Getting Together | Page 4

the Somme
have included, among other items, a chain of fortresses hitherto

considered impregnable, four or five hundred pieces of artillery,
fourteen hundred machine-guns, and about ninety-five thousand
unwounded German prisoners. Moreover, the French at Verdun have
regained in a few weeks all the ground that the Crown Prince wrested
from them, at 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 Liége?
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