Never Again! | Page 7

in their trenches thirty or forty yards away, put up a blackboard on which was written: "The English are fools!" The board was of course peppered with bullets, and went drown. Presently it reappeared with "The French are fools!" written on it. Being duly peppered again it went down, and came up with "The Russians are fools!" Same treatment. But when it, or a similar board, appeared for the fourth time, lo! the inscription was "The Austrians are fools!"; and when it appeared for the fifth time, "The Germans are fools!"; and the sixth time, "We are all fools!"
I don't think there could be much better sense than that.
And to think that the insane policy of a Government or Governments should bring about the wholesale slaughter of such mien as all these that I have described.
To think that the longer such a war goes on, the less heroic and generous it becomes, and the more dominated by hatred and revenge -- by the wish to score a military victory or the desire to secure mere political and commercial advantages.
To think that nations who consider themselves civilized should be thus acting: so contrary to the natural laws and instincts of humanity that often in order for a bayonet charge men must be primed with liquor to the verge of intoxication .
We need not go further.
Of the three great nations primarily involved those indeed of which we can speak most confidently, knowing them best -- it is intolerable to think they should thus mutilate and destroy each other.
All we can say is: Never again must this thing happen!
When one thinks of the whole dread Coil and Entanglement, and, what it is for, the mind reels in despair.
When one thinks of the marvellous scientific ingenuity and skill, directed in a kind of diabolic concentration on the one purpose of slaughter.
Of the huge guns, the 12.5's, weighing 40 tons apiece, and boxed and rifled to the nicety of the thousandth part of an inch (I have watched them being made at Sheffield).
Of the larger 15 in. guns, with range of 13 or 14 miles, so accurate that the shells thrown at that distance will deviate hardly a couple of yards to the right hand or the left of their line of fire (and in the Jutland battle the firing opened at nearly 11 miles).
Of the still larger guns even now being constructed.
Of the shells themselves varying from a few pounds to nearly, a ton in weight, and so delicately fashioned that the moment of their explosion can be positively timed to the tenth part of a second:
When one thinks of the ingenuity put into aeroplanes and airships, and almost entirely with a view to the destruction of life;
Of the automatic steering of submarine torpedoes by means of gyroscopes, so that when deviated by any obstacle or accident from their set course they will actually return of themselves to that course again;
Of the everlasting duel going on in any one country between armour plates and projectiles but of course always between the armour plates of one firm and the projectiles of another (since obviously for any one firm to prove its own inferiority in either line would be bad business)!
Of the competition even now in progress between the Russian universities for the invention of a new explosive or a new gas more devastating than any hitherto produced;
Of the weighty Advisory Committee of scientific Experts sitting permanently in Britain for the discussion and handling of the technical problems of the War;
When one thinks of what a Paradise all this ingenuity, all this expenditure of labour and treasure, might make of our mortal Earth -- if it were only decently employed;
That Great Britain alone has already spent on the War enough to provide every family in the whole kingdom with a comfortable cottage and an acre of land;
When further one thinks of all the mass of human material there is, such as we have already described -- of the very finest quality, and fit to build the most splendid races and cities "the sun ever shone upon" -- and then that it is being used for these utterly senseless purposes;
How heart-rending the waste and the folly! How disgusting the sin of those who are responsible!
But to-day surely the armies themselves of these three countries are beginning to see through the illusions which have been dangled before then so long by those in power -- the "My-country -- right-or-wrong" kind of Patriotism which has so often been evoked only in order to serve the plots of private schemers;
They are surely beginning to see that the directing of State-policy and foreign relations must no longer be left in the hands of a few highborn diplomats (mostly ignorant of the actual modern world amid which they live), but must be