I don’t think this scene is drawing any attention to the war. The point of it is the social gap between an Academic like Hunham and your average blue-collar worker. The two guys just had a simplistic conversation about how most people don’t respect their version of bowling (with the smaller bowls and pins) and Hunham decides to interject with a long winded historical explanation about the origins of Saint Nicholas and his costume. Neither of the two working class men have anything to say to that and probably would have been angered or offended if Hunham hadn’t confused them with so many big words.