NO TEARS IN ENGLAND.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2909, 23 October 1916, Page 3

NO TEARS IN ENGLAND.

MR. S..S. M'CLURE ON AN ■"INCREDIBLE PEOPLE."

.rursuing his study of contemporary civilisations, which has already occupied him fifteen years, Mr. S. S. M'Clure is once again in England, and has given a Press representative his impressions of the effect*) of the war upon English people. "I have spent, since the war began," said Mr. M'Clure, "nearly six months altogether in Turkey, AustriaHungary, Germany, Belgium, and England. Taken as a whole England has performed the greatest achievement in history in_ raising fivo million volunteer soldiers within two_ years, and in creating the arms, munitions, and equipment necessary for that army. No less wonderful, to my mind, is the'development of the reserves of the working ability of the people. What interests mo most is that you have, or will have by tho end of the war, a million women who, for the first time, havo had the mental and physical development and uplifting that comes from earning money and twining in work. In addition, youtwill have the four million trained men survivors from the battlefields, who will have the tremendous educational advantage derived from the physical,, mental, and moral training required for soldiers. The most interesting result is that there will be many millions of men and youths who will havo advanced from unimportant commonplace labour to skilled work, so that something between 10 and 15 millions of tjio population will have made an enormous- mental ■ and physical advance.

"In walking through your cities of London, Manchester, Liverpool. Birmingham, and other places I have been struck by a now alertness, a sort of mental and physical exhilaration that gives ono the impression of being in Denver or Chicago. There is nothing so good for the mind and. soul as physical labour.

"Another fact I havo noticed is the absence of tears and mourning. I have seen women and girls crowding tho railstations to bid good-byo to their soldier sweothoarts and relatives. There was eagorness, yearning, longing, admiration, and tenderness in their faces, but practically no tears. Tho peoplo are beyond tears. The effeofc of this permeates evorybody, and Tesults in a great spiritual exaltation. England and France are not simply renewed, they are reborn. Tho British Empivo is the youngest nation in the world.

"The English aro an incredible people. They are incredible in what 3-011 "might call their slowness and deliberation, in their immovability: but, after having.. made up their minds, they are incredible in their implacability and their achievement."