THOUGHTS ON ACTIVE SERVICE
Stn,—Your paper is an enormous delight to anyone serving abroad. Apart from the articles and reviews, letters from such as he who burnt an offending copy of The Spectator are excellent light relief. You have raised so many thoughts in my mind that I am endeavouring to crystallise them here, although I realise that they may be so out of date as to be useless for publication.
First, Lady Lothian's article on "Youth's Problem." Many of us were Interested in this, as in those preceding it on our generation. Most of us heartily dislike being called either submerged or defeated and con- sider that the blaming of past generations for this war is in execrable taste ; but I think more of the young are faithless than the reverse, having been brought up faithless in a faithless age. On the other hand, there seem to be more people aged about twenty-one who agree entirely with Lady Lothian than of those aged about thirty-five. And experiences of the war entrench more strongly those beliefs.
Secondly, post-war problems and the attitude of men abroad. I often discuss these problems with my platoon. From which discussions it seems that the majority are not sufficiently interested to worry. They will, of course, be very interested when the time comes, but they can't project their interest forward into the future. Propaganda has a: steady effect on them, but their decisions are always tempered by the experience gained in a tough job. A few, however, think a good deal and speak out for themselves. They distrust Conservatives because they don't think that "big business " or the governing classes care sufficiently about the working man's life. "If they did," one asked, "why was Lady — able to ride in a Rolls-Royce when we hadn't enough for a pint of beer?" As a platoon commander one cares very much about their conditions, bat I wonder how much one will forget after the war. Equally they think little of Mr. Bevin and the T.U.C. They say that Labour leaders are out for political power and only interested in workers' conditions as a side- line. Such men as Ben Tillett are their ideal. I think it is certainly true that governments as a whole are out of touch with working-men, and that they do not respect their judgement and character enough.
Lastly, there was correspondence on the question of large-scale bomb- ing in Germany. I feel that your correspondents' appeal to humani- tarianism was emotional, and I feel that—if we consider it on humanitarian and emotional grounds—it is infinitely more important to return 'these all-deserving husbands to their wives and children than to prolong the war out of respect to German husbands, wives and children.—
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