half-measures had gone by, and, accordingly, the fiscal belt with which the first really Imperial Parliament girdled the Empire was made broad and strong. The effect of its application was gradual, but unmistakable; its benefits grew daily more apparent as the end of the war approached.

Factories and mills which had long lain idle in the North of England were hastily refitted, and they added every day to the muster-roll of hands employed. Our shipping increased by leaps and bounds, but even then barely kept pace with the increased rate of production. The price of the quartern loaf rose to sixpence, in place of fivepence; but the wages of labourers on the land rose by nearly 25 per cent., and the demand exceeded the supply. Thousands of acres of unprofitable grass-land and of quite idle land disappeared under the plough to make way for corn-fields. Wages rose in all classes of work; but that was not of itself the most important advance. The momentous change was in the demand for labour of every kind. The statistics prove that while wages in all trades showed an average increase of 19-1/2 per cent., unemployment fell during the year of the Peace to a lower level than it had ever reached since records were instituted.

In that year the cost of living among working people was 5-1/2 per cent. higher than it had been five years previously. The total working earnings for the year were 38-1/2 per cent. greater than in any previous year. Since then, as we know, expenditure has fallen considerably; but wages have never fallen, and the total earnings of our people are still on the up grade.

Another cause of the unprecedented access of prosperity which changed the face of industrial and agricultural England, was the fact that some seven-tenths of the trade lost by Germany was now not only carried in British ships, but held entirely in British hands. Germany's world markets became Britain's markets, just as the markets of the whole Empire became our own as the result of preference, and just as the great oversea countries of the Empire found Britain's home markets, with fifty million customers, exclusively their own. The British public learned once and for all, and in one year, the truth that reformers had sought for a decade to teach us—that the Empire was self-supporting and self-sufficing, and that common-sense legislative and commercial recognition of this fundamental fact spelt prosperity for British subjects the world over.

But, as John Crondall said in the course of the Guildhall speech of his which, as has often been said, brought the Disciplinary Regiments into being, "We cannot expect to cure in a year ills that we have studiously fostered through the better part of a century." There was still an unemployed class, though everything points to the conclusion that before that first year of the Peace was ended this class had been reduced to those elements which made it more properly called "unemployable." There were the men who had forgotten their trades and their working habits, and there were still left some of those melancholy products of our decadent industrial and social systems—the men who were determined not to work.

In a way, it is as well that these ills could not be swept aside by the same swift, irresistible wave which gave us "British Christianity," The Citizens' watchword, Imperial Federation, and the beginning of great prosperity. It was the continued existence of a workless class that gave us the famous Discipline Bill. At that time the title "Disciplinary Regiments" had a semidisgraceful suggestion, connected with punishment. In view of that, I shared the feeling of many who said that another name should be chosen. But now that the Disciplinary Regiments have earned their honourable place as the most valuable portion of our non-professional defence forces, every one can see the wisdom of John Crondall's contention that not the name, but the public estimate of that name, had to be altered. Theoretically the value and necessity of discipline was, I suppose, always recognized. Actually, people had come to connect the word, not with education, not with the equipment of every true citizen, but chiefly with punishment and disgrace.

At first there was considerable opposition to the law, which said, in effect: No able-bodied man without means shall live without employment. Indeed, for a few days there was talk of the Government going to the country on the question. But in the end the Discipline Act became law without this, and I know of no other single measure which has done more for the cause of social progress. Its effects have been far-reaching. Among other things, it was this measure which led to the common-sense system which makes a soldier of every mechanic and artisan employed upon Government work. It introduced the system which enables so many men to devote a part of their time to soldiering, and the rest to various other kinds of Government work. But, of course, its main reason of existence is the triumphant fact that it has done away with the loafer, as a class, and reduced the chances of genuine employment to a minimum. Some of the best mechanics and artisans in England to-day are men who learned their trade, along with soldiering and general good citizenship, in one of the Disciplinary Regiments.

