COMRADES OP TILE GREAT WAR.
WHEN the war is over, and the nightmare weight of these yy last years is lifted off our minda, all England will draw one deep breath of relief. But it wilt not be for long that we shall sit with our hands folded. Peace will mean a great deal of hard work. Official pigeon-holes are filling already with draft-schemes for the mere first processes of clearing-up. The huge and complex temporary machinery that has kept the country going will stop with a shock. There will be an interim of adjustment—a phrase of a comfortable sound that unfortunately covers dislocation and strain and minor breakdown& Industrial life will be like a man's numbed . hand with the blood flowing back into it, with heat, pain, and congestion.
Into the turmoil will come crowding the men of our demobilized forces. And they will have such a welcome as never home-coming lighters enjoyed ; none can ever more bravely, more bitterly, have awned it ! But eventually all will be over, even the shouting ; and some Ave .million heroes will become to the general eye merely plain men with their living to earn. All doors to a livelihood will open to them, one thinks. But they will be handicapped in one way and another. Apart from actual disablements, some will have lust health, beet nerve ; others will have to adapt themselves to conditions disconcertingly changed ; many will have beep out eel t heir jobs long enough to have lost touch.
Rezonstinction Departments, Statutory Pensions Committees, and other official bodies will be there to bridge the transition period, and will render material assistance. But the State is rather humane than human. The real force, we are convinced, that will carry the ex-sailor and ex-soldier with ease and content hack to civil life is possessed by the men themselves, in that bond of cpmradeship which. even more than discipline and esprit 4e corps, tag brought them through ordeals endured only, endurable only, because no man was in that pit alone ; which has prompted glorious deeds by land and sea, .beeatise each dared not for himself only but for all. They are bound now by memories of peril, of help, of 'hardship and gaiety. They have an argot that is a freemasonry in itaelf. All this Aught not to be put by with the worn uniform, to leave each man bewildered, bereft of hip accustomed props, and asking with discouragement if he faced death, and worse, to find himself up against life all alone.
It is on the basis of these facts and forecasts that the organization known as the " Comrades of the Great War" has been formed, to be heartily welcomed as a soundly planned scheme for the welfare of our demobilized men and their dependants. In essence, the scheme is that of an Old Soldiers and Sailors Club. The members will have a centre, a ganglion, that will keep mutual interests alive and spreading : a geed and a human thing. They can ventilate their grievances, they can discuss their problems, they can make— as they probably otherwise might not make—the fullest possible use of the public machinery provided to meet their claims and guard their interests. The brotherhood is entirely self-governing ; men of all ranks and ratings sit side by side on the Executive, and there is no party label. Local centres—the largest -unit is the " Division," below that are " Branches " and " Posts "—will be planted all over the kingdom, in cities and townships and the rural districts. A fund of a million is in process of collection for this and other purposes. Generous public support may be counted upon, if the League acts up to its charter—and for that the names on the Executive, those of known and trusted men, seem sufficieut guarantee.
It is proposed to affiliate, under a Grand Council of Empire, the similar clubs now forming or formed already in the Overseas Dominions. This is as it should be ; the scope of the plan should take a broad outlook—should bridge the seven seas of the world, and stand as a watch-tower over the coming time. It is not only to have no scandal of brave men neglected and unhonoured. It is even more for the years to be, and for the English to come—that they may have unselfishness and valour as a heritage from the
undying comradeship of the Great War. M. G.
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