■^^1
 
 I DM' 
 
 J
 
 MILITARISM AFTER 
 THE WAR
 
 I
 
 ^MILITARISM AFTER 
 THE WAR 
 
 By 
 
 Dr. V. H. RUTHERFORD 
 
 (m.P, tor BRENTFORD 1906-1910) 
 AUTHOR OF "commonwealth OR EMPIRE*' 
 
 LONDON : THE SWARTHMORE PRESS LTD. 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i
 
 First published in 1921 
 
 (All rights retoved)
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE HOUNDS OF HELL . . i '9 
 
 n. BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM — AFTER THE 
 
 WAR . . . . . '54 
 
 III. BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE HOUNDS OF 
 
 HELL . . . . . .81 
 
 IV. LABOUR AND THE REMEDY FOR EMPIRE . . 106 
 
 V. HOW? ...... 163 
 
 VI. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS .... 187
 
 r 1 
 
 i
 
 Militarism After the War 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 
 
 Now tell us all about the War, 
 
 And what they fought each other for. 
 
 To the future historian must be left the difficult 
 task of apportioning the balance of criminality 
 for the Great War. Here and now we can only 
 set out the general aims of the Great Powers 
 which inevitably led up to the conflagration of 
 1914. 
 
 ImperiaHsm, which we may define as the ambition 
 to form an Empire by force and Militarism, which 
 may be defined as the machine to make, extend 
 and keep an Empire, have been accepted by states- 
 men and diplomatists throughout all time as part 
 and parcel of the order of things. In these affairs 
 of " high pohcy," the peoples have practically never 
 been consulted, and with the exception of a few 
 philosophers and saints the morality of Imperiahsm
 
 10 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and Militarism has never been called in question 
 until recent days. Mr. Gladstone, for instance, in 
 1884 said, " If Germany is to become a colonizing 
 Power, all I can say is, God speed her ! She becomes 
 our ally and partner in the execution of the great 
 purposes of Providence for the advantage of Man- 
 kind." Following in his footsteps, Mr. J. Chamber- 
 lain declared, " If foreign nations are determined to 
 pursue distant Colonial enterprises, we have no right 
 to prevent them " ; and Sir Edward Grey in 1911, 
 referring to Germany, said, "If it is the wise poHcy 
 not to go in for great schemes of expansion our- 
 selves, then I think it would be morally and diplo- 
 matically wrong to indulge in a dog-in-the-manger 
 pohcy with regard to others." Behold the great 
 leaders of Liberahsm and Toryism giving their 
 blessing and sanction to Imperialism. For Germans 
 to build up an Empire in China and South- West 
 Africa by murdering Chinamen and Africans was 
 " to become an ally and partner " with Great Britain 
 and France " in the execution of the great purposes 
 of Providence for the advantage of Mankind." 
 Had not Great Britain and France built Empires 
 also by murdering Chinamen, Africans, Boers, Moors, 
 Indians and Irishmen, all to the glory of God and 
 for the advantage of Mankind ? 
 
 Why is German Imperiahsm now the subject of 
 vilest denunciation and anathema by the successors 
 of Gladstone and Chamberlain and Grey ? Why the
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 11 
 
 quick change, the right-about-face ? Because Ger- 
 man Imperialism crossed British Imperialism, French 
 Imperialism and Russian Imperialism. As long as 
 Germany was satisfied with acquiring " spots in the 
 sun " outside the preserved precincts of the other 
 Imperial Powers, then all was well. Together they 
 could work hand-in-hand in ripping up China. 
 Separately they could tear Africa to pieces without 
 falling out amongst themselves until Germany felt 
 that she was not getting a fair share of the African 
 spoils, and that her commercial interests were being 
 jeopardized by the greed of England, France and 
 Italy in general, and France in particular. Whether 
 the Great War was nearly precipitated when British 
 Imperialism swallowed the Boer Republics and the 
 Kaiser sent his famous telegram to President Kriiger 
 is open to consideration. A few years later, in 1905, 
 when the German Emperor, in a speech at Tangier, 
 challenged the secret Anglo-Franco- Spanish under- 
 standing for the partition of Morocco, and again in 
 1911, when Germany despatched the Panther to 
 Agadir to protect her interests there, the European 
 storm almost burst. 
 
 Into the history of the sordid struggle for Morocco 
 between competing ImperiaHsm and Capitalism we 
 cannot fully enter here. It forms one of the saddest 
 and most revolting chapters in secret diplomacy 
 and Imperial perfidy. It is faithfully and fully 
 set out by Mr. Morel in Ten Years of Secret Diplo-
 
 12 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 macy with all its bearings upon the Great War. 
 To put it briefly : Defeated by Germany in the 
 Franco-German War, and forestalled by England in 
 the possession of Egypt and the Suez Canal, France 
 sought fresh fields of expansion and exploitation 
 in Africa and Asia, in which she was encouraged 
 at different times by Bismarck and Lansdowne. 
 Morocco, rich in minerals, lay next to her Algerian 
 Empire, and offered an easy and tempting prey. 
 The long-drawn-out feud between Great Britain 
 and France over Egypt, which nearly broke into 
 war about the Fashoda incident, was composed 
 by the Treaty in 1904, when each contracting party 
 declared that it would not obstruct the action of 
 the other in their respective conquests. At the 
 same time as this pubHc Treaty was made, England 
 entered into a secret arrangement with France and 
 Spain for the partition of Morocco between France 
 and Spain, Spain — as the weaker Power — to take 
 the coast opposite Gibraltar. On the protest of 
 the Kaiser, referred to above, a Conference of the 
 European Powers was held at Algeciras in 1906, 
 and the integrity and independence of Morocco and 
 the economic hberty of all nations in deahng with 
 Morocco was guaranteed by the Act of Algeciras. 
 Then followed financial strangulation, heavy taxa- 
 tion, civil war, and the occupation of Morocco by 
 French and Spanish troops, when Germany made 
 her second protest against the deUberate infraction
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 13 
 
 of the agreement reached at Algeciras, and demanded 
 compensation from France for the sacrifice of her 
 interests in Morocco, By the Franco-German Con- 
 vention of November 4, 191 1, Germany gave up 
 her interests in Morocco for 107,270 square miles 
 of the French Congo, ceding to France 6,450 square 
 miles of German territory in the Upper Cameroons, 
 whilst France added Morocco to her African Empire, 
 comprising 219,000 square miles and 8,000,000 Moors. 
 
 The painful revelations in all these tortuous 
 deaUngs are, that killing is no murder before the 
 conscience of Imperialism and Capitalism ; that the 
 European Powers did not recognize the PubHc 
 Right of Little Nations in Africa to live, however 
 much they later on professed to believe in the Right 
 of Belgium and Serbia to live ; that the spoiling 
 of the Egyptians by England was condoned by the 
 spoiUng of the Moors by France and Spain, and 
 the spoiHng of both by the spoiling of TripoHtans 
 by Italy, and the spoiUng of Egyptians, Moors 
 and TripoHtans by the spoihng of Congolese by 
 Germans ; that International Murder — the murder 
 of Little Nations by Big Empires — was no crime, 
 as long as the financial and territorial interests of 
 the Competing Empires were squared. 
 
 To those who beheve in Divine Retribution, the 
 Great War came as a just punishment upon Europe 
 for her devilry in Africa and Asia, and to teach 
 her that Imperialism was an offence against God
 
 14 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and Man. To Englishmen the patent fact stands 
 out that Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of State 
 for Foreign Affairs, and the British Government, 
 of which Mr. Lloyd George was an illustrious mem- 
 ber, backed the French Government in its murder of 
 Morocco, and risked plunging Europe into war. 
 
 Africa — the Partition of Africa— therefore, was one 
 bone of contention between the Imperial masters 
 of Europe which inevitably led up to Armageddon. 
 " They fought each other for " Africa, for a redis- 
 tribution of territory there, for markets and for 
 raw materials. As an outcome of the War and the 
 Peace, Germany has lost all her African Colonies, 
 whilst Great Britain and France have enormously 
 extended theirs. 
 
 If German lust for dominion had been limited 
 to Africa, one might safely conjecture that an 
 accommodation would have been arrived at with 
 Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, 
 Spain, etc., which would have avoided war between 
 them. Unfortunately, Prussia at an earHer date 
 was as badly bitten with Imperial expansion as 
 her neighbours. By force of arms she added unto 
 her territory Western Poland, Schleswig-Holstein and 
 Alsace and Lorraine. The acquisition of Alsace 
 and Lorraine, as fruits of the Franco-German War, 
 was a false step on the part of Germany, which 
 ultimately led to the Great War and her undoing. 
 
 Proud France, Imperial France, Economic France
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 15 
 
 could not accept the permanent loss of these pro- 
 vinces, so rich in mineral wealth, so entwined in 
 national Ufe and sentiment, and so valuable as a 
 miUtary recruiting ground. From the moment that 
 Bismarck snatched these territories from her, her 
 whole heart and mind was set on a war of revenge 
 for their recovery. French Imperial poHcy in the 
 years between 1871 and 1914, though often diverted 
 by foreign adventure in Africa, Asia and the Pacific 
 Isles, never forgot and always reverted to Alsace 
 and Lorraine. Slowly but surely she built up an 
 AlHance with Russia and an Entente Gordiale with 
 England. Alone, she knew that she was no match 
 for Germany. With the Russian steam-roller and 
 the British Navy, she felt that she was more 
 than a match for her enemy. Perhaps her African 
 acquisitions were also made with an eye to raising 
 native troops with which to win back her lost 
 provinces. 
 
 Hemmed in on all sides, on land by France and 
 Russia, and at sea by Great Britain, Germany on 
 her part made AlHances with Austria and Italy. 
 Thus Europe was divided into two armed camps, 
 and war became only a question of time and oppor- 
 tunity, although German diplomacy worked inces- 
 santly to break down the Franco-Russian Alhance. 
 
 So far as France was concerned, la piece de re- 
 sistance, the chief work, the crowning object of the 
 War, was Alsace and Lorraine. In the Great War
 
 16 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 they fought each other for Alsace and Lorraine. 
 If there had been no coal and iron there, the Capital- 
 ists would have done their best to prevent the War, 
 for Capitahsm knows no country, not even its own, 
 and national sentiment leaves it cold. 
 
 Coal as a goal in the Great War is slowly coming 
 to light. Both German Capitalists and French 
 CapitaHsts wanted more coal and iron than Nature 
 had bestowed upon their respective countries. The 
 coal-fields of the North of France and of Belgium 
 became part of the war-aims of Germany under the 
 all-powerful iniiuence of German Big Business, whilst 
 French Capitahsm coveted their neighbours' coal 
 and iron pits, and made M. Poincare inscribe them 
 in the Secret Treaty of 1917 with Russia as part of 
 the spoils of war. They were beautifully included 
 under the title of " Natural Frontier," which would 
 cover the coal of the Saar and Ruhr Valleys and the 
 iron of Lorraine. 
 
 In the negotiations with Germany about the 
 Indemnity, France made no secret of her aims. 
 Her poHcy was to raise the Indemnity beyond the 
 capacity of Germany to pay, so that the " sanctions " 
 of the Treaty of Versailles should come into opera- 
 tion and French troops should occupy the Ruhr 
 Valley, and French Capitahsm should exploit the 
 Westphahan coal-mines, probably to the point of 
 their exhaustion. 
 
 Coal also formed a powerful inducement in Poland's
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 17 
 
 seizure of Upper Silesia in contravention of the 
 Treaty of Versailles and in defiance of the Allies, 
 who had made so many sacrifices for her emanci- 
 pation. In this PoHsh coup the connivance of the 
 French Government was patent, its object being to 
 rob Germany of Silesian coal, zinc and iron mines, 
 and to hand them over to Poland, who would exploit 
 them with the aid of French Capital. 
 
 Besides African Colonies with their rich stores 
 of raw materials, and Alsace and Lorraine with 
 their vast accumulations of mineral wealth, what 
 else did they fight each other for ? 
 
 Into all the megalomaniac schemes of German 
 Imperialists one cannot go. Whether they had 
 visions of an Empire stretching from Antwerp to 
 Calcutta and Sumatra is idle to discuss. Whether 
 India was the real goal of Pan-German ambition 
 is purely speculative. India has always been the 
 Italy of Asia, the cynosure of Imperial eyes, the 
 object of rhythmic invasion. ImperiaHsts, like moths, 
 have always been caught by the glare of India. 
 British and French ImperiaHsts fought for the Star 
 of the East, when Britain won. Napoleon, never- 
 theless, revived French hopes of an Indian Empire, 
 and got as far as Egypt and Palestine. Baulked 
 in India, French ImperiaHsm turned to Siam, for 
 which war between France and England trembled 
 in the balance in Rosebery's time. How often 
 Great Britain and Russia have been on the brink 
 
 2
 
 18 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 of war for India is recorded in history. We only 
 mention these things to illuminate the common 
 aims and ambitions of the European Powers, and 
 to express no surprise if Germany was tempted as 
 well as the others. 
 
 What we are certain of is that Germany wanted 
 Mesopotamia with a " corridor " leading from her 
 own confines through Constantinople to Baghdad 
 and then, according to Lord Curzon, on to Persia 
 and India. Great Britain and France also wanted 
 Mesopotamia and other ill-considered trifles like 
 Cilicia, Syria, Palestine and Persia, while Russia was 
 intent on Constantinople, for which she had fought 
 before and was prepared to fight again, as well as 
 for choice bits of Asia Minor. 
 
