PROBLEMS OF A NEW WORLD

It had become grimly apparent to Graham Wallas that ‘the nations of the earth, confused and embittered by the events of 1914–20’, might soon be compelled to witness ‘another and more destructive stage in the suicide of civilisation’. The world had to be looked at in a new way. Problems had become more intractable. In 1904, to be sure, ‘the absorbing domestic crisis hanging over us’ had already worried Barbara Hammond. Her servant had given notice and, so she told Mary Murray, she faced the prospect of having to ‘try a series of life's failures, for I will not have the responsibility of a young girl, &, except for special reasons, a high class servant will no more go on as a “general” than a Professor wld teach in a preparatory school’ (1 January 1904). One or two servants living in at wages which reached £30 to £40 a year by the war years were an indispensable support to the lives of busy middle-class intellectuals. (It would be interesting to know which was greater: the number of books which Hobson wrote during his life or the number of days he devoted to domestic chores.) The wartime shortage of domestic servants did not prove as permanent as it seemed at the time – the slump saw to that; but living in was never again the norm, and expectations were permanently disrupted. After the war Barbara Hammond told Mary Murray that they now ‘managed by getting in extra daily help & doing a lot ourselves – wh. is not conducive to work but that can't be helped’ (10 August 1921).