Sowhatis Europe going to do about the War question ?— many people will be enquiring as soon as this present giant of a war is dead. I feel that War won’t go. It will be the large communities that make war so unmanageable, unreal and unsatisfactory, that will go. Or at least they will be modified for those ends. Everything will be arranged for the best convenience of War. Murder and destruction is man’s fundamental occupation. Women’s function, the manufacturing of children (even more important than cartridges and khaki suits) is only important from this point of view, and they evidently realize this thoroughly. It takes the deft women we employ anything from twelveto sixteen years to fill and polish theselittle human cartdridges,and they of course get fond of them in the process. However, all this is not our fault, and is absolutely necessary. We only begin decaying like goods kept too long, if wearenot killed or otherwise disposed of. Is not this a proof of our function ? Only latterly, our War Material has become so much more expensive to make, and takes so much longer,
that we have to avoid causing a belief in peoples’ minds that we are wasting it! I overheard two ladies the other day conversing on this subject, and one, with an immense jaw, flabby cheeks, and otherwise very large, said : “ It is such a waste of good human flesh !” We must avoid giving our workers that sensation of waste. In the functioning of large communitiescertain things become too transparent, The scale does not by any means flatter the individual. The sensation of immensity of horror and waste, is too difficult to forget ; although as a matter of fact numbers make no difference, This is obviously not the most significant war in history merely becauseit is the largest. Again, it is even unconvincing to be a Field-Marshall. And it is impossiblefor any individual regiment, or Individual soldier,to get the necessary isolation and quality of uniqueness for their deed of gallantry, if such occur. And the necessary machinery of hatred is rather impaired, and works weakly. For the good of War, yes, of endless unabating murder and misery, then, I think the great communities will have to go,
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