There is always a way out of troubles if people are imaginative enough
and brotherly enough to conceive of it and bold enough to take action
when they have found the way. The real danger for society is that it may
become spiritless and hidebound and tamed, and have none of those high
qualities necessary in face of peril, and the more people get accustomed
to thinking of bold schemes the better. They will get over the first
shock, and may be ready when the time comes to put them into action.
When a country is poor like Ireland and yet is ambitious of greatness;
when the aspect of its civilization is mean and when it yet aspires to
beauty; when its people are living under unsanitary conditions and yet
the longing is there to give health to all; when Ireland is like this,
its public men and its citizens might do much worse than brood over the
possibilities of industrial conscription, and of revising the character
of the purposes for which nations have hitherto claimed service from
their young citizens on behalf of the State. Debarred by a fate not
altogether unkind from training every citizen in the arts of war Ireland
might--if the love of country and the desire for service are really so
strong as we are told--suddenly become eminent among the nations of the
world by adopting a policy which in half a century would make our mean
cities and our backward countryside the most beautiful in the modern
world.
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