"
He reflected. "One, I think, has been decorated," he said....
My French and Italian are only for very rough common jobs; when it came
to explaining the Conscientious Objector sympathetically they broke
down badly. I had to construct long parenthetical explanations of
our antiquated legislative methods to show how it was that the
"conscientious objector" had been so badly defined. The foreigner does
not understand the importance of vague definition in British life.
"Practically, of course, we offered to exempt anyone who conscientiously
objected to fight or serve. Then the Pacifist and German people started
a campaign to enrol objectors. Of course every shirker, every coward and
slacker in the country decided at once to be a conscientious objector.
Anyone but a British legislator could have foreseen that. Then we
started Tribunals to wrangle with the objectors about their _bona
fides._ Then the Pacifists and the Pro-Germans issued little leaflets
and started correspondence courses to teach people exactly how to lie to
the Tribunals. Trouble about freedom of the pamphleteer followed. I had
to admit--it has been rather a sloppy business. The people who made the
law knew their own minds, but we English are not an expressive people."
These are not easy things to say in Elementary (and slightly Decayed)
French or in Elementary and Corrupt Italian.
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