V

Many of those picturesque features of the older England, that stir us by
their beauty and by the sense of stability and permanence they convey,
will no doubt disappear or be transformed. I am thinking of the great
estates, some of which date from Norman times; I am thinking of the
aristocracy, which we Americans repudiated in order to set up a
plutocracy instead. Let us hope that what is fine in it will be
preserved, for there is much. By the theory of the British constitution
--that unwritten but very real document--in return for honours,
emoluments, and titles, the burden of government has hitherto been
thrown on a class. Nor can it be said that they have been untrue to
their responsibility. That class developed a tradition and held fast to
it; and they had a foreign policy that guided England through centuries
of greatness. Democracy too must have a foreign policy, a tradition of
service; a trained if not hereditary group to guide it through troubled
waters. Even in an intelligent community there must be leadership. And,
if the world will no longer tolerate the old theories, a tribute may at
least be paid to those who from conviction upheld them; who ruled,
perhaps in affluence, yet were also willing to toil and, if need be,
to die for the privilege.

One Saturday afternoon, after watching for a while the boys playing fives
and football and romping over the green lawns at Eton, on my way to the
head master's rooms I paused in one of the ancient quads. My eye had
been caught by a long column of names posted there, printed in heavy
black letters. 'Etona non, immemora'! Every week many new names are
added to those columns. On the walls of the chapel and in other quads
and passages may be found tablets and inscriptions in memory of those who
have died for England and the empire in by-gone wars. I am told that the