TOPICS OF THE DAY.
SOPHISTRY AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
CRO.MWELL implored the Presbyterian ministers in Edinburgh to think it possible that they might be mistaken. If men so much bemused with sophistry and self-righteousness as Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Charles Trevelyan, Mr. Norman Angell, Mr. E. D. Morel, and Mr. Arthur Ponsonby are at this moment will deign to listen to a newspaper which no doubt from their intellectual heights they regard as an "anti- German rag," we would urge them to think it possible that they may be mistaken. We would also in all sincerity urge them to think it possible, though they may think it by no means likely, that their country may be in the right, and possible, too, that there may be Englishmen and Scotsmen besides themselves who have some respect for humane feelings, for peace, for liberty, and for national rights. Further, we would urge them to try to consider it possible that one may be opposed to Germany without having a base, bloody, and brutal nature ; that to be determined to beat the Germans does not necessarily stamp one as an enemy of the human race; and that one may think it obligatory to destroy the Prussian military caste without harbouring any ill-feeling towards the German people as a whole and without any desire to see them destroyed as a nation. In the document which the five gentlemen we have just named put forward on Friday week they laid down four points which they consider should inspire "the actual conditions of peace and should dominate the situation after peace has been declared." These four points, we may observe contain things which are new and things which are sound, but unfortunately the things which are sound are not new, and the things which are new are not sound. The first and most important of the four conditions runs as follows :— " No province shall be transferred from one Government to another without the consent by plebiscite of the population of such province."
This is a somewhat curious proposition, by the way, to come from those who were furious at the notion of a plebiscite being taken of the Province of Ulster before she was transferred from the Government at Westminster to the Government at Dublin. But let that pass. The whole tone of the MacDonald-Ponsonby manifesto is to suggest that no one but these five self-righteous sophists and their followers have ever before thought of such a proposition as that we must not make fresh Alsace-Lorrames. They, noble, far-seeing creatures that they are, have, it is indirectly insinuated, a patent, or even monopoly, in humanitarianism. Yet, as a matter of fact, the bloody- minded Spectator had set forth this very condition five weeks before this manifesto appeared. For example, on August 15th we wrote as follows :- " But suppose, as in the end we are confident 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 difficultduty, 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, however great, to let the peace, when it comes, be merely a truce, a peace which shall have 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 wo 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 un- willing 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 con- siderations 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. Every- where the provinces that had 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."
With the other three propositions of the manifesto we shall not trouble to deal in detail. They are academie plans for giving what the signatories call more " democratic control of foreign policy," which in reality means more power of talk for private Members. The manifesto says that the foreign policy of Great Britain shall not be aimed at creating alliances for maintaining the balance of power, but shall be directed to the establishment of a Concert of Europe. As to this proposition, we only desire to ask what is to happen if the democracy in control say they prefer main- taining the balance of power to the establishment of the Concert of Europe. It does not by any means follow that what the five gentlemen who signed the manifesto think to-day the democracy will think to-morrow. It is much more likely that the democracy will never think any- thing of the kind. Finally, Great Britain is somewhat peremptorily ordered to propose a plan for the drastic reduction of armaments—a plan which, as far as we can judge, partakes of the nature of peace secured by the threat of war. Of this we need only say that at the end of the great war with Napoleon the Holy Alliance was formed on similar lines of peace by international agree- ment, and that it ended in one of the most hideous attempts to set up a tyranny enforced by the bayonet that the world has ever seen. But though we are not going to trouble our readers with discussing these academic propositions, we must say a word in regard to the preliminary circular signed by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Norman Angell, and Mr. Morel which was published in the Morning Post on Thursday, September 10th. This letter sets forth, amongst other things, that it is the object of the signatories " To aim at securing such terms that this war will not, either through the humiliation of the defeated nation, or an artificial rearrangement of frontiers, merely become the starting-point for new national antagonisms and future wars."
It goes on to say that " when the time is ripe for it, but not before the country is secure from danger, meetings will be organized and speakers provided." Meanwhile
"the immediate need is, in our opinion, to prepare for the issue of books, pamphlets, and leaflets dealing with the course of recent policy and suggesting the lines of action for the future. Measures are being taken to prepare these at once, and they will be ready for publication when the proper opportunity occurs. For this purpose we shall be glad of any subscription which you can spare, and would like to know if you are willing to support us in this effort, in order that we may communicate with you as occasion arises."
