"CARRY ON!"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 88, 7 January 1918, Page 6

"CARRY ON!"

BATTLE HYMN OF THEENGLISH

MUDDLING EFFICIENTLY

"I usad to try to begin each day in a reasonably British frame of mind," writes an American .correspondent in , an account nf his observations in Britain. "I did this by carrying my morning coifee close to the three inches of coals in my grate and shivering and opening mv 'Daily Mail' and rending glooms find muddles. The operation of a Compulsory Service Act was a muddle'. The .air service was administratively a muddle, Mr. Asquith was inherently and personally a muddle. Mr. Balfour, who doesn't read the papers and doesn't know that he is a muddle, was ono of the worst muddles. "I once counted twelve" distinct different disastrous muddles in course, of perpetration by Ensland in one issue of the 'Dailr Mail.'"the twelfth being England's deplorable failure to mako its wartime efficiencies known to +!'e rest of tlfe world I On that showing I was determined to regard Lord Northcliffo, in his capacity of owner of tie 'Daily Mail,' as the most English Englishman in England. Later I transferred the palm to Lord Robert Cecil. He earned it away by just one perfect remark in the House of Commons.

"Somebody asked him n. question. It was designed, of couree, to convict tho of a muddle. Lord Bobert rose and said that the Gov.ernment remained in office because the House of Commons allowed it to remain in office. As long as the House of Commons allowed it to remain in office it would have to govern. It would govern as well as 't could. It would continue to do its best. Doubtless, however, in view of the difficulties in the case, it would still continue to govern 'badly.' That was his word, 'badly. , "I imagined what would happen in Washington if Mr. Daniels should cheerfully admit that he was going to rim ths Navy 'badly.' I looked down from my seat in {he gallery to see Lord Robert 'dropped out of the Government at once. ■He was still there. He remained there. "The English wallow openly and frankly in their mistakes and their stupidities and their inefficiencies because their real egoism lies totally elsewhere. They are convinced that Englishmen can in the end beat Germans because they are convinced that English character is tougher and more enduring than German character. Efficiencies are only a means to an end. They will try to commit as many efficiencies as they must in order to win the war. They will try to commit as many efficiencies as they must in order to keep their trade after the war. But they have no real enthusiasm for efficiencies as efficiencies. They can commit them from time to time magnificently—and secrete them—and forget them,

"Carry On!" "The English do not like war, and they do not want to fight or be heroic or impress anybody with their achievements. They 'Carry on. . It is •.he war's commonest phrase, and its best one for England. The soldier writes to his wife, 'Carry on!' The wife writes back, 'Carry on!' England echoes minute by minute with .'Carry on!' Several million men in Hifr Majesty's uniform must, it seems, die. The Germans do not yield. France lacks men, Russia lacks material. TJie Government at London has material and it has men. It was late in getting them. Now it must pay. And they j must pay. Out of every British l>oniinion they must die. Out of England they must die, out of every street. They know they must. Their womenknow they must. And they say their deepest when they say 'Carry on!' "It is iv hymn for the men—the woman —tlie person—the person's self. It says nothing about the enemy. It says nothing about England. It speaks for the individual. It expresses all the impenetrable egoism—all the inextinguishable humour—all the ;' er " sonal control of pain and loss—all the personal indifference to war's massed hypnotisms —all the contemptuous disregard for external oppressive mechanisms and authorities —all the ntter mystical reliance on sheer character to find- the way to smash those mechanisms and those authorities when necessary anywhere—that England has bred in her sons.

"It gives i the reporter nothing—not the Union Jack—not Belgium—not the Lusitania—no picture like 'Gott Strafe England , —no picture like 'Ecrasez les Infames'—nothing. I myself should not die by it with any enormous enthusiasm. I should prefer 'Fifty-four Forty or Fight' or 'The Union For Ever' oV even 'Remember the Maine, , or even, at a. pinch, a few well-chosen words about the Constitution—something about something outside myself —an object. The Englishman, I say, is purely subjective. He is the supreme individualist. In the midst of a cause which has stirred him as he has never been stirred before in his whole history —a cause colossally grouped and colossally organised—he turns away from all outside inspirations whatsoever and looks within and says, 'You! You carry on!' "