Getting Together | Page 4

the price of half a million German casualities, in the spring. German colonies have ceased to exist; German foreign trade is dead; the German navy is cooped up in Kiel harbour; and Germany is so short of men that she has resorted to outrageous deportations from Belgium in order to obtain industrial labour. On the other hand, our supply of munitions now, at the opening of 1917, is double what it was six months ago, and our new armies are not yet all in the field. The British Navy, despite all losses, has increased enormously both in tonnage and personnel. So I don't think we are fought to a standstill yet.
"Yes, you are right. All this bloodshed is dreadful. But responsibility for bloodshed rests not with the people who end a war but with the people who began it. As for discussing terms of peace now, what terms could be arranged which Germany could be relied upon to observe a moment longer than suited her? Have you forgotten the way the War was forced on the world by Prussian militarism? The trick played on Russia over mobilization? The violation of Belgian neutrality? Malines, Termonde, Louvain? The official raping in the market-place at Li��ge? The Lusitania? Edith Cavell? The Zeppelin murders? Chlorine gas? The deportations from Belgium and Lille? Wittenburg typhus camp, where men were left to rot, without doctors, or medicine, or bedding? How can one talk of "honourable peace" with such a gang of criminal lunatics? Ask yourself who would be such a fool as to propose to end a war upon terms which left the safety of the world exposed to the prospect of another outbreak from the same source?
"You, sir? Why can't you people in England be a bit kinder in their tone to us here in America? Ah, now you are talking! Let us get away from this crowd and go into the matter--get together, as you say."
CHAPTER FOUR
So the average Briton and the average American retire to a secluded spot, and "get together." The American repeats his question:
"Why can't your people over there be a bit kinder? Why can't you consider our feelings a bit more? You haven't been over and above polite to us of late--or indeed at any time."
"No," admits the Briton thoughtfully, "I suppose we have not. Politeness is not exactly our strong suit. In my country we are not even polite to one another!" (Try as he will, he cannot help saying this with just the least air of pride and satisfaction.) "But I admit that that is no reason why we should be impolite to other nations. The fact is, being almost impervious to criticism ourselves, we naturally find it difficult to avoid wounding the feelings of a people which is particularly sensitive in that respect."
"Very well," replies the American. "Now, we want to put this right, don't we?"
"We do," replies the other, with quite un-British enthusiasm. "No one who has spent any time as a visitor to this country could help----"
"Why then, tell me," interpolates the other, "what is at the back of your country's present resentful attitude toward America?"
The Briton ponders.
"Didn't someone once say," he replies at last, "that 'he that is not for us is against us?' That seems to sum up the situation. We on our side are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the freedom of the world. We know that you are not against us; still, considering the sacredness of our cause, and the monstrous means by which the Boche is seeking to further his, we feel that you have not stood for us so out and out as you might. Only the other day your Government announced that in their opinion it was time that both sides stated plainly what they were fighting for! Now----"
The other checks him.
"Don't you go mixing up the officially neutral American Government," he says, "with the American people, or the American people with the inhabitants of America. In many districts of America, the balance of power lies with people who have only recently entered the country, and who have not yet become absorbed into the American people. As for our present Government, it was put into power mainly by the people of the West--people to whom the War has not come home in any way--and the Government, having to consider the wishes of the majority, naturally carries out the instructions on its ticket. That is how I, as an average American, sense the situation. However, that is not the point. Listen!
"You say that America has not helped you very much? Let us consider the ways in which America could have helped. Military aid? Well, of course that is out of the question so long as we remain neutral, as we agreed just now we certainly ought to remain.