 These four Great Powers, Germany (with Austria 
 as her brilliant second), Britain, France and Russia 
 (with Serbia as her spear-head), like vultures, had 
 been sitting round the bedside of " the sick man 
 of Europe " — the Turkish Empire — for a long time 
 impatiently awaiting his death, and, whenever occa- 
 sion occurred, picking off bits of his foul and super- 
 fluous flesh just to whet their insatiable appetites. 
 Great Britain, Austria and Russia had been particu- 
 larly attentive in this respect, Egypt and Cyprus 
 falling into the mouth of the first Power, Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina into that of Austria, and RoumeUa 
 and large parts of Macedonia into Bulgaria. Tired 
 of waiting and unable to restrain themselves any
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 19 
 
 longer, they pounced upon each other in mortal 
 combat " according to plan," converting this fair 
 earth into a bloody cockpit of which even his Satanic 
 Majesty might well be ashamed. 
 
 The Secret Treaties between Great Britain, France 
 and Russia revealed the aims of these Powers in 
 respect of the Ottoman Empire, and the Peace of 
 Paris (Sevres) reveals how the corpse has been 
 dismembered and distributed amongst them. 
 
 The following extracts from the Secret Treaties 
 are the most enlightening : " Now the British 
 Government has given its complete assent in writing 
 to the annexation by Russia of the Straits and 
 Constantinople within the limits indicated by us, 
 and only demanded security for its economic interests 
 and a similar benevolent attitude on our part towards 
 the poHtical aspirations of England in other parts." 
 According to the above telegram dated March 5, 1915, 
 from the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs to the 
 Russian Ambassador at Paris, England's traditional 
 policy of keeping Russia out of Constantinople was 
 bought off by getting another chunk of Persia as 
 per Memorandum of the Russian Foreign Office 
 (March 4) 1915 : " The neutral zone in Persia 
 established by the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 
 1907 is to be included in the EngUsh sphere of 
 influence," 
 
 According to Memorandum dated February 21 
 1917, Asiatic Turkey was to be divided as follows : —
 
 20 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 " I. Russia obtains the provinces of Erzerum, 
 Trebizond, Van, Bitlis, etc. 
 
 " 2. France obtains the coastal strip of Syria, 
 the Vilayet of Adana, etc. 
 
 "3. Great Britain obtains the southern part of 
 Mesopotamia with Baghdad, and stipulates for 
 herself in Syria the ports of Haifa and Akka." 
 
 The Treaty of London concluded between Britain, 
 France, Russia and Italy and signed on April 26, 
 1915, allotted to Italy as her share of the spoils for 
 entering into the War, in addition to the Trentino, 
 Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, the Dodekanese, Libya in 
 Africa, and the province of AdaUa in Asiatic 
 Turkey. 
 
 After the Revolution the Russian Soviet Govern- 
 ment denounced the Secret Treaties with their 
 immoral and loathsome poUcy of grab, renounced 
 the great temptation of Constantinople — Tsarist 
 Russia's dream for centuries — renounced all claims 
 to the North Coast of Asia Minor, denounced the 
 Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 partitioning Persia, 
 and thereby set a noble example to England, France, 
 Italy and Greece, which these Superior Powers 
 have not hastened to follow, but, on the contrary, 
 have dehberately outraged in the Peace of Paris. 
 Whatever crimes Revolutionary Russia may have 
 committed, she is at least free from the greatest 
 of all crimes. International Murder, of which England, 
 France, Italy and Greece have been guilty in the
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 21 
 
 Peace of Paris and in the conquest of Turkey and 
 Persia. 
 
 Before dealing with the Peace of Paris, the mind 
 is tempted to wander into the groves of contemplation 
 and to wonder at the extraordinary fact that the 
 Turkish Empire, around whose carcase and for 
 whose carcase the European vultures were fighting, 
 should have taken sides in the conflict. Bitter 
 experience and common sense should have dictated 
 to the Sultan and his advisers a policy of strict 
 neutraUty, not only of strict neutrahty, but of armed 
 neutrahty and careful conservation of every energy 
 in order to defend their Empire from the victors, 
 who would in all probabiUty have been too ex- 
 hausted to assail it. " Whom the gods wish to 
 destroy they first make mad " seems, however, to 
 have repeated itself in the case of the Turkish 
 Government, and now the Turkish Empire is shattered 
 and scattered among the conquerors. 
 
 True it is that the Turkish Treaty — " The Treaty 
 of Sevres " — permits the Sultan to remain in Con- 
 stantinople, but in reaUty only as a State prisoner 
 or Puppet of the Western Powers with a gendarme- 
 rie under AlUed supervision and control, without 
 an Assembly, Constituent or otherwise, without 
 any power of taxation or financial control, which 
 passes into the hands of England, France and Italy, 
 without adequate representation on the International 
 Commission, which in future will govern the Straits,
 
 22 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and without any territory save for a tiny strip round 
 Constantinople up to the Chataldja hnes. 
 
 Constantinople, the greatest prize, for the posses- 
 sion of which Europe was plunged into war, is now 
 to all intents and purposes part of the British Empire, 
 for it is under the domination of the British Navy 
 and of the Triple Control of England, France and 
 Italy, England being the predominant partner. 
 
 European Turkey, including Adrianople and the 
 Bulgarian district of Kirk-KiKss6, passes to Greece 
 and Constantine, whose attitude in the War was 
 so equivocal, while Asiatic Turkey is devoured by 
 Greece (Smyrna), Italy (AdaHa), France (Syria) and 
 England (Mesopotamia and Palestine). Mustapha 
 Kemal Pasha with the Turkish NationaHst Party 
 has a precarious hold of AnatoHa, and by force 
 of arms is seeking to oust some of these mihtary 
 marauders and to keep the Turkish flag flying. 
 
 On January 5, 1918, Mr. Lloyd George said : 
 " Nor are we fighting to deprive Turkey of its 
 capital or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia 
 Minor and Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish 
 in race." Referring to the decision of the Allied 
 Powers to maintain the so-called sovereignty of 
 the Sultan at Constantinople, M. Millerand, the 
 Prime Minister of France, said : " This decision 
 emphasizes their desire to conclude with the Otto- 
 man Empire a just treaty which takes into account 
 the legitimate rights, interests and aspirations of
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 23 
 
 Turkey — a peace based on the principles of right, 
 liberty and justice for the victory of which the Allies 
 fought." Behold how the actions — the Turkish 
 Treaty — of these men belie their fair words, and 
 dishonour their respective countries. Behold how 
 many wars and *' rebelHons " have already arisen 
 out of their derision of *' right, Hberty and justice " 
 for populations " which are predominantly Turkish 
 in race." 
 
 Lest the writer should be misunderstood and 
 labelled " pro-Turk " — and a label, unfortunately, 
 settles so many questions of right and wrong with 
 too many people — let it be perfectly understood 
 that the great principle for which he contends is 
 that " self-government " should apply equally to 
 Turks and Christians, and that it is wrong — a crime 
 — ^for Christians to govern by force lands and peoples, 
 " which are predominantly Turkish in race," and 
 that Nemesis will follow in riots, rebelHon and war 
 — as well as in reflex action — farther afield, as we 
 shall see when we speak of India and the relations 
 between Indian Moslem subjects and British Chris- 
 tian overlords. 
 
 According to the Turkish Peace Treaty, two 
 new States are recognized in Asiatic Turkey, namely, 
 Armenia and the Hedjaz, about which volumes can 
 be written and will probably be written, exhibiting 
 the cynicism, the insincerity and the callousness of 
 British and French ImperiaHsm and CapitaUsm.
 
 24 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Next to Belgium, Armenia was the best stalking- 
 horse for Allied propaganda during the War. If 
 German " f rightfulness " in Belgium failed to inflame 
 the passions of Allies and Neutrals to white-heat, 
 then the Armenian tap of Turkish atrocities was 
 turned on. America and the world was given to 
 understand that the AlUes were fighting to free 
 Belgium and Armenia from the unholy grip of 
 German and Turkish MiHtarism, and American 
 opinion, slow to move and suspicious of British, 
 French and Tsarist Militarism, was undoubtedly 
 influenced by this propaganda, and America finally 
 came in to save the Alhes in general and Armenia 
 and Belgium in particular. What does America 
 and the world see now ? Belgium hopelessly tied 
 to the chariot-wheels of French MiHtarism, and 
 Armenia, tattered and torn, ploughing her lonely 
 furrow of freedom. 
 
 Armenia is an " acid test " of AlHed poUcy. It 
 was the only part of the Ottoman Empire unoccupied 
 and unprotected by AlHed forces after the Armistice. 
 By the Peace Treaty, CiHcia has been partitioned 
 between Turkey and France, and the indigenous 
 Armenians have been harried by both, thousands 
 being driven from tlieir homes by the French as 
 well as by the Turks, to struggle with cold and 
 famine on the inhospitable mountains. 
 
 To President Wilson was left the unenviable 
 task of adjusting Armenia's frontiers and adjudi-
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 25 
 
 eating territory to her in the Turkish provinces 
 of BitHs, Erzerum, Trebizond and Van. But the 
 Treaty is so far Armenia's " scrap of paper " tendered 
 to her by the Supreme Council of the AlUes, who 
 failed to protect her, and then, coward-like, threw 
 the responsibility of their failure upon the nascent 
 League of Nations. 
 
 In reply to this request to undertake the " man- 
 date " for Armenia — a mandate rejected by England 
 and France, who had arrogantly assumed to them- 
 selves " mandates " for Syria and Mesopotamia by 
 armed force against the wishes of the inhabitants, 
 while Armenians were crying out for a Mandatory 
 Power to help them — the Council of the League 
 asked the following vital questions : (i) What are 
 the final frontiers of Armenia going to be ? (2) What 
 access will she have to the sea ? (3) Who will 
 expel the Turkish armies from the New Armenia ? 
 (4) What financial guarantees will the Supreme 
 Council of the AlHes give to the Mandatory Power, 
 which the League of Nations is prepared to find ? 
 
 With England, France, Italy and Greece seizing 
 with both hands vast neighbouring territories, the 
 question naturally arises, Why was Armenia neglected 
 and deserted, with none so honest or so brave to do 
 her service ? The answer of the late Lord Salisbury 
 was. Because battleships could not be got over 
 Mount Taurus. The real answer comes witheringly 
 back, because the Capitahsts of Europe do not
 
 26 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 consider Armenia " good business." Armenia may 
 have a soul to save or a contribution to make to 
 the social, spiritual or intellectual life of the world, 
 but what are these to the Imperial Profiteers, who 
 run Empires for profit and not for sentiment ? 
 What they want is cotton, copper, coal, gold, oil, 
 rubber, etc., something that will give a handsome 
 return on their money. All else to them is dust 
 on the muckrake, even human Ufe, unless peradven- 
 ture it can be used as cheap servile labour. 
 
 History is replete with the heartless perfidy of 
 Imperiahstic CapitaHsm, but the behaviour of the 
 Supreme Council of the Allies towards martyred 
 Armenia will stand out for all time as the consum- 
 mation of Capitalistic cruelty. 
 
 If this terrible reproach upon the " Big Two " 
 — France and England — entailing as it does that 
 they were either clowns or cowards in the hands 
 of " Big Business," requires further justification, 
 let us examine their conduct towards the Arab 
 Prince, the Emir Feisul. In the destruction of the 
 Ottoman Empire he played an important military 
 and administrative part ; his armies fought side 
 by side with the British, and his subjects co-operated 
 with ours in the administration of the newly won 
 territories. As a valuable ally and as an Arab 
 Prince his reward was to have been the acquisition 
 of large Arab territories deUvered from Turkish 
 misrule. In other words, the " spoils of war " in
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 27 
 
 his case were to harmonize with the war-fledged 
 formula, " self-determination," namely, an Arab State 
 for Arabs. But " Not so," said the French Capital- 
 ists and Imperialists ; " that does not suit our book : 
 we must have all or nothing. Feisul must go 
 and self-determination with him." Accordingly 
 France sent an ultimatum to Prince Feisul, de- 
 manding his recognition of (i) France's self-con- 
 ferred " mandate " ; (2) France's occupation of his 
 railways ; (3) French paper currency ; and without 
 waiting for a reply, so considerate and chivalrous 
 are the dealings of European Powers with weak 
 Eastern Potentates, despatched an army of 80,000 
 French and negro soldiers to take possession of 
 the Damascus-Beyrout railway. With only 40,000 
 trained troops at his disposal, Feisul judged dis- 
 cretion to be the better part of valour, gracefully 
 retired into exile and appealed (in vain) for the 
 intervention of the League of Nations ; in vain, 
 because the League was under the domination of 
 France and England. 
 
 This high-handed action on the part of France 
 disturbed some British Imperialists in the House of 
 Commons. They felt that France had behaved 
 badly to our Ally and that Great Britain had allowed 
 France to break Britain's pledge to King Hussain 
 and to Emir Feisul. They actually raised a debate 
 in Parliament and were saying nasty things about 
 French Imperialism when the freest Assembly in
 
 28 MILITARISIM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Christendom accepted without protest the autocratic 
 ruling of the Speaker, that criticism of the poHcy 
 of an Ally would not be sanctioned. It was on 
 this occasion that Mr, Bonar Law, the Leader 6f 
 the House, staggered humanity by declaring that 
 England must not complain of France, because 
 France was only doing in Syria what England was 
 doing in Mesopotamia. In other words, Mr. Law 
 confessed that " mandate " was mere camouflage 
 for " conquest " — to deceive the democracies of the 
 world — and that the Governments of Great Britain 
 and France had divided the spoils of war regardless 
 of the pledges given to King Hussain and Prince 
 Feisul, regardless of the pubHc rights of the inhabi- 
 tants, regardless of the fine principles of self-deter- 
 mination, freedom and independence for which they 
 protested they had waged war, regardless of the 
 active hostility of the Arabs, who hated British 
 and French domination and exploitation only sHghtly 
 less than Turkish, and regardless of the disastrous 
 consequences their action must have upon the 
 League of Nations and the Peace of the World. 
 
