Such a dread of conversion in spite of oneself is
by no means uncommon, and often operates very powerfully to prevent full and honest inquiry. Our readers may remember Pepys's querulous objections to a very moving Quaker tract. The diarist evidently thought there was a real danger of his being converted if he were rash enough to read such literature. But, as Stevenson says in his inimitable essay, if by ill luck such a thing had happened, where would have been poor Pepys's cakes and ale, "his fiddling% on the tiles," and his pleasant life The Labour Members, as we have said, are pontent to be converted if the work can be honestly done, though, doubtless, they now think that impossible. The National Service League is, in any case, going to show them that the model it wants followed by Britain is to be found in Switzerland. We wish there were time to show them also the model which it does not want followed by taking them to a German garrison town. But even if this cannot be, the Labour Members may be asked to remember that, if the object of the National Service League had really been conscription or military service of the Continental kind, as its detractors so unfairly, nay, unveraciously, insist, they would have invited the Committee to visit Potsdam, not Tbun or Zurich, qr wherever this year's manceuvres are to be carried out.
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