Chapter IV

The next, and the next to the last, illusion to go is a masterpiece of simple-mindedness, and yet nearly all who take up war-work are found at first to be under its sway. It is the illusion that war-work, being a fine and noble thing, ought to change people’s natures and dispositions, in such a manner as to produce the maximum of co-operating effort with the minimum of friction.

Now the very heart of all war-work is the grand and awe-inspiring institution of the Committee. If you are engaged on war-work you are bound to sit on a Committee; or, in default of a Committee, a Sub-Committee (which usually has more real power than the bumptious and unwieldy body that overlords it). And, if you are on neither a Committee nor a Sub-Committee, then you are bound sooner or later to be called up before a Committee or a Sub-Committee, and to be in a position to give the Committee or Sub-Committee a piece of your mind. Thus your legitimate ambition will somehow be satisfied.

But let us suppose that you are at once elected to a Committee. Well, among the members of the Committee are three persons you know--Miss X, Mr. Y, and Mrs. Z. Miss X used to be a mannish and reckless and cheeky young maid. Mr. Y used to be an interfering and narrow-minded old maid. Mrs. Z used to be nothing in particular. You enter the Committee-room, and you see these three, together with a few others who have not a very promising air. (Probably no sight is more depressing than the cordon of faces round a Committee-room table.) You, however, are not downcast. You feel in yourself the uplifting power of a great ideal. You are determined to make the best of yourself and of everybody. And you are convinced that everybody is determined to do the same. But in less than five minutes Miss X, despite her obvious lack of experience, is offering the most absurd proposals; she has put her elbows on the table; and she is calmly teaching all her grandmothers to suck eggs. Mr. Y is objecting to the ruling of the Chairman, and obstinately arguing against a resolution that has been carried, and indeed implying that the Committee ought not to do anything at all. As for Mrs. Z she has scarcely opened her mouth; when the Chairman asked her for her opinion she blushed and said she rather agreed, and she voted both for and against the first resolution.

‘Is it conceivable,’ you exclaim in your soul, ‘is it conceivable that these individuals can behave so in such a supreme crisis of the nation’s history, at a moment when the nation has need of every citizen’s loyal goodwill, of every--?’ etc. etc. ‘No! They cannot have realised that we are at war!’

And sundry other members of the Committee are not much better than the ignoble three. Indeed, your faith in Committees is practically destroyed. You say to yourself, with your blunt, vigorous common sense: ‘If only the Committee would adjourn and leave the whole matter to me, I am sure I could manage it much better than they are doing.’ You consider that a Committee is a device for wasting time and for flattering the conceit of opinionated fools.... Then Mr. Y becomes absolutely impossible. You feel that you are prepared to stand a lot, but that there is a limit and that Mr. Y has gone beyond it. You are ready to work, and to work hard, but you cannot be expected to work with people who are impossible. You decide to send in your resignation to the Chairman at once.

I hope you will not send it in. For at least half the Committee are thinking just as you are thinking. And one or two of them are thinking these things, not apropos of Miss X, Mr. Y, or Mrs. Z, but apropos of you! And if you are startled at the spectacle of people persisting in being just themselves in war-work, then the fault is yours, and you should be gently ashamed. You ought to have known that people are never more themselves than in a great crisis, especially when the crisis is prolonged. You ought to be thankful that the Committee has unscaled your eyes to so fundamental a truth. You have realised that we are at war,--you ought also to realise that it takes all sorts to make a world, even a world at war. You ought to imagine what would happen if every member of the Committee, like you, resigned because Mr. Y was impossible, and thus left the impossible Mr. Y in possession of the table and the secretary.

Axiom: The most valorous and morally valuable war-work is the work of working with impossible people.

And may I warn you that you will later on, if you succeed as a war-worker, encounter more terrible phenomena than Mr. Y, who at the worst can always be out-voted? You will encounter, for example, the famous and fashionable lady who, justifiably relying on human nature’s profound and incurable snobbishness, will give all the hard work to you and those like you, while appropriating all the glory and advertisement for herself. And, more terrible even than the famous and fashionable lady, you will run up against the Official Mind. The Official Mind is the worst of all obstacles to getting things done. And the gravest danger of the war-worker, particularly if he attains high rank on Committees, is the danger of becoming official-minded himself.