The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/The Thunderclap That Fell on England
THE THUNDERCLAP THAT FELL ON ENGLAND
Among the flashes as of lightning that revealed
to us the drama of the past 365 days, some of the
most vivid were those that lit up the condition at
home towards the end of Spring. The war had
been going on ten months when it fell on our ears
like a thunderclap that all was not well with us
in England. In the ominous unrest that followed
there was danger of serious division, with the risk
of a breakdown in that national unity without
which there could be no true strength. The
result was a Coalition Government, uniting all
the parties save one, followed by an appeal
to the patriotism of the people through their
purse.
Never before had Great Britain received such a response to her call. The first Cabinet in England that aimed at coalition had broken down in personal corruption, but the Cabinet now called into being was beyond the suspicion of even party interest. The first appeal to the purse of the British people had yielded one hundred and thirty millions in a year, but the appeal now made yielded six hundred millions in a month. It was almost as if Great Britain had ceased to be a nation and become a family.