* * * *
*
“If we, in a moment of unthinking panic, adopt
the advice of our militarists and develop an Army
based on universal service, we shall prepare for ourselves
the very situation in which Germany finds itself at
this moment. However much we may protest that
our aims are pacific, and that our Army is intended
only for defensive purposes, foreign nations will
view it with alarm, and will reflect that, by the help
of our Navy, we can land an armed force in any country
that has a sea coast. We shall thus incur the
risk of a coalition against us. It is said that
if we had had a conscript Army, the present war would
not have taken place. But it is not realized
that a different and far more dangerous war would
have been probable, a war in which we should have
had no continental Allies, but should have been resisted,
as Germany is being resisted, in order to relieve
Europe of an intolerable terror....
“In a word, of all the measures open to us to
adopt, none is so likely to bring us to disaster as
universal military service.”—By
Hon. Bertrand Russell (in “The Labour Leader,”
October 15, 1914).
* * * *
*
H.G. WELLS ON THE REGULATION OF ARMAMENTS AND
NEUTRALIZATION OF THE SEA.
“If there is courage and honesty enough in men,
I believe it will be possible to establish a world
Council for the regulation of armaments as the natural
outcome of this war. First, the trade in armaments
must be absolutely killed. And then the next
supremely important measure to secure the peace of
the world is the neutralization of the sea.
“It will lie in the power of England, France,
Russia, Italy, Japan, and the United States, if Germany
and Austria are shattered in this war, to forbid the
further building of any more ships of war at all.”—From
the “Daily Chronicle,” August 21, 1914.
* * * *
*
THE WAR AND DEMOCRACY.
“It will be necessary soon to consider the relations
of democracy to the war. The war is a war of
nationalities, but it was not made by peoples.
Its begetter was a comparatively small band of unscrupulous,
blind, and conceited persons, who were clever and
persistent enough to demoralize a whole people.
In so far as they permitted themselves to be demoralized
the people were to blame, but the chief blame lies
on the small band. Europe is laid waste, hundreds
of thousands of men murdered, and practically every
human being in the occidental hemisphere made to suffer,
not for the amelioration of a race, but in order to
satisfy the idiotic ambitions of a handful. Let
not this fact be forgotten. Democracy will not
forget it. And foreign policy in the future will
not be left in the hands of any autocracy, by whatever
specious name the autocracy may call itself.
Ruling classes have always said that masses were incapable
