IV. The Riddle of the British
V. The Social Changes in Progress
VI. The Ending of the War




THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY


1

One of the minor peculiarities of this unprecedented war is the Tour of
the Front. After some months of suppressed information--in which even
the war correspondent was discouraged to the point of elimination--it
was discovered on both sides that this was a struggle in which Opinion
was playing a larger and more important part than it had ever done
before. This wild spreading weed was perhaps of decisive importance;
the Germans at any rate were attempting to make it a cultivated flower.
There was Opinion flowering away at home, feeding rankly on rumour;
Opinion in neutral countries; Opinion getting into great tangles
of misunderstanding and incorrect valuation between the Allies. The
confidence and courage of the enemy; the amiability and assistance of
the neutral; the zeal, sacrifice, and serenity of the home population;
all were affected. The German cultivation of opinion began long
before the war; it is still the most systematic and, because of the
psychological ineptitude of the Germans, it is probably the clumsiest.
The French _Maison de la Presse_ is certainly the best organisation in
existence for making things clear, counteracting hostile suggestion, the
British official organisations are comparatively ineffective; but what