The effect of these bad conditions on the health of the nation was plainly shown during the war itself, when the various “classes” came up for medical examination. Of the total manhood of Great Britain, one-tenth were liable to vertigo, such as prevented them either from going up in aircraft or else from going down into the pits. Something like 13 per cent. suffered from Pollock’s inhibition, either in the form of actonism (reluctance to kill) or of athanism (reluctance to die). Eight per cent. were declared unfit through psophophobia, which made them unable to stand loud noises. Another six per cent. had taxiphobia, and could not serve in the ranks. Ochlophobia, capnophobia, pyrophobia, zophophobia, atenxipodia, and other more ordinary nervous diseases, such as Blast’s inhibition, swelled the total of non-combatants. In all it is doubtful whether 40 per cent. of the men who were of military age could have been called upon to fight. Happily, most of the unfit were available for the much needed work of propaganda, since only a small percentage were troubled with pseudophobia, which alone was treated as ground for exemption from this class of work.
But, it hardly needs to be said, these same causes produced moral results as well as physical. Just before the outbreak of hostilities, we were all very much concerned about the attitude of organized Labour, which had never indeed been in power since Ropes’s ill-fated Government, but had always been a strong political, and a still stronger economic influence, in the counsels of the country. There had not for some time been any actual strike on a large scale, the “secret service” both of employers and of labourers being sufficiently well informed to prevent any miscalculation: threats of strikes and of lock-outs were common, but it seldom proved necessary to call your adversary’s bluff. Still, the Unions were an important power. Ever since the thirties it had been illegal for any manual worker not to belong to the union of his trade; and this fact had strengthened the numerical force of the unions without in any way moderating their counsels since the time when (I think in the fifties) shop stewards began to be appointed by examination instead of election. The hot-heads were always in the controlling positions: what would the effect of this be in the event of the country going to war? The International Labour Convention held at Innsbruck in ’67 had passed a series of unanimous resolutions designed to render all future war impossible by means of concerted sabotage. Fortunately, the alleged violation of Article 259 by the British workers, and the suspected violation of Article 283 by the U.S. workers, had the effect of rendering the whole compact nugatory. But the temper of Labour in all countries was, throughout the war, distrustful and frequently menacing.