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GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR

and children in Antwerp, the scattering of mines in the North Sea and the tribute exacted from Brussels and Liege in defiance of the humane spirit of the age. The German Ambassador ought not to regret that the cutting of the cable has made it difficult for news to reach America; rather he ought to pray that other cables may be quickly cut, so that no further knowledge of German atrocities can reach the United States.

Count von Bernstorff professes not to be able to understand English enmity and cannot find any justification for it, although he acknowledges England has long been jealous of Germany's increasing prosperity and her growing navy. It is curious what tricks memory plays. For years Germany — not her people or individuals, but her officials and governing classes — has shown its dislike of England and offensively rattled the sabre in the sound of English ears. There was the Kaiser's telegram to Kruger, for instance; the obscene insults to the late Queen during the Boer war, the Kaiser's sneers and slurs at King Edward, the crisis precipitated over Agadir and the revenge he took in making France dismiss Delcassé.

It was these things and hundreds of others that made it so difficult for the well wishers and friends of Germany in England — and I have no apology to make for counting myself as one of them — to use their influence, much or little as the case might be, to bring about better relations with Germany. There is no military party in England. England, with the sole exception of the United States, is the one great Power that is not subordinate to the military. No Englishman wanted to go to war with Germany. No Englishman could see that there was anything to be gained by war with Germany. Time after time Germany gave us provocation and we kept our temper. Those of us who believe that war is usually a crime, the most insensate act nations can commit, believed that the German Emperor was too sensible of his obligations to his people and posterity, too wise not to recognize the desperate risk he took in plunging Europe into war when the honor of his country was not impugned nor national safety endangered.

The fact is the Kaiser held all too lightly the military power of Great Britain. He is an autocrat, a militarist, and therefore he cannot understand the aspirations and the motives of a democracy. That a country so powerful as Great Britain, with a world-flung Empire, should content itself with a standing army insignificant compared with the millions Germany is able to call to the colors; that it should rely for its defence on volunteers instead of resorting to conscription; that the civil and not the military power should be supreme — these things to the Kaiser were

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