should be 5 per cent. or 90 per cent. Candour, however, leads us rather
to admit the former as generally nearer the mark when military
operations have been the subject of them, at least until the Germans
began to suffer serious defeats in the field.

It would have been far better, too, to have assumed--there was real
ground for the assumption--that the nation was ready and willing at once
to make any sacrifice, to submit to privation, to rouse itself to any
effort if only the necessity for it were made clear, and if it could be
satisfied that so far as possible the burdens would be distributed
equally among all.

Increased taxation properly adjusted has almost been a general demand,
but unfairness in its incidence even on comparatively small matters is
intensely resented. The Food Control Ministry whose orders affect
everybody's daily comfort is positively popular, while the profiteer and
the food-hoarder arouse the bitterest, though perhaps not always
discriminating, indignation. Skilled workmen have been almost driven to
strike, not from want of patriotism, nor from desire for profit out of
the War, but because of the unfairness of leaving their wage at a level
often below that of the unskilled and even of casual importations. The
fatal delays which were sometimes quite unnecessary, in dealing with
complaints have added to the feeling of unrest. Suspicions were even
aroused sometimes that delays were intentional.

A like spirit of confidence is required in the statement of "War Aims."
The higher our aims are put--if put honestly--the more earnest and
complete is the response. Stated as they were by Mr. Asquith, with his
usual masterly precision of language, they received a practically
unanimous and enthusiastic approval. There was nothing sordid in the