Despite the increase of population, the numerical strength of our police force throughout the kingdom is 30 per cent. lower to-day than it was before the Anglo-German war; while, as is well known, the prison population has fallen so low as to have led to the conversion of several large prisons into hospitals. The famous Military Training School at Dartmoor was a convict prison up to three years after the war. There can be no doubt that, but for the Discipline Bill, our police force would have required strengthening and prisons enlarging, in place of the reverse process of which we enjoy the benefit to-day.

Its promoters deserve all the credit which has been paid them for the introduction of this famous measure; and I take the more pleasure in admitting this by token that the chief among them has publicly recorded his opinion that the man primarily responsible for the introduction of the Discipline Bill was John Crondall. At the same time it should not be forgotten that we have John Crondall's own assurance that the Bill could never have been made law but for that opening and awakening of the hearts and minds of the British people which followed the spreading of the gospel of Duty by the Canadian preachers.



XIX

THE GREAT ALLIANCE

Truly ye come of the Blood; slower to bless than to ban; Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.

. . . . .

Deeper than speech our love, stronger than life our tether; But we do not fall on the neck nor kiss when we come together.

. . . . .

Draw now the threefold knot firm on the ninefold bands, And the law that ye make shall be law after the rule of your lands.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

During all this time I was constantly with John Crondall, and saw a good deal of Constance Grey; yet the announcement that I had once expected every day, the announcement which seemed the only natural sequence to the kiss of which I had been an unwilling witness, never came. Neither did any return come, in John Crondall, of his old frank gaiety of manner. There remained always the shadow of reserve, of gravity, and of a certain restraint, which dated in my mind from the day of my inadvertent intrusion upon the scene between himself and Constance.

Knowing John Crondall as I knew him then, it was not possible for me to think ill of him; but he perplexed me greatly at times. For at times it did seem to me that I read in Constance's face, when we three were together, a look that was almost an appeal to my chief—a half-sorrowful, half-abashed appeal. Then I would recall that kiss, and in my puzzlement I would think: "John Crondall, if you were any other man, I should say you——"

And there my thought would stop short. Of what should I accuse him? There was the kiss, the long silence, John Crondall's stiffness, and then this look of distress, this hint of appeal, in the face of Constance. Well! And then my intimate knowledge of my chief would silence me, giving me assurance that I should never be a good enough man justly to reproach John Crondall. But it was all very puzzling, and more, to me, loving Constance as I loved her.

You may judge, then, of my surprise when Crondall came into my room at The Citizens' headquarters office one morning and said:

"You have been the real secretary for some time, Dick, not only mine, but The Citizens'; so there's no need for me to worry about how you'll manage. I'm going to America."

"Going to America! Why—when?"

"Well, on Friday, I believe I sail. As to why, I'm afraid I mustn't tell you about that just yet. I've undertaken a Government mission, and it's confidential."

"I see. And how long will you be away?"

"Oh, not more than two or three months, I hope."

That simplified the thing somewhat. My chief's tone had suggested at first that he was going to live in the United States. Even as it was, however, surely, I thought, he would tell me something now about himself and Constance. But though I made several openings, he told me nothing.

While John Crondall was away a new State Under-Secretaryship was created. It was announced that for the future the Government would include an Under-Secretary of State for the Civilian Defence Forces, whose chief would be the Secretary of State for War. A few days later came the announcement that the first to hold this appointment would be John Crondall. I had news of this a little in advance of the public, for my work in connection with The Citizens' organization brought me now into frequent contact with the War Office, particularly with regard to supplies and general arrangements for our different village rifle-ranges.

This piece of news seemed tolerably important to Constance Grey and myself, and we talked it over with a good deal of interest and enthusiasm. But before many weeks had passed this and every other item of news was driven out of our minds by a piece of intelligence which, in different ways, startled and excited the whole civilized world, for the reason that it promised to affect materially the destiny of all the nations of civilization. Every newspaper published some kind of an announcement on the subject, but the first full, authoritative statement was that contained in the great London Daily which was now the recognized principal organ of Imperial Federation. The opening portion of this journal's announcement read in this way:

"We are able to announce, upon official authority, the completion of a defensive and commercial Alliance between the British Empire and the United States of America, which amounts for all practical purposes to a political and commercial Federation of the English-speaking peoples of the world.

