"AFTER-THE-WAR" TALK

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 83, 2 January 1919, Page 5

"AFTER-THE-WAR" TALK

. To-day we aro beginning io discuss the problems to which lately we have been giving increasing thought. 1 What will happen now? Opinions differ, but nearly all are reconciled to great changes. "The activities of war will be turned to the airts of peace," cries the optimist. "Trade will boom, and the world, united in a League of Nations, will live in bro'therly love." . r The pessimist grunts; "There will be years of unemployment, poverty, starvation, and misery; industrial chaos, followed by another war." "Both wrong," declares the clubman. "Nothing is going to: happen at all. We shall all fall back into cur old habits; the party game will go merrily on, and the Hun will be invited to <.11 our most lucrative posts." ■ "How lovely it will be to have real white bread again," sighs the housewife, "and no move rationing" "Cook's must run a conducted tour to the battlefields," sava tho ardent woman traveller. ' "But the crossing, my dear; think of the stray mines!" > "Oh! They must build the Channel tunnel." . "Wait until 'Tommy' comes home and finds his job 'taken by a pack of women; then there'll be trouble," growls the loafer. . The labour agitator insists: "It s the working man who's. going to boss the 6how henceforth. No more bloated millionaires 1" But the British working man does not worry. ''Open the 'hotels all day and give us good beer at the old price." That's what he wants. Wliat says "Tommy" in the trenches? Suxely, having paid the price for pnace, it is his right alone to dispose of it. But "Tommy" is modest rna only' once have I heard him speculate i bout "after the war." ' _ _ ' There were three soldiers in a little cstaminet behind the lines, and Bill was asking, "What are you going to do after' tho war, Alf?" "Well, I ireckon the old job will just about suit mo fine, Bill. . . May get a new barrow, if things run to it, you know." "What about you, old son?" turning to the third man, a beared poilu. Their comrade put down his glass and a light shono in his eyes. "Moi? I return to my leetle farm, to niv vineyard in the Sunny South. There lj marry Henriette, and we call our first bebe 'Tommy' for a compliment to za brave English eoldat. Zat is what. I go for to do, apres la guerre."—"lv.W.Rin the "Daily Mail."