THE HAPPIEST AGE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 41, 12 November 1918, Page 2

THE HAPPIEST AGE

A little girl of seven was brought into the Motor omnibus! and all the passengers looked up at the vision of ber wondering eyes and unruly fair curls, and her hapjiy face unclouded by war. A tanned, bright-faced Canadian, just going out to the trout, eat near a wounded soldier in blue. There wa6 a young munition girl, who was probably earning uulieurd-ol wages. There was a matron of about fifty, and a close-cropped, roundfaced lud ot seventeen. In the end seat was a quiet elderly gentleman. Staggering under liis dusty kit and battered eteel helmet, there entered a soldier just arrived from the trenches. A working ninn, half drowsy in the corner, looked up at the quiet, elderly gentleman and said: "lia! Uuv-nori You're the lucky age now! They'll never raise the fighting limit to sixty!" "I\o! I'm not the lucky age," answered the elderly gentleman. "The best age to bo in 1918, is that. . . ."

All eyes followed his pointing finger. It was directed at tho ■ little girl of seven.

"I'll tell you why," he added. "This war will end. The child of seven will bo seventeen when we have had ten years of rebuilding Britain, i'rance, Belgium; nearly all Europe' will want rebuilding, and there will be ten yearn with no one unemployed. A dozen million British men and women will be switched from the manufacture and use of instruments of destruction, to the manufacture aJid use of instruments of production. The world will be rich beyond anything in history. Even oae corner of Russia contains enough hitherto untapped wealth to, enrich tho world. It will be a community of the rich with no idle rich. Peace will reign, and it will Inst, I believe, for ever. Never again will citilisation allow a nation of Huns to arm to destroy tho world. The six thousand controlled munition factories in Britain and tho vast numbers in America and France will be turned, with their millions of shining .lathes, to tho production of wealth.

"The war has taught us. brotherhood, sisterhood, organisation, social sanity.. We shall produce wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. . . ."

The omnibus ftoppeil. ."You wait," said the man from the trenches, as ho left with his dusty load, "we've got the new men and women franchise now, and when we ; fellows come back from the war—well, we're going to see about it."