The War-Guilt Question The new controversy on the war-guilt question
pre- cipitated by the Archbishop of York's Geneva sermon is, on the whole, salutary, but it serves no good purpose to suggest, as Sir Austen Chamberlain did a week ago, that
the Archbishop had declared all nations to be equally guilty. He, in fact, said no more than that no single nation had -a monopoly of guilt or a monopoly of inno- - cence. To declare that our own nation was so completely free from fault throughout that it can afford with a clear conscience to cast the first stone is neither true nor wholesome, though it may justly be contended that less responsibility attaches to Great Britain for what happened in 1914 than to any of the earlier belligerents, except perhaps Belgium. To label Germany for ever as the sole guilty party (except for her Allies), is an equal offence against truth and foments a spirit completely antagonistic
to the restoration of true peace. * * * *
Previous page
