your newspapers. The war . . . is a burden they carry
with aching bones, hating it, hoping dimly that, by shoulder-
ing it now, they will save others from it in the future. They
carry their burden with little help from you. For an army
does not live by munitions alone, but also by fellowship in a
moral idea or purpose. And that you cannot give us."

That was addressed to the English public in the
spring of 1917. Perhaps the last eighteen months
have narrowed a little in England that gulf between
the army and the civil public about which he wrote.

It is true, of course, that some of the moral crises
of Europe will not be duplicated in America. It
is quite unlikely that Americans will ever be called
upon to face the degree of sacrifice that has been de-
manded of France, of Belgium, and even of Eng-
land; and unlikely, in consequence, that a certain
group of moral forces will operate in this country
as they have operated in Europe. But many cir-
cumstances of war time which have played so large a
part in the production of the British Labour Party
and its programme are the circumstances of Amer-
ica; the very war measures which have given rise to
the Labour Programme, are being enacted in this
country; the very problems which it attempts to solve
are arising here; the very selfsame questions which
face the English electorate will sooner or later, be-
cause of steps already taken by the American gov-
ernment, inevitably be presented to the American
electorate. Possibly that electorate is not yet po-
litically conscious in sufficient degree to realize the
issue. In that case the conflict will be deferred.
But the issue will remain.

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