of keeping places open were made to the men who enlisted for South
Africa, and were of course broken, as a promise to supply green cheese
by quarrying the moon would have been broken. New employees must be
found to do the work of the men who are in the field; and these new ones
will not all be thrown into the street when the war is over to make room
for discharged soldiers, even if a good many of these soldiers are not
disqualified by their new training and habits for their old employment.
I repeat, there is only one assurance that can be given to the recruits
without grossly and transparently deluding them; and that is that they
shall not be discharged, except at their own request, until civil
employment is available for them.


*Funking Controversy.*

This is not the only instance of the way in which, under the first scare
of the war, we shut our eyes and opened our mouths to every folly. For
example, there was a cry for the suspension of all controversy in the
face of the national danger. Now the only way to suspend controversial
questions during a period of intense activity in the very departments in
which the controversy has arisen is to allow them all to be begged.
Perhaps I should not object if they were all begged in favour of my own
side, as, for instance, the question of Socialism was begged in favour
of Socialism when the Government took control of the railways; bought up
all the raw sugar; regulated prices; guaranteed the banks; suspended the
operation of private contracts; and did all the things it had been
declaring utterly and eternally Utopian and imposible when Socialists
advocated them. But it is now proposed to suspend all popular liberties
and constitutional safeguards; to muzzle the Press, and actually to have
no contests at bye-elections! This is more than a little too much. We