Blood! blood! is the cry
from the front! Gold! gold! gold! is the chuckling undertone which
comes up from the mushroom millionaires, well named a shoddy
aristocracy. Nor do I think the army interest, the contracting
interest, and the tax-gathering interest, the worst results that have
grown out of this war. There is another and equally serious interest -
the revolution in the spirit, mind, and principles of the people, that
terrible change which has made war familiar and even attractive to
them. When the first battle was fought - when, in the language of the
Duke of Wellington, the first 'butcher's bill was sent in' - a shudder
of horror ran through the length and breadth of the country; but by-
and-by, as the carnage increased, no newspaper was considered worth
laying on the breakfast table unless it contained the story of the
butchery of thousands of men.
'Only a thousand killed! Pooh, pooh, that's nothing!' exclaimed Mr.
Shoddy, as he sipped his coffee - in his luxurious apartment; and
nothing short of the news of ten or fifteen thousand maimed or slain in
a day could satisfy the jaded palate of men craving for excitement, and
such horrible excitement as attends the wholesale murder of their
fellow-creatures. Have these sights and sounds no warning addressed to
us? Are we as those who have eyes and see not; ears and hear not;
reason, neither do they understand? If we are true to Canada - if we do
not desire to become part and parcel of this people - we cannot overlook
this, the greatest revolution of our own times.
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