But with only a minority standing to the flag we cry out for some hope
of final success. Men will not fight without result for ever; they ask
for some sign of progress, some gleam of the light of victory. Happily,
searching the skies, our eyes can have their reward. We shall, no doubt,
see, outstanding, dark evidence of old animosity; we shall hear fierce
war-cries and see raging crowds, but the crowds are less numerous, and
the wrath has lost its sting. Men who raged twenty years ago rage now,
but their fury is less real; and young men growing up around them, quite
indifferent to the ideal, are also indifferent to the counter cries:
they are passive, unimpressed by either side. Rightly approached, they
may understand and feel the glow of a fine enthusiasm; they are numbered
by prejudice, they will become warm, active and daring under an
inspiring appeal. Remember, and have done with despair. Think how you
and I found our path step by step of the way: political life was full of
conventions that suited our fathers' time, but have faded in the light
of our day. We found these conventions unreal and put them by. This was
no reflection on our fathers; what they fought for truly is our
heritage, and we pay them a tribute in offering it in turn our loyalty
inspired by their devotion. But their errors we must rectify; what they
left undone we must take up and fulfil. That is the task of every
generation, to take up the uncompleted work of the former one, and hand
on to their successors an achievement and a heritage. Youth recognises
this instinctively, and every generation will take a step in advance of
its predecessor, putting by its prejudices and developing its truth.
Every individual may know this from his own experience, and from it he
knows that those who are now voicing old bitter cries are ageing, and
will soon pass and leave no successors. Not that prejudice will die for
ever. Each new day will have its own, but that which is now dividing and