The Last Million: How They Invaded France—and EnglandHay, Ian
Philosophy
The Last Million: How They Invaded France—and England
Hay, Ian
World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
We are never going back to the old days when Englishmen, Scotsmen,
Irishmen, Canadians, Australians, and Americans sat each in their
own compartment, and thanked God that they had it to themselves. We
English-speaking races have got together over this War. We have lost
terribly, but we are gaining much. We are rubbing shoulders in London,
and Paris, and countless other places, and we are rubbing the knobs
and the angles off one another, good and plenty. It is not always easy
or comfortable to have knobs rubbed off you, and the process sometimes
involves a little friction; but we must be prepared for that.
For instance, we all speak English, but we all pronounce it in different
ways. Well, why not? Hitherto we have been inclined to assume that the
other man was talking like that to annoy us. That is one of the knobs
that has to be rubbed off—intolerance of trivial matters of taste and
habit. To-day, under the most searching test in the world—the test of
comradeship in the face of battle and sudden death—we are acquiring a
profound respect for one another. When we have acquired just one other
thing—tolerance for one another’s point of view—we shall have laid the
foundation of an understanding which is going to hold us all up through
some difficult times hereafter. Getting this old world back on to a
peace basis, after the Kaiser has been put where he belongs, is going to
call for all our courage, sincerity, and loyalty to our common ideals.
When that period of Reconstruction comes—and it may come sooner than
we think—the first plank in its platform must be a solid understanding
between the two English-speaking races. They, at least, must speak with
one voice, or the whole fabric will fall to the ground.
Our two nations can never hope entirely to understand one another.
Neither can they expect always to see eye to eye. Their national
personalities are too robust. But to-day their sons are learning to know
the worst of one another and the best of one another and the invincible
humanity of one another. With that knowledge will come—if we have the
will—tolerance of one another’s point of view. We must get that. There
are thousands of reasons why, but to you, soldiers and sailors, I am only
going to mention one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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