New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1: From the Beginning to March, 1915, With IndexVarious
History
New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1: From the Beginning to March, 1915, With Index
Various
World War, 1914-1918
It will be observed that I propose no guarantee of absolute security.
Not being a sufferer from _delirium tremens_ I can live without it.
Security is no doubt the Militarists' most seductive bait to catch the
coward's vote. But their method makes security impossible, They
undertook to secure the English in Egypt from an imaginary Islam rising
by the Denshawai Horror, as a result of which nobody has ventured to
suggest that we should trust the Egyptian army in this conflict, though
India, having learnt from Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald that
there are really anti-Militarists in England who regard Indians as
fellow creatures, is actually rallying to us against the Prussian
Junkers, who are, in Indian eyes, indistinguishable from the
Anglo-Indians who call Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald
traitors, and whose panicstricken denial of even a decent pretence of
justice in the sedition trials is particularly unfortunate just now. We
must always take risks; and we should never trade on the terror of
death, nor forget that this wretchedest of all the trades is none the
less craven because it can so easily be gilt with romance and heroism
and solemn national duty and patriotism and the like by persons whose
superficial literary and oratorical talent covers an abyss of
Godforsaken folly.
*The Only Real World Danger.*
The one danger before us that nothing can avert but a general raising of
human character through the deliberate cultivation and endowment of
democratic virtue without consideration of property and class, is the
danger created by inventing weapons capable of destroying civilization
faster than we produce men who can be trusted to use them wisely. At
present we are handling them like children. Now children are very
pretty, very lovable, very affectionate creatures (sometimes); and a
child can make nitroglycerine or chloride of nitrogen as well as a man
if it is taught to do so. We have sense enough not to teach it; but we
do teach the grown-up children. We actually accompany that dangerous
technical training with solemn moral lessons in which the most
destructive use of these forces at the command of kings and capitalists
is inculcated as heroism, patriotism, glory and all the rest of it. It
is all very well to fire cannons at the Kaiser for doing this; but we do
it ourselves. It is therefore undeniably possible that a diabolical
rhythm may be set up in which civilization will rise periodically to the
point at which explosives powerful enough to destroy it are discovered,
and will then be shattered and thrown back to a fresh start with a few
starving and ruined survivors. H.G. Wells and Anatole France have
pre-figured that result in fiction; and I cannot deny the strength of
its probability; for if England and Germany can find no better way of
celebrating their arrival at the highest point of civilization yet
attained than setting out to blow one another to fragments with
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