 The wrong-doers, the blood-guilty, the " road- 
 hogs " — to use the language of Mr. Lloyd George — 
 of the Garden of Eden are not the Kaiser and the 
 Tsar, but the Prime Ministers of Great Britain and 
 France. " For a supreme offence against inter- 
 national morality," according to Article 227 in 
 the Peace of Versailles, the Allies proposed to
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 29 
 
 arraign the ex-Kaiser. Who is going to arraign 
 Mr. Lloyd George and M. Millerand "for a supreme 
 offence against international morality " ? and for 
 making war upon Arabs, Persians and Turks, and in 
 conducting war against women and children as 
 well as old men, with all the methods of modern 
 barbarism ? 
 
 What was England doing in Mesopotamia two 
 years after the Great War was ended ? Conquering 
 it, occupying it, and holding it with nearly 100,000 
 troops. But surely the inhabitants regarded our 
 troops as " saviours " and welcomed them with 
 open arms ? No ! not exactly ! for the inhabitants 
 took up arms, mostly rifles, and attacked our soldiers, 
 killing some and wounding others. Since November 
 I, 1918, to October 1920, the (ofi&cial) casualties 
 had been : 
 
 
 KiUed. 
 
 Wounded. 
 
 British soldiers 
 
 83 
 
 106 
 
 Indian soldiers 
 
 823 
 
 2,370 
 
 Arab soldiers (estimate) 
 
 . . 2,700 (?) 
 
 5.500 (?) 
 
 With shame one reads official statements that Arab 
 villages had been subjected to air-raids, so that 
 innocent mothers and babes would be numbered 
 among the killed and wounded. How many God 
 only knows. 
 
 In Syria the casualties must have been consider- 
 able, for the Syrians have put up an equally good 
 fight against their French invaders, and are still
 
 30 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 disputing the occupation of their country by French 
 and negro soldiers. 
 
 In passing it is humiliating to be compelled to 
 observe that British and French Militarism in no 
 way differs from German Militarism. All are " baby- 
 killers," all treat pledges as scraps of paper, and all 
 lie to their respective democracies as to the causes, 
 conduct and aims of war. 
 
 But what did they kill each other for, far away 
 in Syria and Mesopotamia ? The British and French 
 people had no grudge against the people in the 
 Garden of Eden, and certainly no fear of an invasion 
 of England or France by Syrians and Mesopotamians. 
 Syria and Mesopotamia were not competitors with 
 England and France for World Power. There 
 was no possible cause of quarrel whatsoever between 
 these Eastern and Western peoples. Their soldiers 
 had fought alongside of ours in the Great War. No 
 declaration of war had ever passed between their 
 respective Governments, but, on the contrary, the 
 Government of Great Britain had guaranteed " self- 
 government " to the Arab chiefs before they entered 
 the war against Turkey. Then what, in the name 
 of Heaven, did they kill each other for after the 
 Great War was over ? Let General Gourand answer. 
 Speaking at Marseilles on French policy in Syria 
 he said, according to La Democratie Nouvelle : 
 
 " Nous sommes en Syrie pour guarantie I'ex^cu- 
 tion du mandat Franfais, et nous resterons en
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 81 
 
 Cilicie tant que I'ex^cution du Traits de Sevres 
 I'exigera : nous resterons done en Syrie parce que 
 si nous n'y ^tions pas, d'autres y seraient a notre 
 place. Ce serait alors reclipse de notre prestige 
 et de notre influence dans la Mediterannde orientale, 
 dans le Levant et tout 1' Orient. D'ailleurs, et il 
 faut qu'on le sache en France, le Syrie est un pays 
 ires riche. . . . Pour r^sumer d'un mot : L'ajfaire 
 pay era. Voila pourquoi nous devons r ester en Syrie 
 et pourquoi nous y resterons." ^ 
 
 Hence, according to this distinguished General, 
 French soldiers were in Syria (i) to maintain 
 French " prestige " — blessed word to cover ambition 
 for World Power ; (2) to keep England out ; (3) for 
 profit, because the country was " very rich," and 
 its exploitation would be a " paying affair." What- 
 ever lies the diplomats might tell the people about 
 the Great War, " to make the world safe for demo- 
 cracy," there is no doubt about the truth that 
 General Gourand blurts out that the Little Wars 
 
 » " We are in Syria to guarantee the execution of the 
 French Mandate and we shall remain in Cilicia as long as 
 the execution of the Treaty of Sevres demands it ; we shall 
 remain then in Syria, because if we were not there others 
 would be there in our place. That would, therefore, be 
 the eclipse of our prestige and of our influence in the Eastern 
 Mediterranean, in the Levant and all the East. Besides — 
 and it is necessary that one should know it in France — Syria 
 is a very rich country. ... To sum up in a word : The 
 affair will pay. Behold why we ought to remain in Syria, 
 and why we shall remain there."
 
 32 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 in Syria, Mesopotamia, etc., were to make the world 
 safe for Profiteers. 
 
 They killed each other far away in the Middle 
 East because the rulers of Great Britain and France 
 were Imperial tricksters and gamblers, and thfe 
 British and French people their subservient dupes 
 and tools. They killed each other for corn and 
 oil, because the land was flowing with milk and 
 honey and oil. Adam's temptation and fall may 
 or may not be a fairy-tale, but there is no fairy- 
 tale about the temptation and fall of the British 
 and French Governments. Bitten by the Serpent 
 of Capitalism, bitten by lust of Empire, bitten by 
 ambition for World Power, they ate of the forbidden 
 tree, and eating, broke not only the Ten Command- 
 ments of Moses, but what is equally important to the 
 people, to Democracy, the Fourteen Points of Wilson. 
 
 To what further depths of dishonesty and degra- 
 dation Imperialistic Capitalism drags a Government 
 and a nation the following answers to questions in 
 the House of Commons reveals : — 
 
 The Future of Mesopotamia. 
 
 October 25, 1920, 
 
 Mr. Raper asked the Prime Minister if His 
 Majesty's Government have yet decided when they 
 propose to fulfil their pledge of granting self-govern- 
 ment to the Arabs in Mesopotamia.
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 33 
 
 Mr. Lloyd George replied that it " appears neces- 
 sary " to await the recommendations of the new 
 High Commissioner (Sir Percy Cox) " before making 
 a statement as to the next step to be taken to give 
 effect to the fixed poHcy of His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment of setting up an Arab state in Mesopotamia." 
 
 Mr. Ormsby-Gore : Is the arrangement whereby 
 High Commissioners in Mesopotamia are responsible 
 to the Secretary of State for India and to the Govern- 
 ment of India to be permanent ? 
 
 The Prime Minister : I hope not. 
 
 Mr. Rarer asked what is the full scope of the 
 powers and instructions given to Sir Percy Cox. 
 
 The Prime Minister : Sir Percy Cox was not 
 furnished with precise instructions, but he was 
 given a wide discretion to frame proposals for 
 giving effect as soon as possible to the policy of His 
 Majesty's Government of setting up an Arab State 
 in Mesopotamia. 
 
 October 26, 1920. 
 
 Mr. Allen Parkinson asked the Secretary of 
 State for War the number of British and Indian 
 troops, respectively, at present operating in Persia, 
 Mesopotamia, Turkey and other Eastern theatres ; 
 and what is the approximate monthly cost involved. 
 
 Mr. Churchill : The following are the present 
 strengths of British and Indian troops respectively, 
 and the approximate monthly cost in the areas 
 
 8
 
 34 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 named : Mesopotamia and North- West Persia, 17,500 
 British and 83,000 Indian troops ; cost £2,500,000. 
 Constantinople, 11,000 British and 8,000 Indian ; 
 cost £495,000. Egypt, 12,000 British and 14,000 
 Indian ; cost £265,000. Palestine, 6,500 British and 
 18,000 Indian ; cost £610,000. 
 
 Mr, Parkinson : Is the number of troops being 
 reduced and the monthly cost in the near future ? 
 
 Mr. Churchill : There does not seem to be any 
 chance of any reduction in Mesopotamia for some 
 months to come, as the troops are actively engaged 
 in quenching the rebelHon in Mesopotamia and in 
 the disarmament of the tribes which will follow 
 from the suppression of the rebelHon, but I hope 
 that in the next financial year the garrisons will 
 be substantially below what they are at present. 
 
 Mr. Lambert : Does the right hon, gentleman 
 assume that the operations are going on in Meso- 
 potamia for some months to come ? 
 
 Mr. Churchill : I think it is highly probable. 
 
 Sir W. JoYNSON-HiCKS : Does the right hon. 
 gentleman really mean to say that it will take three 
 months of time, money and men to quell a rebellion 
 merely in order to hand the country back ? Surely 
 we might do it at once. 
 
 Mr. Churchill : I have heard nothing of the 
 transfer of the country back to the rebels. 
 
 One notices in passing the madness of sacrificing
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 35 
 
 the lives of British and Indian soldiers and of Arabs, 
 as well as of British and Indian and Arab treasure 
 in continuing to occupy and conquer Mesopotamia, 
 when " the fixed policy " is to set up an " Arab 
 State in Mesopotamia." One notices also the pro- 
 found ignorance of the Minister of War of the poUcy 
 of the Government of which he is the enfant terrible, 
 and that his " certain HveHness " is diametrically 
 opposed to the withdrawal pohcy of the Government. 
 The most startling revelation in these answers is 
 that our Imperialists have learnt nothing and for- 
 gotten nothing by the lessons of the War. Their 
 psychology is still the same. England's Little Napo- 
 leon insolently denounces Arab resistance to British 
 conquest as " rebellion " and Arabs as " rebels." 
 When Germany conquers Belgium she is called a 
 " hog " by her Imperial neighbours, and Belgians 
 who resist her " patriots." Britons who resist the 
 threat of German invasion are called " heroes " in 
 the hour of danger, although a grateful Govern- 
 ment and a Capitalistic society forget to treat them 
 as such immediately the danger is past. But Arabs 
 and Irishmen, who are they that they should 
 resist the fatal embrace of British Imperialism and 
 the tender tyranny of British Capitalism ? They 
 are " rebels," declares the Lucifer of British Im- 
 perialism. Away with them, shoot them, and if 
 you cannot shoot them, bomb their women and 
 children and burn them out of house and home.
 
 86 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 " Hath not an Arab eyes ? Hath not an Arab 
 hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pas- 
 sions ? Fed with the same food, hurt with the 
 same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed 
 by the same means as a Christian is ? If you prick 
 us, do we not bleed ? If you poison us, do we not 
 die ? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge ? " 
 
 Mesopotamia has been, or is in process of being, 
 Indianized or Egyptianized with a highly paid service 
 of British Bureaucrats possessing despotic powers, 
 supported by and enforced by British bayonets, paid 
 for by British taxpayers for the benefit of British 
 and French Capitalists. Empire for oil. International 
 Murder for oil, is now the sacred mission of the 
 Christian Powers in the East, who almost fell to 
 blows between themselves, but finally composed 
 their differences by agreeing that a British syndicate 
 should take 75 per cent, of the oil and a French 
 syndicate 25 per cent. 
 
 Speaking of oil, M. Briand, the Prime Minister of 
 France, said : " International poHtics to-day are 
 oil politics " ; and M. Fran9ois Delaisi, in the Paris 
 Le Petfole (January 1921), wrote : " There is no 
 doubt that a Lord Cowdray or a Lord Curzon does 
 not act from love of humanity or of his race. These 
 same chiefs, who risk their repose or their fortunes 
 for a dream of impersonal grandeur, are capable 
 of allowing the men who work in their factories or
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 37 
 
 on their boats to die of consumption or of drink 
 in the slums of Liverpool or Glasgow. . . . For the 
 success of their vast design they are capable of 
 fomenting revolution in Mexico, of sowing civil 
 war in Asia, and in order to crush a competitor, 
 to set fire to Europe or the world. From this point 
 of view their Imperialism is a universal danger." 
 
 The Government of the United States of America 
 (both the Wilson and Harding Administration) has 
 sent Notes to the Allies specifically dealing with oil 
 and cables, the latest Note (April 1921) being in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 " I. America protests against the San Remo 
 agreement between France and Britain for the 
 division of Mesopotamia in oil supplies. 
 
 "2. The United States takes the standpoint that 
 Yap should not be included in the Japanese mandate 
 over the former German islands north of the Equator." 
 
 Oh come ! all ye soldiers, and reason together ! 
 Was it for this that you volunteered or were con- 
 scripted ? Was it for this that you left all and 
 followed the British flag ? — that for two years 
 after the Great War to destroy Prussian MiHtarism 
 you should be the cruel instruments of British 
 Militarism in Mesopotamia, that you should wade 
 through fields of blood to Empire, that you should 
 be the catspaw of Capitalism in search of oil wells ? 
 
 If only " the dead " could speak ! — " the brave 
 who are no more ! " the " unknown warriors "
 
 38 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 who went forth in a spirit of exaltation to fight 
 Freedom's battle and to make an end of war and 
 conquest. What would they say ? "By the living 
 God, you mock us, and though you raise a Cenotaph 
 to our memory and garland it with flowers and 
 tears, your rulers have hardened their hearts like 
 Pharaoh and turned our Golgotha into a valley of 
 dry bones ! " 
 
 Oh come ! all ye taxpayers, and reason together ! 
 Why are you paying through the nose in taxes ? 
 Before the war taxation per head of the population 
 was £3 los. ; in 1920 it is ;^2i 6s. Why are you 
 suffering from financial anaemia with all its attendant 
 evils ? Why are you threatened with pernicious 
 ansemia and national insolvency ? Because the 
 Coalition Government without a " mandate," with- 
 out your sanction, has squandered vast millions in 
 Mesopotamia, Russia, and Ireland, on Imperialistic 
 Capitalism run mad. Confining ourselves to Meso- 
 potamia, the Government has sunk huge sums in 
 mining, land, and in building cantonments. From 
 a purely speculative point of view, how many tax- 
 payers stand to get any return on this expenditure, 
 or any jobs for themselves or their children ? Is it 
 not all a bloody gamble for a handful of Profiteers ? 
 By peaceful persuasion and ordinary trade methods, 
 could not the potentialities of Mesopotamia in oil 
 and corn be secured for the world's needs ? 
 
