TOPICS OF THE DAY.
JUSTICE AND SECURITY.
WE do not wonder that Mr. Asquith's speech in the house of Commons on Wednesday night created a profound impression, both on those who heard it and upon the millions who have read it. The nation always finds in the Prime Minister's public declarations sanity and moderation of view, conveyed in clear and stately language, language never calculated to prejudice an oppo- nent. There was, however, something far beyond these qualities in the speech on the terms of peace. Mr. Asquith has been accused, falsely as we have always believed and contended, of indifference to the perils of the situation, and of inability to see the war in its true proportions— of intellectual inertia, or even indolence, in regard to the issues of the conflict. Those who have been misled by his detractors into balding such views cannot but have been reassured by Wednesday's speech. It must have dispersed, we trust for good and all, those suspicions of supineness.
Mr. Asquith's restatement of the terms in which at the very beginning of the war he laid down the lines on which we would alone make peace must not be spoilt by summary's We quote it verbatim :— .
" The hon. Member said : Why do you not state your full terms of peace ? ' I have stated in clear, direct, explicit, and emphatic language what are the terms upon which we, in this country, are prepared to make peace, and I will repeat them to-day. At the very beginning of the war, on November 9th, 1914;1 used this language —it is very familiar to this House, it is famili to our Allies, it is familiar to our enemies, it is known by nobody better than by the German Chancellor, who chose to pervert and misrepresent it. I repeat it to-day : We shall never sheathe the sword, which we have not lightly drawn, until Belgium '—and I will add Serbia— 'recovers in full measure all, and more than all,which she has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured against the menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon an unassailable foundation, and until the military domination of Prussia '—this is the language I used—' is wholly and finally destroyed.' I ask my hon. friend who has just sat down, and I ask the German Chancellor, what is there wanting in clearness or direct- ness in these terms ? How can I make it more full ? How can I -make it more intelligible ? How can I or any one do more to convince bin), and to convince all our enemies, that not until a peace based up an these foundations is within sight and attainable, not until then shall we or any of our gallant Allies abate by one jot our prosecution cf this war Y "
If the conditions upon which we are willing to make peace are to be summarized, they cannot be summarized better than by the words Justice and Security. It is for these that we and our Allies are fighting. These are the signs in which we shall win. We do not believe, and never have believed, in the talk about the nation coming out of the war ruined and crippled, and with no capacity left in us to rebuild our civilization. On the contrary, we arc convinced that when the war is over the nation will go forward with renewed energy, not only on the moral and intellectual but on the economic plane. When the storm:is past we shall find that not only do the oak-tree's roots hold as firmly as ever, but that not a healthy branch hai been lost, though, to our advantage, some rotten ones may have been carried away by the gale. In addition, we shall have gained the priceless knowledge that we can stand and weather even the most terrific of hurricanes. Two years ago was the day of the croaker and the pessimist. They told us that We were drowned in security, sunk in materialism, a- race •grown soft and sentimental, incapable of self-sacrifice, and thinking only of luxury and pleasure. Superficially and apparently they could point to many evil things in support of their theories. We did appear to be -feeding ourselves upon emasculating food. We seemed not only somnolent, but incapable -of- awakening. But .who dares to say such things now ? We are not only awake, • but, what is quite as important, we realize the -dangers from which we have escaped. We have laid the beSt and surest foundations, on which we shall rise even greater than before. The war of the nations is going to make us not only a new but a nobler and a stronger nation.
But even if this should not he true and the pessimists are.,right, and if it should be that we have to drag along with a broken wing for two or three generations, crushed . With- debt and distracted by the social and political diffi- culties which follow in the track of commercial depression, the war will still have been well worth while. It is better a thousand times to be free and in rags, to live at liberty in a ruin, than to endure the chain of oppression, sleek and well fed in a Prussian sty.
We shall not say anything now in regard to the speeches of Mr. Snowden and Mr. Trevelyan. The Prime Minister here left nothing to be said. His reply was very short, but- it was comprehensive and conclusive. On the speech of Mr. Ponsonby, who followed the Prime Minister, we must, however, find space for a few lines of comment. It was, he declared, the duty of the nation " to consider the com- munity of nations, and not merely to stipulate for advan- tages for itself and its friends." Of course that is our duty, and that is exactly what Mr. Ponsonby would recog- nize as the true meaning of the Prime Minister's declaration if only he could clear his mind of cant—the cant of self- consciousness, self-sufficiency, and sell-righteousness. H. has plenty of pity for the felon hawk, but none for the birds that are its prey. What consideration did the community of nations receive from Germany, or from any section of the German people, as long as Germany seemed to be winning ? That is one of the most sinister and evil facts of the situation. As long as Germany was apparently on the road to victory, the still small voice of • the Socialists was entirely hushed. With one or two minute if highly honourable exceptions, the German Socialists not only refrained from protesting against the policy of frightfulness, but gave their active support and sympathy in the Reichstag to the men who were crushing Belgium and Northern France beneath the iron heel— to the slayers of hostages and the ravishers of women. Now, however, that the shoe is beginning to pinch, that victory seems remote, and that there is a feeling of menace and retribution in the air, the German Socialist Party are beginning to recollect themselves. To taunt us and our Allies for showing want of consideration for the community of nations when our avowed task is to restore to that community Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro is a ricce of fatuous impudence from which the mind recoils in disgust. Even worse is the sordid innuendo that we are stipulating for advantages for ourselves and our friends. Is martyred Belgium not to be taken down from the cross, Serbia not to have amends made to her for the agonies she has suffered, because they are the friends of England and the Allies ? Is the crime of our goodwill to forfeit them all human sympathy, to put them outside the pale for Mr. Ponsonby and his associates ? Once again, if Mr. Ponsonby could only forget for a little his prepossession that his country is always selfish, sordid, vile, and predatory, he could not fail to note that not a single voice here has been raised in favour of our taking anything for ourselves—except that which we must take to give security to our Dutch and English fellow-subjects of the South African. Union. That we are not going to sacrifice them on a punctilio, and allow the danger which might easily have destroyed them to exist any longer, we admit. If Mr. Ponsonby calls this "advan- tages for ourselves and our friends," we can only say that his morbid habit of exalting his own virtues at the expense of those of his countrymen has in truth deranged his under- standing. And yet we may borrow a phrase from him. " The settlement to which we are all looking forward is one in which the interests of the people and not the ambitions of Governments will be the preponderating consideration." If ever there was a case in which the ambitions of Govern- ments brought misery upon the world, it was the ambition of Germany and Austria, ambitions into whose poisoned circle have later been drawn the military caste of Turkey and the sordid political huckster who sits upon the Bulgarian throne. Unless it is ambitious to desire to defend oneself, to set oneself free from the menace of slavery, to escape from ' Prussian and Austrian tyranny, to wish for security and independence, there has been no ambition in the policy or the action of the Allies. We have defended ourselves against the force and fraud of the oppressor, and have helped others to do the same. That is the sin which Mr. Ponson by, Mr. Trevelyan, and Mr. Snowden cannot find it in their hearts to forgive.
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