The essential part of this foolish circular is, of course, the protest against the humiliation of the defeated nation- i.e., Germany, for the poor Austrians seem already to be thrown to the wolves by our admirers of culture as practised by the German Government, the German General Staff, and the German Army, and supported by so large a contingent of German professors and men of education. As a matter of fact, though we ardently desire to see the German military caste overthrown, both for the sake of European peace and for the sake of the rights of the German people, we have no wish whatever to humiliate Germany or the German nation. To speak the plain truth, it is utterly impossible for the British nation or for any combination of nations to humiliate another nation. Dr. Johnson said well that no man was ever written down except by himself. It is even more true that no nation was ever humiliated except by itself. What will humiliate Germany if she is to be humiliated will not be defeat or any terms of peace imposed upon her, but simply and solely her own action in beginning the war and waging the war in the way she has waged it. What has humiliated Germany has been her secret pre- parations for war, her backing up of Austria's monstrous persecution of Servia, and, worst of all, her refusal to allow Austria to back out when she grew frightened at her own action. What could be more humiliating than her violation of the neutrality of unhappy Belgium, or her odious appeal to Britain not to run risks for a word like " neutrality " or for " a scrap of paper" like a treaty ? Here, indeed, was humiliation deep and lasting. But deeper humiliation still is to be found in the flames of Louvain, in the cry that goes up from the women and children dead in nameless graves, in the agony of blighted lives. It is to be found in the thousands of wretched townsmen and peasants shot, not for anything they had done themselves, but because some half-maddened countryman, against all their hopes and wishes, had in a moment of frenzy discharged a shot-gun from a backyard or an upper window. It is through crimes such as these that Germany stands, and must stand, humiliated before the whole civilized world. War has not been waged on such terms since, to the horror of mankind, Louis XIV. gave up the Palatinate to military execution. Germany has returned to the barbarism of the seventeenth century, and must suffer the humiliation which an individual suffers when he allows his temper to betray him into some act of primitive savagery. Here is Germany's humiliation. Not all the sophistry and self-righteousness of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Norman Angell, Mr. E. D. Morel, and Mr. Arthur Ponsonby will ever persuade us, or ever persuade the British people, that such humiliation is due, not to German action, but to that innate wickedness and brutality which those gentlemen are so much inclined to see in the words and acts of their own countrymen. In secret plots, in violated treaties, in Conventions for the reduction of the barbarity of war set aside with cynical indifference, in ruined cities, in burning villages, in murdered men and tortured women—it is here that Germany's humiliation is to be found. It is from the humiliation of a hundred acts such as these that we, and indeed the whole world, are powerless to save her.
Perhaps we shall be asked what people with the views of the five signatories to the manifesto are to do. Their natures are critical; they must be abusing somebody. They cannot abuse the Germans because that might add to the humiliation of the German nation. Therefore their activities must be expended upon criticizing, either directly or indirectly, openly or by implication, the action of their fellow-countrymen. Personally we are all for criticism, because we regard it as the antiseptic of con- duct ; but criticism, to be effective, should be sympathetic and not antagonistic. Unfortunately the sophists and the self-righteous, though no doubt their intentions are excellent, find it impossible to be sympathetic—at any rate with their fellow-countrymen. Sympathy overflows for an antagonist or an outsider of almost any sort—as long as he is not a Russian—but in the case of their own flesh and blood criticism always becomes censure. We do not ask, of course, for the sympathy of approbation, but merely for the sympathy of comprehension. But that appears to be a sealed book. Still, the problem remains, what are gentlemen like these five signatories to do in the present case? We will suggest something to keep them from the mischief which Satan specially provides for idle hands at times of great national crisis. Why should not they devote themselves to an honest study of war as waged on the principles of the German General Staff, as illustrated by recent events, and compare those principles of action and the deeds flowing from them with the promises publicly made by Germany at the Hague. Then let them see if they cannot find some system for the better binding of nations to the right conduct of war. Probably our advice will fall upon deaf ears, and the gentlemen whom we have been addressing, wrapping themselves in their intellectual self-sufficiency, will merely look down with pitying annoy- ance on what they will term the Philistine vulgarity of the Spectator.
We desire, however, to give them a final word of advice, and that is to be very careful from whom they take sub- scriptions to their movement. We are quite sure that their intentions are perfectly patriotic, and that nothing would horrify them more than to receive pecuniary support which came ultimately from the German secret service funds. Yet we feel convinced that if they are not very careful they will get it in various indirect ways. We do not mean by this that anybody with a German name will propose to send them money ; but that such money will come at third or fourth hand, sometimes anonymously, sometimes with apparently the best possible credentials, we feel sure. In the end they are only too likely to experience the humiliation of discovering that there is a ledger entry in Berlin of the sum over which they will have purred with satisfaction as coming from some noble humanitarian in Aberdeen or Belfast. We are bound to admit, of course, that this danger need not stop men from doing something which they sincerely and conscientiously believe to be right. It is, however, even from their point of view, a danger to be avoided, and, as we have said, they will if they are wise be very vigilant. That those who control the German secret service funds in this country will only be too anxious to get money into the hands of our self-righteous sophists and stimulate their enterprise is obvious. Quite apart from the question whether they are morally in the right, it is clear that their propaganda will be of supreme use to the German Government, and may help to sow that dissension among the Allies for which all German politicians and diplomatists are now so eagerly working. And small blame to them. From their point of view, nothing could be more useful than to have public opinion here tuned to tell our Allies that this or that safeguard must not be demanded of Germany lest it should be regarded as a humiliation by a noble and cultured nation.
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