 Oh come ! all ye workmen out of employment.
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 39 
 
 and ye ex-Service men, who cannot get a job and 
 for whom jobs were to be kept open ! Reason 
 together ! Why is there slackness of trade and 
 unemployment ? Because, m addition to the waste 
 of national resources in riotous living at home and 
 abroad, a Capitalistic Government has occupied the 
 years after the Peace in killing Russians, Arabs, 
 Turks, Irishmen, etc., who, living and in peace, would 
 have kept you busy making clothes, cutlery, boots, 
 agricultural implements, railway engines and car- 
 riages, etc., which they would willingly have ex- 
 changed for cotton, corn and oil. Dead men do 
 not give much employment to anybody but grave- 
 diggers, and very little to them. 
 
 Oh come ! all ye workers of all nations, and reason 
 together ! Did you know that you were killing 
 each other to reduce each other's wages, to reduce 
 real wages all round ? that Englishmen and French- 
 men were shooting Germans and Arabs, and Germans 
 and Arabs were shooting Englishmen and Indians 
 and Frenchmen, for the sport of Capitalism ? that 
 one of the inevitable fruits of war would be reduction 
 in real wages as well as unemployment ? Behold 
 millions of workers on short time and millions more 
 out of work, standing in long queues outside labour 
 bureaus in all countries, victorious and vanquished, 
 while their families starve at home ! Why ? Be- 
 cause of the War, with its destruction of life, with 
 its destruction of property, with its damage to vast
 
 40 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 territories, with the soil uncultivated and imper- 
 fectly cultivated for years without man-power and 
 without fertilizers, with capital destroyed and credit 
 undermined, with trade and industry — national and 
 international — handicapped all round. Because of the 
 Blockade during and after the War, which reduced 
 the foodstuffs of our enemies, reducing thereby 
 their vital capacity as workers to work ; which 
 prevented the raw materials of industry entering 
 enemy territories, preventing thereby recovery of 
 industry as well as of man-power. Because of the 
 Peace, which by its exactions and severity further 
 trammelled German industry and practically ruined 
 Austria. Because the War, the Blockade and the 
 " Peace of Paris " together hit industry and reduced 
 real wages in Germany. 
 
 Now mark the consequences. British Capitalists 
 with tears in their eyes come along to British Labour 
 and say, "As we cannot compete against cheap 
 German Labour, we are compelled to lower your 
 wages." When will the workers learn that the 
 injury of German Labour is the injury of British 
 Labour ? that Labour all the world over stands 
 or falls together ? Oh ! ye workers of the world ! 
 Would it not be better to unite and slay your here- 
 ditary enemies. Capitalism and Militarism, .than to 
 impoverish, starve, enslave and slay each other ? 
 
 Oh come ! all ye members of the Council of Action ! 
 What wait ye for ? To stop a war with Russia
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 41 
 
 you were prepared to declare a General Strike, which 
 might or might not lead to Civil War, depending 
 largely upon whether the Government of Little 
 Napoleons and Big Business used the soldiers as 
 blacklegs and strike-breakers. Reason together ! 
 What difference in international immorality is there 
 between waging war against Arabs for oil wells or 
 Russians for dividends ? or against Irishmen for 
 God only knows what ? Why not strike to stop 
 British and Indian soldiers from killing and being 
 killed in Mesopotamia, and for British soldiers and 
 police from murdering and being murdered in Ire- 
 land ? Have the courage of your convictions. If 
 it is justifiable — the writer thinks it is — to down 
 tools to stop a murderous war against Soviet Russia, 
 which is as fully capable of hitting back as the 
 Bullies of Europe, is it not much more justifiable 
 to down tools on behalf of weak Arab tribes and 
 the brutally treated Cinderella of the British Empire, 
 who can only feebly retaliate ? 
 
 In the annals of History your sacrifices for the 
 weak should be counted unto you for righteousness, 
 more noble and more praiseworthy than similar 
 sacrifices for the strong. Future generations would 
 acclaim your action as disinterested and epoch- 
 making, for you would have dealt a knock-out blow 
 — one almost fears to use the language of blatant 
 Imperialism — to the twin dragons of Capitalism and 
 ImperiaUsm. Your action would be sanctified by
 
 42 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 proving that Internationalism — the Brotherhood of 
 Man — is higher than NationaHsm — the Selfishness of 
 Man. Your exalted action would open the door 
 of a New World — the Co-operative Commonwealth — 
 in which Capitalism and Imperialism would be 
 treated as the Enemies of Man. 
 
 Oh come ! all ye citizens of Great Britain, and 
 reason together ! What shall it profit a nation if 
 it gain the whole world and lose its own soul ? Is 
 the Soul of England not in danger ? As a nation 
 has not the Devil taken us up into a high mountain 
 and tempted us with World Power ? bj'' which sin 
 Germany fell, the Napoleonic Empire fell, the Spanish 
 Empire, the Turkish Empire, etc. ? Shall the British 
 Empire not fall too ? God made the nations and 
 man made the Empires. Is the good work of God 
 for ever to be interrupted and mocked by the arro- 
 gance of man ? 
 
 Oh come ! all ye bishops and archbishops and 
 clergymen and ministers of all denominations, and 
 reason together ! You work and pray for a spiritual 
 revival. You lament the indifference of the people 
 to religion. You behold Mars, Mammon and Bacchus 
 as the gods most in favour since the God of Love 
 was buried in a shell-hole somewhere in Flanders. 
 You have seen Christianity and Civilization dashed 
 to pieces in the Falls of War and in the Rapids of 
 Reaction. How far you are responsible for the 
 general debacle is a matter between you and your
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 43 
 
 conscience. One thing you do not seem to see is 
 that the Law of Environment makes vain all your 
 efforts to save the Soul of England. Great Britain 
 is in the iron grip of Imperialism and Capitalism, 
 which deny and outrage the God of Bethlehem, and 
 which use religion and missions as cloaks for their 
 evil deeds. When the Church denounces these 
 systems as inimical to God and Man, then it will 
 have found its metier, then it will begin to live and 
 move and have its being, then the Sermon on the 
 Mount will ripen into clean personal and national 
 living, into Peace and Goodwill to men. 
 
 When one employs the expression " Great Britain, 
 France, Germany, Russia," one ought to differentiate 
 between the peoples and their rulers. To suggest 
 for a moment that the peoples of these respective 
 countries, or a majority of them or any large number 
 of them, wanted North Africa, Alsace and Lorraine, 
 Constantinople or Mesopotamia and their approaches 
 and surroundings, would be not only far from the 
 truth, but ludicrous. If these places had been put 
 up as Prizes in an Open Competition, a sort of All- 
 World Tournament in which the Competitors were 
 to struggle with each other with lethal weapons 
 in a vast arena or Coliseum, and in which not only 
 the bodies and lives of the competitors were at 
 stake, but also the well-being and livelihood of all the 
 nations which they represented for generations to 
 come, is there anyone outside of a lunatic asylum
 
 44 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 who believes that a single nation would have entered ? 
 Apart from the masses of the people, apart from 
 public opinion, apart from the Church, which always 
 denies its Founder when war is on foot, considering 
 the soldiers and sailors alone — the men who are 
 set aside as the bloody instruments of man's in- 
 humanity to man — does any sane person believe 
 that the rank and file, the ordinary soldiers and 
 sailors of any of the nations, would have voted 
 openly or secretly in favour of competing in this 
 Great International Fight ? 
 
 Wars are not made by the peoples, but by their 
 rulers. Mr. Wilson alone amongst the rulers had 
 the courage to put this vital truth when he said, 
 " We have not quarrelled with the German people. 
 We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy 
 and friendship. It was not upon their impulse 
 that their Government acted in entering the War 
 It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. 
 It was a war determined upon as wars used to be 
 determined upon in the old unhappy days, when 
 peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers 
 and wars were provoked and waged in the interest 
 of dynasties or little groups of ambitious men, who 
 were accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns 
 and tools." 
 
 The Great War was not made by the German 
 people, nor by the Russian people, nor by the British 
 people, nor by the French people, but by their
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 45 
 
 respective rulers, as representatives or captives of 
 Imperialistic and Capitalistic systems. To the rulers 
 North Africa, Alsace-Lorraine, Constantinople and 
 Mesopotamia were quite big enough Prizes on which 
 to stake their all, or rather, one should say, to stake 
 the " all " of their respective countries — the fresh, 
 honest, innocent, vigorous life of the young, and 
 the treasure of all. 
 
 The all-important lesson of the War, therefore, 
 is the need to change the systems of Imperialism 
 and Capitalism, which inevitably led to the Great 
 War, and which by the Imperialistic and Capitalistic 
 Peace of Paris will lead to more wars. If the demo- 
 cracies, the peoples of Europe and the World, fail 
 to take this lesson to heart and to wipe out these 
 systems, then the War has been fought in vain ; 
 Capitalism has won another crowning victory and 
 Democracy has suffered another crushing defeat. 
 
 The Great War was no more " inevitable " than 
 any other war which preceded it for the Balance 
 of Power or for the clashing interests of Competitive 
 Capitalism. It was no more " inevitable " than 
 the Napoleonic Wars to build a gigantic French 
 Empire ; it was no more " inevitable " than the 
 Imperial wars for the Partition of Poland between 
 Russia, Prussia and Austria ; it was no more " in- 
 evitable " than the Crimean War, when France 
 and Russia tried to peg out " spheres of influence " 
 on the decomposing body of the Turkish Empire,
 
 46 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and when Great Britain " backed the wrong horse." 
 It was no more " inevitable " than the war between 
 Austria and Prussia in 1866, when the Imperial 
 Houses of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern struggled 
 for the leadership of the German States. It was 
 no more " inevitable " than the Franco-German 
 War of 1870 for " glory " and the consolidation 
 of their respective dynasties on the part of the 
 Emperor of France and the King of Prussia. It 
 was no more " inevitable " than the Russo-Turkish 
 War of 1877, when Russia made a bold bid for 
 Constantinople, and had it in her lap only to lose 
 it again through the jealous interference of British 
 Imperialism, which for the second time " backed 
 the wrong horse." 
 
 In all these wars the democracies had no quarrel 
 with each other ; Austrians, Britons, French, Ger- 
 mans, Russians and Turks alike were the ignorant 
 and miserable tools of their criminal rulers, and 
 killed each other for the sport of kings and the 
 profits of Capitalism. The saddest reflection of all 
 is that these poor soldiers went forth to fight in 
 the firm belief that they were loyal and intelligent 
 patriots, that they were doing their respective 
 countries a good turn, and that they were possibly 
 improving the hard lot of their peoples, instead 
 of realizing that they were fighting on behalf of 
 competing Imperialism and Capitalism, and that 
 they were doing their respective countries infinite
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 47 
 
 harm by forging for themselves and their children's 
 children fetters of economic, political and social 
 servitude. Given a higher standard of intelligence, 
 the peoples would have turned their swords against 
 their lords and masters instead of warring against 
 each other. 
 
 The time for Democracy to speak out and demand 
 her rights has come, or be for ever dumb. The 
 rulers of Europe have made and are making fools 
 of the people, as they have done many a time 
 before. 
 
 The " hidden hand " of Capitalism in the fabrica- 
 tion of modern wars requires no Rontgen Rays for 
 its discovery and illumination. Take the history 
 of Africa in recent times. The British conquest 
 and occupation of Egypt was for " bondholders " ; 
 the Partition of Morocco between France and Spain, 
 for " minerals " ; the carving out of the Congo 
 Free State by Belgium, for " oils, nuts and other 
 products " ; the formation of South- West and East 
 Africa by Germany, for " raw materials " ; the 
 destruction of the Boer Republics by Great Britain, 
 for " gold-mines " and " cheap servile labour " ; 
 the slaughter of Matabeles was for the " appropria- 
 tion " — Imperialists do not use the word " confisca- 
 tion " except when speaking of homelands wanted 
 by British labourers for small holdings — of their 
 lands, in order to pay dividends to shareholders 
 in the Chartered Company of South Africa ; the
 
 48 INIILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 hacking to death of Tripolitans was to give Italy 
 " a spot in the sun." 
 
 With regard to the bloody scramble and total 
 disregard of native rights and liberties in Africa, 
 the Cambridge Modern History observes : "It is 
 idle to censure the inevitable or to pass judgment 
 upon destiny ; the European nations have resembled 
 other conquering races in their brutahty, violence 
 and rapacity. ... It is enough to note the fact 
 that in the world-wide struggle for life, wealth and 
 power the Europeans have for the moment proved 
 their indisputable predominance ; three quarters of 
 the world have come under their sway ; and the 
 independence of the remainder is held by a 
 precarious tenure." Later on I shall show that 
 Labour cannot accept this easy and soulless 
 doctrine of " inevitableness," and is out to com- 
 bat the brutal " struggle for life, wealth and 
 power." 
 
 Here I only point the moral that in Africa 
 the " brutality, violence and rapacity " of Belgian, 
 British, French, German, Itahan, Portuguese and 
 Spanish Capitalism and Imperiahsm have not stag- 
 gered the peoples of Europe like German " fright- 
 fulness " did during the War, although they were 
 every whit as frightful, partly because of the moral 
 cowardice which fears to denounce one's own agents, 
 partly because the truth or half the truth v/as never 
 told in the Capitalistic Press, and only leaked out
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 49 
 
 in letters or confessions of soldiers in driblets, months 
 after the events had happened, and largely because 
 to kill, rape or steal from a native African was not 
 considered so great an offence against the elastic 
 code of Christendom as to kill, rape or steal from 
 a European. In England we heard a great deal 
 about the " horrors of the Congo " at one time, and 
 public meetings of protest were held to relieve the 
 Nonconformist, or maybe the National, conscience ; 
 but, as Mr. Bonar Law would say, it did not lie in 
 our lips to denounce the crimes of Belgians, for 
 Englishmen perpetrated the same crimes in Egypt, 
 Rhodesia, etc., and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 
 was constrained to characterize acts of the British 
 Government in the South African War as " methods 
 of barbarism." 
 
