directly or indirectly engaged on armaments, ships, and other favoured industries, while the civilian workers had a higher standard of living than before. Thirdly, it soon became evident that this was no “war to end war,” but an exhibition of unfettered national sovereignty, and that the only way of ending war was through constructive internationalism.
Though the popular enthusiasm for the War and the efforts to fight and work which it involved, together with the voluntary submission to all restrictions and impositions laid down by the War Government, prevented these truths from gaining full recognition, thinking minorities began without delay to organize so as to deal with the menaces to democracy, liberty, and peace.
But before turning to these endeavours to stem the tide of war, it is worth while recording the brief effort to keep this country out made in the days preceding August 1914, by a small Neutrality Group. When war seemed imminent, this group, containing Lord Courtney, Lowes Dickinson, Graham Wallas, Gilbert Murray, and a few others, sought through the Press to get a hearing for neutrality. My only personal contribution to this cause was the annexation of Lord Bryce, just returned from America, whom I tracked on Saturday afternoon to a place in Camden Town where he was personally engaged in unpacking trunks of books. His name would undoubtedly have carried more weight than all the rest of us, if circumstances
