To think that nations who consider themselves civilized should be thus acting: so contrary to the natural laws and instincts of humanity that often in order for a bayonet charge men must be primed with liquor to the verge of intoxication .
We need not go further.
Of the three great nations primarily involved those indeed of which we can speak most confidently, knowing them best -- it is intolerable to think they should thus mutilate and destroy each other.
All we can say is: Never again must this thing happen!
When one thinks of the whole dread Coil and Entanglement, and, what it is for, the mind reels in despair.
When one thinks of the marvellous scientific ingenuity and skill, directed in a kind of diabolic concentration on the one purpose of slaughter.
Of the huge guns, the 12.5's, weighing 40 tons apiece, and boxed and rifled to the nicety of the thousandth part of an inch (I have watched them being made at Sheffield).
Of the larger 15 in. guns, with range of 13 or 14 miles, so accurate that the shells thrown at that distance will deviate hardly a couple of yards to the right hand or the left of their line of fire (and in the Jutland battle the firing opened at nearly 11 miles).
Of the still larger guns even now being constructed.
Of the shells themselves varying from a few pounds to nearly, a ton in weight, and so delicately fashioned that the moment of their explosion can be positively timed to the tenth part of a second:
When one thinks of the ingenuity put into aeroplanes and airships, and almost entirely with a view to the destruction of life;Of the automatic steering of submarine torpedoes by means of gyroscopes, so that when deviated by any obstacle or accident from their set course they will actually return of themselves to that course again;Of the everlasting duel going on in any one country between armour plates and projectiles but of course always between the armour plates of one firm and the projectiles of another (since obviously for any one firm to prove its own inferiority in either line would be bad business)!
Of the competition even now in progress between the Russian universities for the invention of a new explosive or a new gas more devastating than any hitherto produced;Of the weighty Advisory Committee of scientific Experts sitting permanently in Britain for the discussion and handling of the technical problems of the War;When one thinks of what a Paradise all this ingenuity, all this expenditure of labour and treasure, might make of our mortal Earth -- if it were only decently employed;That Great Britain alone has already spent on the War enough to provide every family in the whole kingdom with a comfortable cottage and an acre of land;When further one thinks of all the mass of human material there is, such as we have already described -- of the very finest quality, and fit to build the most splendid races and cities "the sun ever shone upon" -- and then that it is being used for these utterly senseless purposes;How heart-rending the waste and the folly! How disgusting the sin of those who are responsible!
But to-day surely the armies themselves of these three countries are beginning to see through the illusions which have been dangled before then so long by those in power -- the "My-country -- right-or-wrong"kind of Patriotism which has so often been evoked only in order to serve the plots of private schemers;They are surely beginning to see that the directing of State-policy and foreign relations must no longer be left in the hands of a few highborn diplomats (mostly ignorant of the actual modern world amid which they live), but must be subject to the severest scrutiny and surveillance by the people at large and their representatives;They are beginning to see that if courage, devotion to an Idea, love of the Father- or Mother-land, Fidelity of comrade to comrade, Efficiency, daring in Adventure, exactness in Organization, and so forth, are the qualities which in the past have made the profession of arms great and glorious, it is these very qualities which will be demanded and evoked for all future time in the great free armies of Industry.
For with the cessation of Militarism as the leading principle of national life must inevitably come the liberation of Industry -- else the last state of our societies will indeed be worse than the first.
Truly there is nothing very exhilarating about Industry as it has in modern times been conceived, and one does not altogether wonder that all down the centuries the man with the sword has despised the man with the hoe, since the latter has generally been little better than a slave.