 Barbarism is part and parcel of Imperialism and 
 Capitalism. There is no such thing as " civiHzed 
 warfare " or " civilized conquest " ; all warfare 
 and all conquest is barbaric. You cannot have 
 Imperialism and Capitalism without barbarism. They 
 are related as cause and effect. All through the 
 ages they have been the great forces of man's 
 enslavement and destruction, whether practised by 
 Persia, Assyria, Greece, Carthage, Rome, Spain, 
 Turkey, France, Great Britain, Russia or Germany. 
 German Imperialism and Capitalism may have 
 been more barbaric than Roman, Russian or British, 
 though it would take a lot to prove anything more 
 
 4
 
 50 MILITARIS^I AFTER THE WAR 
 
 barbaric in the history of war than the British 
 Blockade, which Mr. Lloyd George in a lucid interval 
 described as " a cordon of death," to slowly but 
 surely starve to feebleness, disease and death 
 millions of men, women and children ; aye ! and 
 unborn babes, whose mothers could not get enough 
 nourishment to bring their offspring into the world 
 in normal health and strength, so that they died 
 like flies. 
 
 What Labour and Democracy have to realize is 
 that all varieties of Imperialism and Capitalism are 
 evil things, that they are all unjust and inhuman, 
 that they are all opposed to Liberty, Equality and 
 Brotherhood, that they all make Democracy and 
 Civilization impossible. 
 
 To talk of Democracy — government of the people 
 by the people and for the people — whilst these anti- 
 democratic systems are in existence is mere mockery, 
 as stupid and deceptive as the claim of the organ- 
 blower to making the music. Democracy blows 
 and pays all the time, while Capitalism calls the 
 tune and collects the money. Democracy to-day, 
 except in Russia, may be likened to the barrel- 
 shaped, emphysematous, short-winded, short-sighted, 
 long-tempered jolly-boy always performing for the 
 amusement and benefit of the proprietary classes. 
 Let us get down to bedrock. Not only is Democracy 
 impossible, but Civil Liberty is impossible where 
 Imperialism and Empire hold sway, and Economic
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 51 
 
 Justice and Economic Liberty are equally impossible 
 where Capitalism reigns. 
 
 If Solomon in all his wisdom or Marcus Aurelius 
 in all his reflective glory revisited 
 
 " This little spot which men call Earth, 
 And with low-thoughted care confined 
 And pestered in this penfold here 
 Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being 
 Unmindful of the Crown which Virtue gives," 
 
 one can easily imagine what their verdict on the 
 Great War would be. " Vanity of Vanities, All is 
 Vanity " would be their cold and considered judg- 
 ment. Dean Swift would illuminate this verdict 
 by comparing Man unfavourably with the Horse. 
 Robbie Burns would denounce Man's Inhumanity 
 to Man as making countless thousands mourn. 
 Edgar Allen Poe, especially in view of future wars, 
 would add his quota by representing man's infernal 
 genius enclosing civilization in a steel cylinder with 
 a descending circular saw supported by aeroplanes 
 dropping bombs, poison gases, cholera, typhus and 
 plague germs in myriads, and from which human 
 escape was impossible. Southey would lament : 
 
 " And Everybody praised the Duke 
 
 Who this great fight did win." 
 " But what good came of it at last ? " 
 
 Quoth little Peterkin. 
 " Why that I cannot tell," said he, 
 
 " But 'twas a famous victory."
 
 52 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Whilst the clergy of every denomination and of none, 
 and of every nation and of none, were preoccupied 
 in composing and dedicating Hymns of Praise to 
 the " unknown God," whom they were positively 
 convinced at last was Mars, the disciples of Darwin 
 and Huxley would be denouncing the application 
 of the doctrine of " The Survival of the Fittest " 
 to the Kingdom of Man as inhuman and immoral. 
 
 In the Romanes Lecture at Oxford (1920) Dean 
 Inge raised the question of " Progress " — whether 
 the world is getting better or worse or merely re- 
 volving in a vicious circle. All thoughtful men and 
 women are not only asking the same question, but 
 devoting their lives and energies to understand the 
 meaning of life, the meaning of history, the causes 
 of wars and revolutions, of industrial and economic 
 conflict and unrest with a view to struggling intelli- 
 gently, persistently, and resolutely, for " Progress." 
 
 Labour's view is that the end of Capitahsm and 
 Imperialism is the beginning of Progress. 
 
 So far we have endeavoured to explain the chief 
 causes of the Great War by reference to North 
 Africa, Alsace-Lorraine and Turkey, and events 
 which have transpired in the Turkish Empire since 
 the Armistice, and the conclusions at which we 
 have arrived are : (i) That the systems of Capitalism 
 and Imperialism (Militarism) were responsible for 
 the Great War as well as for the wars arising out of 
 the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire. (2) That
 
 THE HOUNDS OF HELL 53 
 
 Capitalism and Imperialism are common to great 
 Britain, France, Italy, Japan, etc., as well as to 
 Germany, Austria, Turkey etc. ; to all the Empires 
 in fact. (3) That until these systems are over- 
 thrown wars and armaments will continue to plague 
 the world. In a word, Capitalism and Imperialism 
 are the Hounds of Hell, and Democracy must either 
 overthrow them or continue to be overthrown by 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM- AFTER 
 
 THE WAR 
 
 One does not wish to forestall the verdict of History 
 upon the Great War, but judged by its fruits it 
 seems to have been a great failure, perhaps the 
 greatest failure of any war which the world has 
 ever known. Instead of humanity being afflicted 
 by seven mighty Empires — Austrian, British, French, 
 German, Russian, Turkish and Japanese — it is now 
 only afflicted by three — British, French and Japanese, 
 with their satellites, the new Greek, Italian, Polish 
 Yugoslav, etc.. Empires. That this substantial re- 
 duction in the number of competing Empires must 
 be all to the good, many would argue. It must 
 mean more liberty, more progress, more peace for 
 mankind. 
 
 Although the argument looks good on the face of 
 it, experience is rather against it. Were liberty, 
 progress and peace developed and consolidated 
 under Napoleon, when Europe from Madrid to 
 Petrograd and from Berlin to Athens was dominated 
 by the French Empire ? Or was it necessary for 
 
 64
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 55 
 
 all the European Powers to league together to smash 
 the French Empire because it was a danger to 
 liberty, progress and peace ? Monopoly of power, 
 political, social or economic, has always been, 
 and from the nature of the case must always be, 
 a danger to society. Since America declined to be 
 a party to the outrageous Peace of Paris and left 
 Europe to stew in her own juice, the " Big Two " 
 — France and England — have used their monopoly 
 of power to crush freedom, economic and political, 
 throughout Europe and the Middle East. They 
 have successfully spread their net of Militarism and 
 Capitalism over three continents^ — Europe, Africa 
 and Asia. America alone is free from their devouring 
 tentacles. In Europe there is none to dispute their 
 sway except Soviet Russia, and Democracy has to 
 thank the Soviet Government for withstanding all 
 their attempts at restoring Imperialism and Capital- 
 ism in Russia and keeping them at bay. Africa is 
 entirely under their control and domination and 
 exploitation, while in Asia, Japan actively and 
 China passively remain to resist them, although 
 already they have punched some nasty holes in 
 China's side. 
 
 The intention of the French Government is to 
 use their " mandated " territories in Africa for 
 raising large (500,000) native armies, in order to 
 carry out their Imperialistic designs in Europe. 
 To carry out this intention would be to contravene
 
 56 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 the League of Nations Covenant, which forbids 
 " military training of the natives for other than 
 police purposes and the defence of territory," and 
 would be a great crime against civilization, from 
 which France would probably be one of the worst 
 sufferers. 
 
 Verily the Great War was for World Power, and 
 to-day it is divided between England and France. 
 Well may the United States of America shake the 
 European dust from off her feet ! Well may she 
 refuse to sign the Peace of Paris and shun the League 
 of Nations, which by Article lo confirms this division 
 of World Power ! Well may she retire to her tent 
 to take counsel with herself how to meet and defeat 
 this monstrous menace to the world ! Well may her 
 CapitaHsts and Imperiahsts sound the tocsin of alarm 
 and rattle into barbarism, meeting force by force, 
 militarism by militarism, navyism by navyism, 
 aeroplanes by aeroplanes ! 
 
 England and France have given themselves over, 
 body and soul, to the gospel of " The Big Stick for 
 Big Business." Little wonder if America and Japan 
 should follow in their train. Little need to speculate 
 upon the future, when the " Big Sticks " strike, 
 which will prove the biggest. 
 
 " Could the Great War have ended in greater 
 failure than this ? " will be the question asked by 
 our children's children. 
 
 In the previous chapter we painted the picture
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 57 
 
 of British and French Militarism run mad in the 
 Turkish Treaty, and in their bloody scramble for 
 Asiatic Turkey. In this chapter we might paint a 
 picture of Europe as a result of British and French 
 MiHtarism run mad in the German Treaty — the 
 Treaty of Versailles — and in the other Treaties of 
 Paris deahng with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, etc., 
 and in the continuation of the Blockade for months 
 after the Armistice, and in the many wars against 
 Revolutionary Russia, and in the economic war, 
 which they have conducted with such disastrous 
 results. But as this picture has been so well painted 
 by Keynes (in The Economic Consequences of the 
 Peace), by Brailsford (in After the Peace), and by 
 the Labour Party (in Labour and the Peace Treaty), 
 I shall content myself by giving the broad outhnes, 
 referring my readers to these authorities for the 
 details. 
 
 The Peace of Paris is unjust and must be revised 
 because its terms (i) are not in agreement with 
 the conditions of the Armistice ; (2) are opposed 
 to the principles for which the AHies declared they 
 fought ; (3) involve more wars ; and (4) spell the 
 ruin of Europe. I shall take the last first, as it is 
 the most immediate, and sufficient in itself to compel 
 complete revision and recasting of the Peace. 
 
 In Europe, brought to the verge of ruin by five 
 years of fearful carnage, the Treaty offers no remedy, 
 no scheme of reconstruction, not even repose. This
 
 58 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 is the greatest crime of omission committed by the 
 Peace concocters. Faced with a starving and 
 bankrupt Central Europe, the Supreme Council 
 treated it in the same callous way that the priest 
 treated the man who fell among thieves and was 
 left to die by the roadside. Worse still ! Clemenceau 
 and Lloyd George, instead of acting like good 
 physicians, called in to save a Europe suffering 
 from loss of blood and starvation, the result of 
 war and blockade, broke every law of physiology, 
 economy and morality by more blood-letting and 
 more blockade, as if their deliberate intention was 
 to kill and not to cure. They imagined that the 
 economic destruction of Germany and Austria 
 would somehow or other, by processes unknown to 
 human experience or science, work out to the 
 advantage of France and England. They seemed 
 to think that their countries, like parasites, could 
 flourish on the decaying industries, falling exchanges 
 and enfeebled energies of their late enemies. They 
 saw no crime, no immorality, in their designs to 
 crush and enslave economically the German and 
 Austrian peoples for the follies and crimes of 
 their rulers. They foresaw no Nemesis, either 
 economic or moral, visited upon Frenchmen and 
 Englishmen for their inhuman and unscientific 
 policy. Little did they know or care, so that 
 their immediate aims might give them a momen- 
 tary, a Pyrrhic victory.
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 59 
 
 Now, with unemployment and starvation stalking 
 rampant through the land, with factories idle or 
 on half-time, with a world shortage of goods, with 
 all the nations wanting goods but with no money 
 to buy them, with the system of international ex- 
 changes broken down, the simple truth is slowly 
 filtering into the minds of the Imperial wreckers, 
 namely, that Europe has a corporate life, that all 
 the members of the European family depend for 
 health and life upon one another, that the impover- 
 ishment, the atrophy, the decay of one member 
 leads naturally and inevitably to the impoverish- 
 ment, atrophy and decay of all the other members. 
 
 Before the War, Germany was the best customer 
 of Austria, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Russia and 
 Switzerland ; she was the second best customer of 
 Great Britain, Denmark and Sweden ; and the 
 third best customer of France. Britain sold more 
 goods to Germany than to any other country in 
 the world except India, while German goods imported 
 into England were greater than from any other 
 country in the world except the United States. 
 
 Hence, bad trade in Germany destroyed trade, 
 disorganized industrialism, poverty, unemployment, 
 low value of the mark spell bad trade, poverty, 
 unemployment, debasement of the currency for 
 all the other nations of Europe, England included. 
 
 Again, Germany supplied her neighbours with coal, 
 her coal output having grown from 30,000,000 tons
 
 60 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 in 1871 to 190,000,000 tons in 1913. Further, 
 Germany supplied a great deal of capital — about 
 £1,250,000,000 — to oil the wheels of international 
 industry, £500,000,000 going to Russia, Austria, 
 Bulgaria, Roumania and Turkey. Germany supplied 
 organizing brains as well, so that she was the economic 
 pivot upon which a large part of European industry 
 depended. In a word, Germany was the chief 
 workshop of Europe. Therefore the prosperity of 
 Europe hinged upon the prosperity of Germany, 
 and a bankrupt Germany meant a bankrupt 
 Europe. 
 
