The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife eBook
Edward Carpenter
each other. Racial and religious wars will no
doubt for long continue; but wars to satisfy the ambitions
of a military clique or a personal ruler, or the ambitions
of a commercial group, or the schemes of financiers,
or the engineering of the Press—wars from
these all too fruitful causes will, under a sensible
Democracy, cease. If Britain, during the last
twenty years, had really favoured the cause of the
People and their international understanding, there
would have been no war now, for her espousal of the
mass-peoples’ cause would have made her so strong
that it would have been too risky for any Government
to attack her. But of course that could not have
happened, for the simple reason that Conservatism
and Liberalism are not Democracy. Conservatism
is Feudalism, Liberalism is Commercialism, and Socialism
only is in its essence Democracy. It is no good
scolding at Sir Edward Grey for making friends with
the Russian Government; for his only alternative would
have been to join the “International”—which
he certainly could not do, being essentially a creature
of the commercial regime. The “Balance
of Power” and the ententes and alliances
of Figure-head Governments had to go on, till
the day—which we hope is at hand—when
Figure-heads will be no more needed.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Reprinted by kind permission from the English
Review for December, 1914.
[3] As an example of this belief, read the manifesto
of Professor Eucken, who represents such a large section
of German opinion, and note the absolute sincerity
of its tone—as well as its simplicity.
[4] Wars and Capitalism, by P. Kropotkin. (Freedom
Press.)
[5] See Nash’s Magazine for October,
1914, article by “Diplomatist.”
[6] Ibid.
[7] In order to realize how easy such a process is,
we have only to remember the steps by which the outbreak
of the Boer War in 1899 was engineered.
[8] Of course we must remember that there has been
all along and is now in Germany a very large party,
Socialist and other, which has not been thus
carried away; but for the moment its mouth is closed
and it cannot make itself heard.
[9] See Kropotkin’s War and Capitalism,
p. 12.
[10] See note infra on “Commercial Prosperity,”
p. 167. (Chapter XI below)
IV
THE CASE AGAINST GERMANY;
November, 1914.
With every wish to do justice to Germany, to whose
literature I feel I owe such a debt, and among whose
people I have so many personal friends; allowing also
the utmost for the general causes in Europe which have
been for years leading up towards war—and
some of which I have indicated already in the pages
above—I still feel it is impossible not
to throw on her the immediate blame for the
present catastrophe.