"Rumours have been current for some time of important negotiations pending between London and Washington, and, as we pointed out some time ago, Mr. John Crondall's business in Washington has been entirely with our Ambassador there.

"The exact terms of the new Alliance will probably be made public within the next week. In the meantime, we are able to say that the Alliance will be sufficiently comprehensive to admit United States trade within the British Empire upon practically British terms—that is to say, the United States will, in almost every detail, share in Imperial Preference.

"Further, in the event of any foreign Power declaring war with either the British Empire or the United States, both nations would share equally in the conduct of subsequent hostilities, unless the war were the direct outcome of an effort upon the part of either of the high contracting parties in the direction of territorial expansion. The United States will not assist the British Empire to acquire new territory, but will share from first to last the task of defending existing British territory against the attack of an enemy. Precisely the same obligations will bind the British Empire in the defence of the United States.

"It would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the importance to Christendom of this momentous achievement of diplomacy; and future generations are little likely to forget the act or the spirit to which this triumph may be traced: the United States' offer of assistance to Britain during the late war.

"The advantages of the Alliance to our good friends and kinsmen across the Atlantic are obviously great, for they are at once given free entry into a market which has four hundred and twenty millions of customers, and is protected by the world's greatest Navy and the world's greatest citizen defence force. Upon our side we are given free entry into the second richest and most expansive market in the world, with eighty million customers, and an adequate defence force. Upon a preferential footing, such as the Alliance will secure to both contracting Powers, the United States offer us the finest market in the world as an extension of our own. In our own markets we shall meet the American producer upon terms of absolute equality, to our mutual advantage, where a couple of years ago we met him at a cruel disadvantage, to our great loss.

"We have said enough to indicate the vast and world-wide importance of the Alliance we are able to announce. But we have left untouched its most momentous aspect. The new Alliance is a guarantee of peace to that half of the world which is primarily concerned; it renders a breach of the peace in the other half of the world far more unlikely than it ever was before. As a defensive Alliance between the English-speaking peoples, this should represent the beginning of an era of unexampled peace, progress, and prosperity for the whole civilized world."

Before I had half-digested this tremendous piece of news, and with never a thought of breakfast, I found myself hurrying in a hansom to Constance Grey's flat. In her study I found Constance, her beautiful eyes full of shining tears, poring over the announcement.



XX

PEACE HATH HER VICTORIES

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

TENNYSON.

I had hoped to be the bearer of the Alliance news to Constance, and seeing how deeply she was moved by it made me the more regretful that I had not arrived at the flat before her morning paper. Constance had been the first to give me the news of the American offer of help at the beginning of the war; she had been the first to give me any serious understanding of the invasion, there in that very room of the little South Kensington flat, on the fateful Sunday of the Disarmament Demonstration. Now she raised her gleaming eyes to me as I entered:

"A thing like this makes up for all the ills one's ever known, Dick," she said, and dropped one hand on the paper in her lap.

"Yes, it's something like a piece of news, is it not? I had hoped to bring it you, but I might have known you would be at your paper betimes."

"Oh, it's magnificent, Dick, magnificent! I have no words to tell you how glad I am about this. I see John Crondall's hand here, don't you?"

"Yes," I said; and thought: "Naturally! You see John Crondall everywhere."

"He was dead against any sort of an Alliance while we were under a cloud. And he was right. The British people couldn't afford to enter any compact upon terms of less than perfect equality and independence. But now—why, Dick, it's a dream come true: the English-speaking peoples against the world. It's Imperial Federation founded on solid rock. No! With its roots in the beds of all the seven seas. And never a hint of condescension, but just an honourable pact between equals of one stock."

"Yes; and a couple of years ago——"

"A couple of years ago, there were Englishmen who spat at the British Flag."

"There was a paper called The Mass."

Constance smiled up at me. "Do you remember the Disarmament Demonstration?" she said.

"Do you remember going down Fleet Street into a wretched den, to call on the person who was assistant editor of The Mass?"

"The person! Come! I found him rather nice."

"Ah, Constance, how sweet you were to me!"

"Now, there," she said, with a little smile, "I think you might have changed your tense."