 Apart from the economic and industrial damage 
 resulting from the War, which in itself was enormous, 
 but from which Germany with her wonderfully 
 industrious and intelligent workers could have re- 
 covered in time and paid a reasonable Indemnity 
 withal to the Allies, the Peace has destroyed most 
 important industries directly or indirectly, and 
 shaken the foundation of its economic system so 
 profoundly that Germany and Europe, locked to- 
 gether, are rocking on the brink of bankruptcy and 
 social revolution. 
 
 In seizing Germany's Colonies and her merchant 
 fleet. Great Britain has deprived millions of Germans 
 of their means of livelihood by navigation and trade. 
 The recoil of transferring German merchant-ships to 
 England for nothing is seen in empty berths in the 
 shipbuilding yards, and heard in the monotonous
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 61 
 
 and demoralizing tramp of the unemployed in the 
 streets of our great centres of ship construction. 
 
 France, by exacting too high a tribute of coal, 
 has ruined many German industries dependent on 
 coal which, according to the Peace terms, cannot 
 obtain sufficient coal to keep them going. By 
 these and other acts, and by holding the Indemnity 
 sword of Damocles over their heads, the Peace- 
 makers have delivered such a knock-out blow to 
 Germany's economic stability that she can neither 
 buy and import the 12,000,000 tons of foodstuffs, 
 the raw material necessary for the life of her people, 
 nor the raw material needed for her manufactures 
 and industries. Terrible as has been the sacrifice 
 of life and health by the Blockade during the War, 
 and nine long months after the Armistice by the 
 policy of a " cruel and pitiless British Government," 
 it will be a drop in the bucket compared with the 
 millions of German men, women and children sen- 
 tenced to unemployment, starvation and death 
 by the cruellest and most pitiless Peace the world 
 has ever known. The coal tribute has proved to 
 be a boomerang hitting not only Germany, but 
 England. Flooding France and Italy with German 
 coal has robbed England of two important markets, 
 producing a slump in British coal, and precipitating 
 a coal crisis of the first magnitude. 
 
 If Bolshevism is the enemy to Europe and the 
 world — we know it is not — as trumpeted by Capital-
 
 62 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 ists and Imperialists, then Clemenceau, Lloyd George 
 and Company as propagandists beat Lenin. Capital- 
 ism is on its trial, as it has never been before. 
 The Peace is the extreme of Capitalistic greed and 
 Imperialistic madness, and as at present conceived 
 and in process of enforcement is leading straight 
 to national and international insolvency. Given 
 bankruptcy, Lenin's task is done, CapitaHsm is 
 smashed and Europe is won for Socialism or Com- 
 munism. Why should the Labour Party, either in 
 England or France or elsewhere, seek to revise the 
 Peace Treaty ? Would it not give Capitalism another 
 chance ? Might it not save Capitalism for many 
 a long cursed time to come ? We shall answer 
 these questions later. 
 
 Speaking of the Indemnity at Birmingham — the 
 Mecca of Tariff Reform — Mr. Lloyd George said, 
 " Germany must not be allowed to pay in a way 
 which would inflict greater damage upon the country 
 receiving the payment than if she did not pay at 
 all. For instance, Germany could pay in (cheap ?) 
 goods, but what would that be to us ? It would throw 
 hundreds of thousands of workmen out of work . . . 
 and, after all, only in goods can she pay. . . ." 
 
 Behold the economic necromancer on the horns 
 of a " dilemma." Firstly, Germany can only pay 
 in goods, a basic truth in conformity with economic 
 law. She has not got the gold to pay with. Secondly, 
 if she pays in cheap goods she will throw hundreds
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 63 
 
 of thousands of British and French workmen out 
 of work, according to Lloyd George, but not according 
 to the laws of economics, which tell us that goods, 
 whether cheap or dear, are paid for by goods ; that 
 is to say, that hundreds of thousands of British 
 and French workmen would find employment in 
 making goods to pay for the goods produced by 
 German workmen. Thirdly, if Germany sends " dear " 
 goods, British Capitalists and British manufacturers 
 would take advantage of the occasion and raise 
 their prices correspondingly, so that the poor British 
 consumer, instead of getting any benefit out of the 
 Indemnity, would be cursed by higher cost of living. 
 Fourthly, the 12 per cent. Export Duty — raised to 
 50 per cent, by the London Conference — clapped 
 on to German goods by the economic babes of 
 London and Paris, would be paid by British and 
 French consumers in " dearer " goods. 
 
 Italy wants to trade with Germany, and has 
 already denounced this Export Duty. Seeing his 
 chief in a hole. Sir Robert Home tries to pull him 
 out by suggesting that Germany shall send her 
 Indemnity cheap manufactured goods — by the 
 Eniden, I suppose — to China, India, Africa and South 
 America, which countries would pay France and 
 England in raw material. But during the War 
 and since our politicians have been busy smashing 
 German trade and expelling German commerce from 
 all these countries. Now they have discovered
 
 G4> militaris:m after the war 
 
 how foolish was this poHcy, they launch into another, 
 which will secure German trade in these parts for 
 " forty-two years," which, in other words, will at 
 the end of forty-two years give Germany supremacy 
 in World Trade and Economic Power ; for during 
 that time British and French trade would die in 
 those parts from lack of demand, and British and 
 French unemployment would mount beyond human 
 endurance. 
 
 British Labour, in the first place, could not be 
 guilty of Mr. Lloyd George's total disregard of the 
 moral aspect of the Indemnity problem, and could 
 not be a party to aggravating and intensifying the 
 poverty and discontent in Central Europe by exacting 
 a tribute which must necessarily fall chiefly upon 
 the working classes of Germany and Austria. In 
 the second place, British Labour recognizes that if 
 Germany pays in goods, neither cheap nor dear, 
 but as a gift, a tribute, then hundreds of thousands 
 of workmen will be thrown out of work. In the 
 third place, British Labour will be no party to the 
 12 per cent, or 50 per cent. Export Duty or to Sir 
 Robert Home's legerdemain. Finally, British Labour 
 says to British and French Capitalists, " Thank 
 you for explaining to us that a German Indemnity 
 means damnation to us and to French Labour as 
 well as to German Labour. Let us waste no more 
 time or temper in discussing it, but let us rather 
 help Germany to recover, for by so doing we shall
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 65 
 
 help ourselves and the world to recover." British 
 and French Labour might go farther with reason 
 and say to the Capitalistic Governments of England 
 and France, " Your Peace is worse than your War, 
 for it condemns Europe to poverty, unemployment, 
 starvation, disease and death. Make way for Labour 
 Governments, or take the consequences." 
 
 German Socialists proposed, by volunteer labour 
 corps and with German material, to repair and 
 reconstruct the ruined towns and coal-pits of Belgium 
 and France ; but the French objected to bringing 
 German labour to do the rebuilding. 
 
 In the words of the Observer, " The Allies have 
 taken another and a deeper plunge into chaos," 
 for which Mr. Lloyd George in particular is respon- 
 sible, for it was he who proposed at the London 
 Conference (March 1921) regarding Indemnities that 
 the Allies should take 50 per cent, of the price paid 
 for all German goods sold in Allied markets, assuming 
 that the German Government would pay back the 
 50 per cent, to the German exporters out of taxation. 
 This " mad " and " monstrous " proposal — I am 
 still using the language of the friendly Observer — 
 has been embodied in a Reparations Bill by the 
 British House of Commons, and worse still, has 
 been supported by marching the AlHed Armies 
 farther into Germany. 
 
 Let us now briefly examine this whole ominous 
 procedure in its pohtical, economic and moral aspects.
 
 66 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Politically it is hopelessly impracticable, for no 
 German Government could live one day that proposed 
 to recoup the 50 per cent, to the German trader, 
 who would be told to sell his goods in America and 
 in neutral countries where he would be paid the 
 full price. But supposing, for the sake of argument, 
 that the German trader was such a fool as to sell 
 his goods to us at half-price, then economically, 
 as goods are paid for by goods or service, British 
 traders would only be able to sell half the amount 
 of goods to Germany by this plan, British trade 
 with Germany would be cut down by one-half, and 
 British unemployment, so far as it arises out of 
 slack trade with Germany, would be doubled. 
 Further, Holland and Belgium, who do a big transit 
 business between Germany and England, would 
 be adversely affected, and therefore less capable 
 of buying British goods. British shipping would 
 be badly hit by this explosive bullet, and Ameri- 
 can shipping immensely benefited. " The commerce 
 between the United States and Germany already 
 shows a very remarkable increase." 
 
 The Free Trader naturally and scientifically points 
 out that if the British consumer must have German 
 goods he will pay the German Indemnity by paying 
 50 per cent, more for them. What a pass Mr. Lloyd 
 George's ignorance of economic laws has brought 
 us to, that the British people by his bungling pay 
 up instead of Germans !
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 67 
 
 Let us follow Mr. George's economics to their 
 logical conclusion. Our National Debt is round 
 about £8,000,000,000, costing us over £300,000,000 
 annually in interest. If a 50 per cent, tariff on 
 German goods will bring in a big sum every year 
 to our national revenue, why not put 50 per cent, 
 duty on all goods coming from foreign countries 
 and make the foreigner pay instead of the British 
 taxpayer ? Behold the reductio ad absurdum. 
 
 Into the intricacies of making a new Customs 
 Line through the heart of industrial Germany, 
 of fixing tariff rates agreeable to all the AlHes, of 
 appointing German, French, Itahan or British 
 Custom officers, of collecting the taxes, of avoiding 
 smugghng, which, one could imagine, would be as 
 easy as winking, one cannot enter here. The dis- 
 location and damage to German trade resulting 
 from this proposition would certainly impoverish 
 Germany, and reduce her capacity to pay the In- 
 demnity, as well as to reduce her capacity to produce 
 and to purchase. By Germany's impoverishment 
 Great Britain as a maritime and industrial country 
 would be the greatest sufferer, while France, being 
 chiefly an agricultural country, would suffer very 
 much less. 
 
 Politically and economically it is a new war against 
 Germany, in accordance with French policy to dis- 
 member Germany, and to bring the Rhineland 
 within the economic orbit of French tariffs and later
 
 68 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 on within the French political system, as part of 
 a Napoleonic Empire. Ethically it vitiates every 
 canon of international law, which forbids the an- 
 nexation of territory and the destruction of national 
 liberty for debt. Further, it violates the Fourteen 
 Points, on the acceptance of which Germany sur- 
 rendered. And lastly, it creates another " Alsace- 
 Lorraine," for which Germany will live to fight 
 another day, with possibly England on her side. 
 
 This blow to the League of Nations may well be 
 fatal. First, because it ignores the League as an 
 arbiter between the big nations, and secondly, 
 because to invite Germany to become a member 
 of the League in face of this invasion and annexation 
 of her territory would be only adding insult to injury, 
 and without Germany the League would be no 
 League, but simply an instrument to be picked up 
 and thrown away at the whim of the " Big Two." 
 Well may the Observer denounce this policy as 
 " madness." " It is madness which, if long pursued, 
 will bring the fundamental mortal interests of this 
 country (England) — trade and employment and the 
 commercial basis supporting our Imperial structure 
 — into direr peril and jeopardy than has ever been 
 known. . . . We shall inflict more vital and per- 
 manent injury on ourselves than we can wreak on 
 Germany. ... It would penaHze more and more 
 the innocent — the Germans who were children when 
 the War broke out and have never known any
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 69 
 
 responsibility for the Hohenzollern system. It dis- 
 courages all moderate opinion in Germany that 
 might otherwise have worked for the constructive 
 peace of the world, and for that full restoration 
 of economic interdependence, world trade, and uni- 
 versal exchange, which we ourselves need more 
 than Germany or any other country needs it. The 
 whole method only stimulates German mihtarist 
 reaction on the one hand and Bolshevist feeling 
 on the other. These two extremes are tending 
 more and more to make common cause with each 
 other and with Russia. Nothing can result from 
 it in the long run but catastrophe for Europe and 
 ourselves." 
 
 The failure of the " Big BulHes " at Paris to 
 realize that their Herculean task was to save Europe 
 and the world by saving Germany and not by de- 
 stroying her, by removing the Blockade the day 
 after the Armistice was signed, by pouring food 
 and raw material into Germany, so that the morale, 
 the strength and the working capacity of her people 
 might be restored and her industries renovated 
 and tuned up to top production, was repeated in 
 regard to Austria-Hungary and all along the line. 
 
 Again, instead of endeavouring to save Austria 
 from economic and pohtical extinction, as they 
 might have done by creating an economic Federation 
 of Danubian States on the one hand, and sanctioning 
 union of German-speaking Austria with Germany
 
 70 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 on lines of self-determination on the other hand, 
 the Peacemakers neglected the one and forbade 
 the other, so that Austria should surely die. The 
 tragedy of Austrian men, women and children dying 
 by slow degrees of starvation baffles all description. 
 Always thinking strategically and imperially, instead 
 of economically and sanely, they have indeed cut 
 off Germany's " corridor " to Constantinople — an 
 unnecessary procedure in view of Germany's con- 
 version from a military and monarchical State to 
 a Democratic Repubhc — but in so doing they have 
 reduced Austria and Hungary to uneconomic units, 
 a drag and a danger to European life and prosperity. 
 To complete their sinister work, they Balkanized 
 Central and Eastern Europe by the Peace of Paris. 
 For Balkanization there will be found many apologists, 
 some even amongst Socialists. The logical apphca- 
 tions of the sacred and democratic principle of 
 " self-determination " even to the smallest nation 
 must be ethically right, however unsafe and unsound 
 in a world governed and controlled by Imperialism 
 and CapitaHsm. Before the War, for Serbia, Bulgaria, 
 Roumania and Greece to run their nationalities 
 separately and to insist too strongly upon their 
 " public rights " as " Nationahties," in face of 
 the mighty Empires of Austria, Germany, Russia 
 and Turkey, which did not beheve in " Nationahties " 
 or in " pubHc rights," but only in " might," was 
 ethically right, but practically wrong. Their policy
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 71 
 
 in a world governed on the Imperial doctrine of force 
 should have been, " Together we stand, alone we 
 fall." Their only chance of " Independence " from 
 the Powers surrounding them was a Federation 
 with self-government in local affairs. 
 
