BELGIUM'S STAND.
WE wish we could make the Belgian people realize what is felt about them here by all who care for freedom, for liberal ideas, for the maintenance of national independence, and for the safety of small nations, and who loathe militarism and autocracy. The Belgians have shown that if a nation, however small and however badly placed from the strategic point of view—we mean a State which is not either remote from the rest of the world, or an island, or a, great mountain fortress like Switzerland—has the true spirit in her, and has made reasonable preparation in the way of supplying training and armaments for her people, she can make a stand against the mightiest War Lord in the world, and demonstrate that the love of liberty and independence is never a negligible quantity. No doubt the pessimists—those who disbelieve in, or indeed hate, the idea of nationality, and those who think that the great monopolist States are inevitable—will tell us that we are shouting before we are out of the wood, and that a very few days may prove to us that the sacrifices of the Belgians and their splendid courage are all useless against the big battalions. If it is the will of Providence that the Belgian resistance shall, from the physical point of view, be useless, we must acquiesce. Nevertheless, from the moral point of view, we can still claim that Belgium has proved to the world the right of the small nations to exist, and, what is more, their ability to exist, for no one will in future regard them as not worth considering. Already we may be certain that the Belgian surprise has made Germany determine that, unless she can possibly help it, she will not interfere with Holland, with Switzerland, with Denmark, with Sweden, or with Norway. That, indeed, is something accomplished, something which cannot be taken away from us even should the worst come to the worst, and for a time the German autocracy prevail as Napoleon prevailed. Even with a result so disheartening, one would be able to feel that the forces which produced the stand of the Belgians at Liege must in the end destroy the oppressor, just as the stand of the Spaniards, as Pitt foretold, destroyed the military power of Napoleon. We say this, however, only as a warning, and because we must confess to being so far superstitious as not to like to challenge fate by over-confidence.. Not to be prepared for the worst is a capital error in making those arrangements which alone can secure victory. Optimism is much too heady and intoxicating a drink for men in the peril in which we and all the true friends of freedom in Europe stand at present.
Before we end our thanksgiving to Belgium for the example which her gallant people have set all the small States, we have a word to say which again, we trust, will not be misunderstood as proving a boastful spirit. If we lose, neither we nor any other nation in Europe, except Germany, will have anything to say as to the future con- figuration of. Europe. If Germany wins, her War Lord will parcel out Europe at his pleasure. Directly or indirectly, we shall all pass under the yoke. No nation will be really free and independent, and those that have any seeming freedom and independence will only hold those gifts at Germany's will and pleasure. But suppose, as in the end we are con- fident they will, the German ideals of autocracy and militarism and monopoly do not beat those of freedom and national independence, then there will be a great duty imposed upon us and upon the States with whom we are in alliance—a very difficult duty, and one which, the longer and harder is the fighting, will be the more difficult to accomplish.. That duty can be expressed in a single sentence. It is to yield to no temptation, how- ever great, to let the peace, when it comes, be merely a truce, a peace which shall hays in it the seeds of future wars, which shall store up disaster for the future as assuredly as did the Peace of Frankfort. We must, whilst our eyes are still undimmed by success—should it come in God's mercy— determine that we will have no sowing of the dragon's teeth. By this we mean that the terms of peace shall not include such ruthless negations of human rights as the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. In the last resort it was the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine that produced the situation that has ended in this awful war. If the Germans had never annexed provinces which did not want to be annexed, France could soon have got over the war of 1870, would not have stood always en vedette, would not have caused that sense of dread in Germany which her defenders now tell us, with a fine unconscious humour, was the real cause of the present war. (According to this theory, we and the French frightened the poor harmless, peace-loving Germans and their sensitive Emperor so terrifically that we drove them into war, and therefore, if anybody is to blame, it is not the German Emperor, but the French and English peoples.) We must strive, then, that there shall be no tearing away of unwilling provinces from any State, either out of revenge or on account of supposed military needs. It was Moltke and the General Staff who insisted on Alsace and Lorraine being taken when Bismarck somewhat inclined in the opposite direction. Moltke thus showed that he did not realize that military considerations can never be so potent as moral ones, for in the widest sense the annexation, instead of strengthening Germany by say five army corps, weakened her by double that number. Everywhere the provinces that have been unwillingly attached to Germany—her annexations, in fact—have weakened her. That is true of Schleswig-Holstein. It is true of Prussian Poland. It is true in the supremest sense of Alsace-Lorraine. To put the matter in a nutshell, we must not manufacture moral explosives by detaching provinces that do not want to be detached. Restoring provinces that are longing for restoration is, of course, altogether another matter. But perhaps it will be said once more that we do wrong in speculating upon such matters. We agree that we should deserve ridicule and coirdemnation if we were to begin dividing the lion's skin before the lion was beaten. None realizes better than we do, not only that the lion may not be beaten, but that he may beat us. All we say is that, in the chastened hour of expectancy, we must resolve that the part we will play, even if things go as well as we could desire them to go, will be as far as possible the part of moderation and of good sense and of the avoidance of dangers to come. As a nation we may fairly resolve, according to our ability, to do the right thing and the wise thing and to secure the future. Even though all our good resolves turn out a dream, we shall be none the worse, nay, infinitely the better, for having aimed at what is just and sound and reasonable.
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