" THE GERMAN CHARACTER AND BRITISH APATHY." (To THE EDITOR
or THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sat,—I agree with every word of your able article on " How Not to Do It." My previous letter (August 3rd) was a plea for some sense of proportion on the part of those who, like the writer of the article under the above heading, appear to regard every man, woman, and child in Germany as hopelessly vile. In spite of the atrocities of the German Army, and the brutal treatment of prisoners by some nurses and civilians, there is surely yet no proof forthcoming that there are not others who, in their heart of hearts, if they believed such things to be true, would con- demn them as ruthlessly as we ourselves do, to whom the proof is only too clear. If that is not so, we must lose hope that Germany will ever see the error of her ways, and there will be nothing for it, after defeating her, but to form a gigantic convict settlement, if civilization is to be safe. The real criminals are the ruling caste, otherwise the descendants of the fourteen hundred princely families who ruled each their own little State at the time of the French Revolution, and who have subordinated education, the Church, and Government to their own vile ends by means known to every student of history.
My old Berlin friend Mr. W. H. Dawson, whose book, Problems of the Peace, and whose article in this month's Contemporary Review should be read by every one, writes to me:— " Those who, like you and myself, know the Germans by experi- ence, know that much unfair generalization is current, and that in that nation are noble characters, as well as the reverse... What is hard to understand is that, so far as we know, there has been so little open protest in Germany against the terrible brutalities of which her war-makers have been guilty."
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