 After the War, with their neighbouring Empires 
 either wiped out or converted into Socialist Republics, 
 they can enjoy the pleasures and privileges of 
 " Nationahty " and "self-determination" with fear 
 only of French and, to a lesser degree, British Im- 
 perialism. They are naturally asking themselves 
 whether, in view of French Imperialistic PoUcy, 
 their " Independence " is safe, and whether Federa- 
 tion or a Minor Entente Cordiale would not be wise. 
 But, however the War may have changed the world 
 regarding Imperialism, pure and simple. Capitalism 
 is still in the saddle, and it is economically, therefore, 
 the best policy for all these " Nationahties " to 
 join together, and also with Czecho-Slovakia and 
 Austria and Hungary, in a Free Trade or Economic 
 Union. 
 
 When both the hounds of hell, the hound of 
 CapitaHsm as well as the hound of Imperialism, are 
 laid by the heels, it will be time enough for the 
 " Httle Nationahties " to claim all their " pubhc 
 rights." But meanwhile let us hope that the 
 Light of the Higher Life, the Fuller Life, the Nobler 
 Life will have broken through the crusted craniums 
 of the rulers and the peoples, and that they will
 
 72 IMILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 learn that the spiritual, the intellectual, the cultural, 
 the economical, as well as the material well-being 
 of man can only be attained in Internationalism, in 
 a Commonwealth of Free Nations, in the Brotherhood 
 of Man. 
 
 After all the cruel agony of prolonged years of 
 persecution and exploitation at the hands of Austrian, 
 Prussian and Russian MiUtarism, Poland's headlong 
 plunge into the dark and stormy waters of Imperialism 
 is a great cause of disappointment to her friends, 
 and a sad illustration of the insidious and corrupting 
 power of Capitahsm over the Government, Press 
 and pubHc opinion of a Modern State. In her 
 aggressive wars against Soviet Russia, Poland has 
 acted at the bidding of France, France finding the 
 sinews of war and officering the Polish armies. 
 
 The poHcy of France with regard to Poland is 
 two-fold : (i) To use her as an instrument to destroy 
 Soviet Russia, because the Soviet Government 
 decHnes to acknowledge the debts contracted by 
 Tsarist Russia, debts largely due to Frenchmen ; and 
 (2) to make Poland a strong miHtary buffer State, 
 lest Russia should one day join with Germany in 
 a war of revenge. 
 
 Since the defeat of the Central Empires, France — 
 Chauvinistic France — has been the Dictator and 
 Evil Genius of Europe, with England — Jingo England 
 — acting as whipper-in. Revenge, craven fear, and 
 vaulting ambition have been the mainsprings of
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 73 
 
 her policy, and until they are replaced by the spirit 
 of goodwill, trust and co-operation, there is no 
 hope for Peace in Europe. 
 
 It is needless to dwell on the fact that Poland, 
 ravaged and disease-stricken by the Great War, is 
 now paying the added price of her own fooHsh 
 ImperiaHsm in financial and moral bankruptcy. 
 
 Another chapter in Imperial perfidy has been 
 written in Persia by Great Britain both during the 
 War and since the War ended. To understand the 
 situation in Persia at the outbreak of hostihties, 
 the following summary of recent history may be 
 useful I : — 
 
 By an almost bloodless revolution the Shah granted 
 a Constitution on August 5, 1906, and in October 
 of the same year the first Majlis, or National Elective 
 Assembly, met. On the death of the old Shah in 
 January 1907, trouble at once arose between the 
 new Shah — a reactionary — and the National Assembly 
 over financial control, the National Assembly gaining 
 the upper hand. Then came the Anglo-Russian Con- 
 vention on August 3, 1907, " partitioning " Persia 
 into " spheres of influence," Russia taking the 
 
 « For the details of Persia's fate, readers should consult 
 The Persian Revolution, by Edward G. Browne, Professor 
 of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, and The Strangling 
 of Persia, by W. Morgan Shuster, an American citizen, who 
 was appointed Treasurer-General of Persia, with four financial 
 expert assistants, also Americans, to put the national finances 
 in order.
 
 74 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Northern part and England the Southern with a 
 neutral zone between, without consulting the Majhs, 
 and causing the profound resentment and distrust 
 of the Persian people. Up till June 1908 the Con- 
 stitutionaUsts were making reforms in spite of the 
 opposition of the RoyaHsts, when " the Russian 
 Minister and the British Charge d'Affaires called 
 on the Persian Minister for Foreign Affairs and 
 threatened the Government with Russian intervention 
 if the opposition to the Shah's plans and wishes did 
 not cease. The Russian Minister took the lead 
 and framed the threats and demands, and the 
 British representative merely announced his Govern- 
 ment's approval of the Russian Minister's words, 
 according to Mr. Shuster's account. 
 
 On June 5th the Shah practically declared war 
 on the Constitutionalists by arresting some of their 
 number, by collecting troops, arms, and munitions, 
 by seizing the telegraph offices, by declaring martial 
 law in Teheran, and by placing the Russian Colonel 
 Liakhoff in supreme command. On June 23rd the 
 Parliament buildings were bombarded by Colonel 
 Liakhoff and Persian Cossacks, the Nationalist 
 forces outnumbered and overwhelmed, and " well- 
 known Nationalists arrested, strangled or imprisoned." 
 The Tsar's Government of course " disclaimed " 
 Colonel Liakhoff in face of European criticism. 
 Defeated in the capital, the Nationalists were suc- 
 cessful in Tabriz, Isfahan and Resht, and the North,
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 75 
 
 until April 29, 1909, when a Russian force took 
 possession of Tabriz. Eluding the Royalist forces 
 under Russian officers, the National Army entered 
 Teheran on July 13th, when Colonel Liakhoff sur- 
 rendered. The Shah was deposed and exiled, his 
 son, aged twelve, proclaimed his successor, and a 
 Regent appointed. Thus Constitutionalism was re- 
 stored and the new Majlis opened on November 
 
 15, 1909, but unfortunately under " the open hostility 
 of Russia and the scarcely less injurious timidity 
 of England, so far as thwarting Russia's evident 
 designs upon the success of the Constitutional Govern- 
 ment in Persia was concerned." 
 
 Russian forces were increased in the North, and 
 Great Britain sent an " ultimatum " on October 
 
 16, 1910, " practically demanding that a number 
 of officers of the British Indian Army should be 
 placed in charge of the policing of the Southern 
 roads and trade routes under the supervision of the 
 British Government and at the expense of Persia." 
 
 Thus between the Russian Bear in the North and 
 the British Lion in the South, the lot of the Persian 
 Cat was not a happy one. It was made much worse 
 by the fact that the ex-Shah was permitted by 
 Russia " to escape from Odessa, to cross through 
 Russia, to embark on a Russian steamer, traverse 
 the Caspian, and land in Persian territory with 
 a suite of uniformed officers and a consignment 
 of guns and cannon," and to plunge Persia into
 
 76 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 civil war again. Against her internal enemies the 
 Nationalist forces were able to cope successfully 
 in two campaigns, so successfully, in fact, that 
 the Russian Government evidently came to the 
 conclusion that her intrigues to place Royalist 
 puppets on the throne subservient to Russia must 
 give way to naked and unabashed aggression by 
 Russian troops. Ultimatums were delivered asking 
 the Persian Government to dismiss Mr. Shuster, 
 Sir Edward Grey advising the Majlis to give wa,y ; 
 but, to their everlasting honour, the trustees of 
 Persia's Parliament and Persia's public rights and 
 liberties refused, and the steam-roller did its deadly 
 work. 
 
 This act of International brigandage on the part 
 of Russia was condoned by Great Britain lest, for- 
 sooth, we should displease that Power and drive 
 her into the arms of Germany. 
 
 After the fall of Tsarism during the Great War 
 the Revolutionary Government denounced the 1907 
 treaty and withdrew its forces from Persian soil. 
 Bolshevik Russia has been charged with many 
 crimes, falsely or truly, but from the great crime 
 of Imperialistic CapitaHsm, common to all the 
 European Powers, she is fortunately free. To Persia 
 the Bolshevik Government said the same as to 
 Finland and to the Baltic States. " Go free ; enjoy 
 Independence to your heart's dehght, for we shall 
 not oppress you or inflict our rule over you as
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 77 
 
 Imperial Russia did aforetime. Develop your own 
 resources and your own culture. We shall be glad 
 to exchange goods with you, as well as ideas." 
 
 This excellent example of Bolshevik Russia one 
 naturally expected that Imperial Britain would 
 follow by denouncing the dishonourable and dis- 
 graceful Treat}^ which partitioned Persia, and at 
 the same time by withdrawing British troops from 
 Persian soil. Oh no ! nothing of the kind. Our 
 Government of honourable men, representing Uberty- 
 loving Englishmen and Enghshwomen, simply de- 
 clared the foul Treaty of 1907 " in abeyance," and 
 endeavoured to replace it by the 1919 Agreement, 
 which if accepted by the Persian people would mean 
 that Persia would become a second Egypt, a servile 
 appendage of the British Empire, with its army 
 organized and officered by Britons, its finances 
 manipulated by Britons, the construction of its 
 railways secured by Britons, and every department 
 of State controlled by Britons. 
 
 During the War a British Army occupied Persia 
 — a crime against Persian Independence, many 
 argue, comparable to Germany's occupation of 
 Belgium — and although more than two years have 
 passed since the Armistice, the army still remains 
 in occupation. The military pressure has been so 
 powerful that the Persian Government has swallowed 
 the "Agreement," and Lord Curzon, our gentle 
 and genial Foreign Minister, protests, when challenged
 
 78 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 in the House of Lords, that the process of compulsory 
 feeding will cease and the army will be withdrawn 
 if the Persian Parliament refuses to ratify the 
 " Agreement." 
 
 Two terrible consequences followed upon the 
 British invasion of Persia : counter-invasions by 
 the enemy (Turks) and later by the Bolsheviks, 
 who naturally retaliated by striking at the British 
 Empire for the wars our rulers were insanely con- 
 ducting and abetting against Soviet Russia. 
 
 The Persian Government sent representatives to 
 the Peace Conference at Paris requesting to be heard, 
 and seeking (i) compensation for damage done by 
 the invaders, and (2) recognition as an Independent 
 State. Alone the British Government opposed — 
 the Government chiefly responsible for Persia's 
 bitter sufferings during and after the War — and 
 although all the other Governments were wiUing 
 to admit Persia's claim to be heard, it was turned 
 down at the instance of Mr. Lloyd George. 
 
 Let us get down to the real reasons for this extra- 
 ordinary conduct and cowardice of the Prime Minister. 
 Unfortunately for Persia, she is one of the gateways 
 into India, affording an easy coast-route through 
 Baluchistan. In consequence, for more than one 
 hundred years British Imperial policy has been to 
 support Persian Independence, and to maintain 
 Persia as a " buffer " against any advance of Russian 
 Imperialism in the direction of our Indian Empire.
 
 BRITISH AND FRENCH MILITARISM 79 
 
 During that time England naturally found favour 
 in the eyes of Persians. Then came the 1907 debacle, 
 when the two Imperial Monsters divided Persia 
 between them, and when both became hated by 
 Persian patriots. 
 
 With the withdrawal of Imperial designs by Soviet 
 Russia, England has reversed her early poHcy of 
 backing Persian Independence to one of strangulation 
 and absorption on the Egyptian model. The reason 
 for her early poHcy was strategic, to protect the 
 Indian Empire, whereas the reason for her present 
 pohcy is chiefly Capitahstic, because there is oil 
 in Persia, and profits to be made in building rail- 
 ways, etc. 
 
 First, Persian Independence is respected and 
 preserved by British Imperiahsm out of fear of 
 Russian Imperiahsm, not out of love of freedom 
 or respect for the rights of a httle nationahty. 
 Secondly, it is torn in twain by British and Russian 
 Imperiahsm acting in consort ; and thirdly, it is 
 sacrificed to the Gargantuan greed of British Capital- 
 ism, which knows neither freedom, nor nationahty, 
 nor honesty, nor honour. 
 
 Could Imperial cowardice stoop lower ? Could 
 Imperial buhying go farther ? Could Imperial hypo- 
 crisy be more contemptible ? 
 
 In conclusion let us note the immoral and inimit- 
 able imphcations of Imperiahsm. Because of our 
 Indian Empire we are involved in committing crime
 
 80 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 upon crime, in laying the " mailed fist " on Gibraltar, 
 Malta, Cyprus, Palestine, Egypt, Somaliland, Aden, 
 Mesopotamia and Persia, as well as Afghanistan, at 
 different times. 
 
 Since the above was written Lord Curzon, Secre- 
 tary for Foreign Affairs, stated in the House of 
 Lords on July 26, 1921, that the Persian Govern- 
 ment had refused to ratify the Anglo-Persian 
 Agreement (which practically made Persia a British 
 Protectorate), and that in consequence British and 
 Indian troops, officers and advisers were being 
 withdrawn, and the offer of £2,000,000 as a loan 
 lapsed. At last the integrity and independence of 
 Persia is recognized, and a stain removed from 
 Britain's escutcheon. 
 
 British MiHtarism in Ireland, India and Egypt 
 (during the War and since) will be treated in the 
 chapter on Labour and the British Empire.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE 
 HOUNDS OF HELL 
 
 Now we know where we are, the vital question 
 arises, Which PoHtical Party is going to save Great 
 Britain, Europe and the world from Capitalism and 
 Imperialism ? 
 
