Great Britain's Sea Policy: A Reply to an American Critic, reprinted from 'The Atlantic Monthly'Murray, Gilbert
History
Great Britain's Sea Policy: A Reply to an American Critic, reprinted from 'The Atlantic Monthly'
Murray, Gilbert
Bullard, Arthur, 1879-1925. Our relations with Great Britain; World War, 1914-1918 -- Blockades
Everybody knows that in war censorship is necessary; every nation
employs it, Great Britain rather more leniently than the rest. It is a
pure myth to suppose that in England we are kept in the dark about
important sides of the war which are well known to neutrals. I have been
in four different neutral countries since the war began, and have read
their newspapers; so I speak with confidence. But it is just the sort of
myth that Mr. Bullard accepts without question. As to the Defence of the
Realm Act: of course the act gives the executive tremendous powers, and
would, if continued in normal times, be incompatible with civil liberty.
But everybody knows that some such special laws are necessary in war
time; there is no nation in Europe which attempts to do without such
laws, and Mr. Bullard makes no attempt to show that any other nation
applies them more leniently than England does. As to the fortunes made
by shippers, why drag in the word "British"? With the German merchant
ships out of use, with Allied and neutral ships sunk to the number of
some hundreds by submarines and extensively commandeered by the various
governments for war purposes, there is an extreme shortage of ships
together with an immense demand. Every tub that will float, of whatever
nationality, is bringing its owner fortune. And we dare not discourage
them, for we want every ship we can get. Mr. Bullard, dropping for a
moment his lofty idealism, complains simply that the British are getting
too large a share of the swag, an unproved and to me extremely doubtful
statement. Naturally ships belonging to the Allied powers are less open
to suspicion than neutrals are, and consequently are less harassed by
certain restrictions. But the British, at any rate, are not only
subjected to enormous war-taxation, but have in addition fifty per cent.
of their war-profits confiscated. And Lord North at the Foreign Office!
Really one smiles at Mr. Bullard's innocence. "The visitor thought we
were naughty, papa; but of course he has never seen us when we are
really naughty!" In every country engaged in war there is somewhere
below the surface a growling mass of passion, brutality, lawlessness,
hatred of foreign nations, contempt for reason and humanity. In Great
Britain, thank heaven, the brute is kept cowed and well chained, though
at times his voice is heard in the more violent newspapers. The brute
knows the hands that hold him down and hates almost all the present
Cabinet, but most of all, perhaps, he hates two men: the great and
moderate Liberal who presides over the government, the great and
moderate Liberal who guides the Foreign Office.--And Mr. Bullard, in his
innocence, would like to turn them out!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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