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It is perhaps of the nature of wars that they should hasten developments endemic in a society and bring to pass in a few short years what would also have happened under conditions of peace, but in a much longer span of time. This at least has been in some measure the effect of the recent war on Great Britain's position in the world. It is now apparent and generally recognized that the situation of privilege if not domination which was the lot of the English people from the time before the Seven Years War—or from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards—has come to an end. Perhaps this change in England's position has been recognized for some while in the United States. On the other hand Americans have perhaps never realized the striking contrast in the past between the standard of living and the stability and security of this island and that of the larger continental countries and centers of force—France and Germany.
1 I do not, however, exclude the possibility that a conservative government might be more competent at relations with the Kremlin, and might be preferred by it.
2 “Letter to my Son,” originally published in Horizon, subsequently reissued as a pamphlet.
3 I would especially recommend to the reader Orwell's Critical Essays published this year (in the United States published under the title Dickens, Dali and Others).
4 And Ignazio Silone in Italy.
5 These Left-wing writers usually appear in Tribune, a weekly which combines a rather crude materialism with an honest frankness and fearlessness.
6 Critical Essays.
7 In a well-known comment Mr. H. G. Wells said: “What did Shakespeare do? What did he add to the world's totality? … If he had never lived, things would be very much as they are…. He added no idea, he altered no idea, in the growing understanding of mankind.” Quoted in A Life of Shakespeare by Pearson, Hesketh.Google Scholar This cultural barbarism is only too common in “scientific-minded” people.
8 “The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War.” In Polemic, 06–08, 1946.Google Scholar
9 Polemic, ibid.