"But I was talking of two years ago, before—— Well, you see, I thought of you, then, as just an unattached angel from South Africa."

"And now you have learned that my angelic qualities never existed outside your imagination. Ah, Dick, your explanations make matters much worse."

"But, no; I didn't say you were the less an angel; only that I thought of you as unattached, then—you see."

Constance looked down at her paper, and a silence fell between us. The silence was intolerable to me. I was standing beside her chair, and I cannot explain just what I felt in looking down at her. I know that the very outline of her figure and the loose hair of her head seemed at once intimately familiar and inexpressibly sacred and beautiful to me. Looking down upon them caused a kind of mist to rise before my eyes. It was as though I feared to lose possession of my faculties. That must end, I felt, or an end would come to all reserve and loyalty to John Crondall. And yet—yet something in the curve of her cheek—she was looking down—held me, drew me out of myself, as it might be into a tranced state in which a man is moved to contempt of all risks.

"Dear, I loved you, even then," I said; "but then I thought you free."

"So I was." She did not look at me, and her voice was very low; but there was some quality in it which thrilled me through and through, as I stood at her side.

"But now, of course, I know—— But why have you never told me, Constance?"

"I am just as free now as then, Dick."

"Why, Constance! But, John Crondall?"

"He is my friend, just as he is yours."

"But I—but he——"

"Dick, I asked him if I might tell you, and he said, yes. John asked me to marry him, and when I said I couldn't, he asked me to wait till our work was done, and let him ask me again. Can't you see, Dick, how hard it was for me? And John is—he is such a splendid man. I could not deny him, and—that was when you came into the room—don't you remember—Dick?"

The mist was thickening about me; it seemed my mind swam in clouds. I only said: "Yes?"

"Oh, Dick, I am ashamed! You know how I respect him—how I like him. He did ask me again, before he went to America."

"And now—now, you——"

"It hurt dreadfully; but I had to say no, because——"

And there she stopped. She was not engaged to John Crondall. She had refused him—refused John Crondall! Yet I knew how high he stood in her eyes. Could it be that there was some one else—some one in Africa? The suggestion spelled panic. It seemed to me that I must know—that I could not bear to leave her without knowing.

"Forgive me, Constance," I said, "but is there some one else who—is there some one else?" To see into her dear face, I dropped on one knee beside her chair.

"I—I thought there was," she said very sweetly. And as she spoke she raised her head, and I saw her beautiful eyes, through tears. It was there I read my happiness. I am not sure that any words could have given it me, though I found it sweeter than anything else I had known in my life to have her tell me afterwards in words. It was an unforgettable morning.

Why did she love him? Curious fool! be still; Is human love the growth of human will?

John Crondall was my best man, as he has been always my best friend. He insisted on my taking over the permanent secretaryship of The Citizens when he went to the War Office. And since then I hope I have not ceased to take my part in making our history; but it is true that there is not much to tell that is not known equally well to everybody.

Assuredly peace hath her victories. Our national life has been a daily succession of victories since we fought for and won real peace and overcame the slavish notion that mere indolent quiescence could ever give security. Our daily victory as a race is the triumph of race loyalty over individual self-seeking; and I can conceive of no real danger for the British Empire unless the day came, which God forbid, when Englishmen forgot the gospel of our "New Century Puritanism"—the Canadian preachers' teaching of Duty and simple living. And that day can never come while our Citizens' watchword endures:

"FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY!"

For me, I feel that my share of happiness, since those sombre days of our national chastisement, since those stern, strenuous months of England's awakening to the new life and faith of the twentieth century, has been more, far more, than my deserts. But I think we all feel that in these days; I hope we do. If we should ever again forget, punishment would surely come. But it is part of my happiness to believe that, at long last, our now really united race, our whole family, four hundred and twenty millions strong, has truly learned the lesson which our great patriot poet tried to teach in the wild years before discipline came to us, in the mailed hand of our one-time enemy:

God of our fathers, known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath Whose awful Hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!

. . . . .

For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard, All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, For frantic boast and foolish word— Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Amen!



Transcriber's Note:

Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. Archaic, dialect and variant spellings remain as printed.

THE END