They warn us
that we may pay too high a price even for organisation and efficiency;
and, though it is natural that we should admire certain qualities
which we do not possess, we ought not to overlook the fact that those
methods which have produced the most perfect national organisation in
the history of the world are also responsible for orgies of brutality
without parallel among civilised peoples. That such warnings are
needful cannot be doubted; but may it not be urged that they indicate
dangers incident to a course of action rather than the inevitable
consequences thereof? In adapting ourselves to new conditions we must
needs take risks. No British Government could stamp out voluntaryism
even if it wished to do so; and none has yet manifested any such
desire. The nation does not want that kind of national unity of which
Germany is so proud, and which seems so admirably adapted to her
needs; for the English character and genius rest upon a conception of
freedom which renders such a unity foreign and even repulsive to its
temper. Whatever be the changes which lie before us, the worship of
the State is the one form of idolatry into which the British people
are least likely to fall.
II
The recent adaptation of factories and workshops to the production of
war material is only typical of what goes on year by year in peace time,
though, of course, to a less degree and in less dramatic fashion.
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