 The Conservative or Coahtion Party is hopeless. 
 It believes in Force and nothing but Force, in 
 Conquest for Markets, Empire and World Power, 
 in exploitation of the masses by Landlords, Capitahsts 
 and Profiteers, as well as in the exploitation of weak 
 nations and races by the strong and powerful nations 
 and empires. 
 
 " Freedom," " Self-determination," " Public 
 Rights," " Little Nationahties," " A World made 
 Safe for Democracy," and all the " Fourteen Points," 
 and even the League of Nations to enforce Peace, 
 are all " damned nonsense " in the opinion of most 
 good Tories, Conservatives and CoaHtionists except 
 Lord Robert Cecil. Freedom, to these gentlemen 
 of the road, during the War simply meant freedom 
 from the powerful competition of Germany in the 
 
 6 ^'
 
 82 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 international struggle for markets and World Power. 
 Of course they were out to smash Prussian Militarism, 
 but not as " Mihtarism " itself, not as an evil itself, 
 but only as a competitor and menace to British 
 Militarism, to the British Empire and to British 
 Supremacy in the World. 
 
 Fear and jealousy, and not love of Freedom or 
 Democracy, were the mainsprings of Conservative 
 action in the War, Hence our AlHance with the 
 Tsar, the greatest of all despots. If the Conservative 
 or Coalition Party had been out to make the world 
 safe for Democracy, it would have welcomed and 
 helped the Revolutions in Germany and Russia, 
 instead of making terms of Peace to humihate and 
 enslave the new-born German Democracy, and 
 instead of backing every monarchical, capitaUstic, 
 mihtary and anti-democratic upstart to upset Russian 
 self-determination. 
 
 The poHcy of the Coalition and Conservative 
 Government towards Russia may be taken as the 
 " acid test " of its attitude towards Democracy, 
 rightly struggling to be free from Militarism, Mon- 
 archy and Capitahsm. With the exception of the 
 Russian people all the democracies are heavy losers 
 by the War and the Peace, and yet next to the 
 reactionary French Government the Coahtion Govern- 
 ment has been Democracy's most hostile and stupid 
 opponent. I say " stupid " dehberately — ^it was 
 Disraeh who first described Conservatives as the
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 83 
 
 " stupid party " — because their antagonism only 
 consolidated the ranks of the Russian people, and 
 made clear to them that British Militarism, next 
 to French Militarism, was the greatest danger to 
 Democracy the world over. There are many other 
 " acid tests," however, of the affection of the Coalition 
 Party for MiHtarism and CapitaHsm besides Russia. 
 There is MiHtarism in India, Egypt, and most violent 
 and frightful of all in Ireland ; there is the conquest 
 and annexation of Mesopotamia ; the rape of Persia ; 
 the seizure as part of the spoils of war of the German 
 Colonies ; the recognition of slavery as forced cheap 
 labour in British East Africa ; and then, to come 
 right home, the fear to make a levy on Capital 
 in order to reduce the National Debt ; the support 
 of Landlordism by the Agricultural Act ; the com- 
 parative neglect to find land for " heroes," and the 
 extravagant prices paid to landowners for land ; 
 the Dyestuffs Bill in favour of a few CapitaHsts ; 
 the New Protection Bill in the form of " Safeguarding 
 Key Industries " to make the rich richer and the 
 poor poorer ; the breach of faith with the miners 
 to nationaUze the mines ; the responsibility of the 
 Government for a large part of Unemployment, and 
 the abject inadequacy of their efforts to cope with 
 this gigantic evil ; the rise in annual expenditure 
 on British Militarism from £92,000,000 in 1914 to 
 £280,000,000 in 1920, not to mention the wastage 
 of £100,000,000 on Denikin, Wrangel & Co., and
 
 84 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 £100,000,000 in Mesopotamia and untold millions 
 in Ireland. 
 
 With regard to Unemployment the ineptitude of 
 the Coalition Party is frankly confessed in the 
 " King's Speech," February 15, 1921, in the following 
 words : " Unemployment may be alleviated but 
 cannot be cured by legislative means." Behold a 
 half-truth, which conceals the truth. The causes 
 of Unemployment are Capitalism and Mihtarism, 
 which can be changed by " legislative means " — 
 nationaHzation, for example, combined with a poHcy 
 of Peace, Disarmament, Internationalism and the 
 League of Nations. To expect Tories, Coalitionists 
 or any but a few Radicals amongst Independent 
 Liberals to apply these remedies would be tanta- 
 mount to expecting the leopard to change his spots. 
 These great remedies for the great diseases of society 
 can only be properly applied by the Labour Party, 
 as we shall indicate presently. 
 
 The estimated expenditure for 1921 on armaments 
 by air, sea and land amount to £210,000,000, which 
 will be followed as usual by " supplementaries." 
 Why this vast expenditure, when our competitor 
 in arms lies crushed ? Competition in armaments 
 against America is ruled out as " unthinkable." 
 The only answer remains that the coercive poHcy 
 of Mr. Lloyd George in Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, 
 Ireland, Palestine and the Rhine demands it. Under 
 his reign of riot and expansion the British Empire
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 85 
 
 seethes with more discontent and dissaffection than 
 in the worst days of Lord North. 
 
 The Conservative and Coahtion Party is the 
 kept party of the hounds of hell, and its prime 
 function is the Protection of Capital and the Ex- 
 ploitation of Labour at home and the annexation 
 and exploitation of weak nations and races abroad. 
 It is the British counterpart to the Junker Party in 
 Germany. It believes in the " survival of the fittest," 
 and the fittest, in its opinion, are the few with the 
 broadest acres, the longest purses and the biggest 
 Berthas. 
 
 Righteousness, justice, mercy, magnanimity — attri- 
 tributes of God Himself — applied either to individuals 
 or nations form no part of Tory or Coahtion psy- 
 chology. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity to them 
 signifies surrender of their social, economic and 
 political privileges. Social service and a Co-operative 
 Commonwealth is anathema in their eyes. Every 
 man for himself, and every nation for itself, and the 
 devil take the hindmost, sums up their reHgion. 
 
 What about the Liberal Party ? Can it save 
 Europe and England ? By a courageous application 
 of the principles Peace, Retrenchment and Reform, 
 it might amehorate the economic sufferings of the 
 people, it might assuage International and Racial 
 hatred fostered in Europe and the world by the 
 Post-War Reactionary Governments of England 
 and France ; it might improve International Ex-
 
 86 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 changes and Trade ; and it might soothe some of 
 the Imperial sores in the British Empire, but it has 
 no remedy for ImperiaUsm and Capitahsm. Its 
 dependence upon Capitahsm for party funds, and 
 its impHcation in ImperiaUsm, render it unfit and 
 incapable to heal the wounds of the War, for which 
 the Liberal Government of 1914 was to a considerable 
 extent responsible, as we now know from Mr. Lloyd 
 George's admission that the war was "stumbled" 
 into. 
 
 When the history of the Liberal Party comes to 
 be written, its permeation by ImperiaHstic Capitahsm 
 will be found to be the main cause of its decline. 
 Even Gladstone failed to resist its subterranean 
 power and its entangling influences, and the conquest 
 of Egypt is the crime that sullies his otherwise 
 honest and honourable career. 
 
 Under Rosebery's malign leadership. Liberal Im- 
 perialism got a still stronger hold on the Party and 
 reduced its Liberahsm in proportion until a greater 
 man — Campbell-Bannerman — restored its Liberahsm 
 in the South African settlement and in the Trades 
 Dispute Act. Then came the deluge under the 
 Liberal Imperialism of Asquith, Grey, Churchill 
 and Lloyd George, who led the international race 
 in bloated armaments, who made and renewed 
 Alhances with reactionary and Imperiahstic Govern- 
 ments of France, Russia and Japan, who tore up 
 Persia like a scrap of paper, who squeezed territory
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 87 
 
 out of China, who failed to make good Home Rule 
 for Ireland, and who feared Carson so much that 
 instead of putting him in the dock as a conspirator 
 they put him in the Cabinet, as an example for Sinn 
 Fein to follow. 
 
 As a Nemesis of the War, the Liberal Party is 
 rent in twain. The Coahtion Liberals sold their 
 souls for a mess of political power, and for more 
 than two years have coalesced with their poHtical 
 enemies in reducing Liberal principles to rags. With 
 the formation of separate Coalition-Liberal organiza- 
 tions throughout the country their return to the 
 fold is as likely to happen as the return of Liberal 
 Unionists. Their chief is a poHtical gambler of 
 the first order. Where Chamberlain failed he has 
 succeeded, for he has not only captured Asquith's 
 seat, but Arthur's seat and Bonar's to boot. Once 
 having tasted of power under the massed battaUons 
 of reaction, he is not likely to risk anything for 
 political principles, which he holds as trifles light as 
 air. Besides, has he not sucked " the wild and 
 poisonous berries " of Limehouse ? And suffering 
 from auto-infection and megalomania, has he not 
 found a permanent asylum in Berkeley Square, 
 where Jeremiahs and those who " toil not, neither 
 do they spin," are wont to gather together ? His 
 jeremiads against Labour and Socialism on Bal- 
 fourian lips would be fit subjects for laughter and 
 ridicule ; on Mr. Lloyd George's they only produce
 
 88 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 the nauseating reminder of the dog returning to 
 its vomit. 
 
 Whether the Independent Liberals can pull them- 
 selves together, can cast off their leanings towards 
 ImperiaHsm and Capitalism, and produce a pro- 
 gramme to command the support of the enlightened 
 electorate, is doubtful — under Asquith and Grey 
 one might almost say impossible. But apart from 
 leadership and party loyalty, does not a bigger 
 question arise than the life and future of a political 
 party, namely, whether it is good for our country 
 and the world that the progressive forces should 
 be divided into Independent Liberal and Labour 
 Parties ? The best of the past may belong to the 
 Liberal Party, but surely the future is with the 
 new and enlarged Labour Party, which justly claims 
 to be not only NationaHst in the highest sense of 
 that word, but Internationalist. 
 
 The " Manchester programme " of the Liberal 
 Party — not entirely accepted by that Party — being 
 a very mild dose of Socialism adapted to the sensitive 
 palate and squeamish stomach of Capital, would it 
 not be to the highest interests of social and human 
 progress for Independent Liberals to join the Labour 
 Party, whose Sociahsm is of a more substantial 
 and satisfying character, and alone guarantees a 
 permanent solution of industrial and economic un- 
 rest ? In the absence of proportional representation 
 the folly of division in the progressive parties becomes
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 89 
 
 patent at every parliamentary election, where there 
 is a three-cornered fight, and a reactionary is fre- 
 quently returned to Parliament by a minority vote. 
 But even if this anomaly were removed by the 
 adoption of proportional representation, and the 
 House of Commons made a true reflex of the will 
 of the people, which it is not to-day, the Three- 
 Party system tends to confuse the electors, and to 
 make poHtical education much more difficult. With 
 such gigantic evils as Capitalism and Imperialism 
 to fight, has the time not come for Independent 
 Liberals to sacrifice their amour-propre and to come 
 over and help the Labour Party ? 
 
 With regard to tactics and the next General 
 Election, I am inclined to say, " Damn tactics, 
 and stick to principles." We are told that without 
 an act of renunciation on the part of many Liberals, 
 or without an accommodation between Free Liberals 
 and Labour, hundreds of seats will be presented to 
 the Coalition, and Lloyd Georgism will be empowered 
 for another five years, during which time the " old 
 world" of "slums," "unemployment" and "en- 
 trenched selfishness " would wag along, and Capital 
 would " tear up the rails " of Peace for " oil," 
 " coal," or " cheap labour." We are told that 
 electoral audacity without proportional representation 
 means more donkey- work for Labour, rebellion in 
 Ireland, India and Egypt, European £v*^°^«"^y and, 
 in all probability, another World War*' which,
 
 90 MILITARISIM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 of course, Labour would suffer most. We are told 
 that electoral discretion without any sacrifice of 
 principle would yield Labour and Free Liberalism 
 a working majority in the House of Commons, with 
 which they could begin building the " New World " 
 of healthy homes, security of employment, social 
 service, self-determination in the British Empire, 
 European Reconstruction, and World Peace. We 
 are told these things by good Radicals like Mr. 
 Gardiner and Mr. Massingham, and that Liberals 
 are prepared to work with Labour after an Election. 
 Then why, in the name of Heaven, cannot Liberals 
 throw in their lot with Labour altogether, and save 
 our country from the hounds of hell ? 
 
 The historic parties being " tied " to Capitalistic 
 Imperialism, there remains only the Labour Party 
 to save civilization from barbarism and ruin. The 
 assertion of Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. Lloyd George 
 and of other members of the Coalition that Labour 
 is unfit to rule, seems rather amiss, if not impertinent, 
 after they and their party and their ruling caste 
 have filled the world with affliction and reduced 
 Europe to ruin. Those who live in glass houses 
 should not throw stones. The Labour Party had 
 no hand in the fatal Imperialistic and grabbing 
 policy of our rulers as well as the other rulers of 
 Europe which inevitably led up to the Great War. 
 On 1^7- ^^ntr^ fy^ the Labour Party protested against 
 our A ^ 'Jvith the Tsar, the head of as dangerous
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 91 
 
 a military despotism as the Kaiser's. Lest Mr. 
 Lloyd George and Mr. Winston Churchill forget, 
 let me remind them that without the British Alliance 
 the Russian miHtary party would never have dared 
 to throw down the gauntlet to German MiHtarism 
 which let loose the wolves of War. The responsi- 
 bility, therefore, of these critics of the Labour Party 
 in the Great Crime against humanity was direct in 
 that they and their party made the Russian AlHance, 
 as well as indirect in that they and their party 
 belong to the systems of Capitahsm and Imperial- 
 ism, which went for each other in the Great 
 War. 
 
 Again, the Labour Party had no hand in the 
 Poisonous Peace of Paris which has completed the 
 downfall of Europe and which is Mr. Lloyd George's 
 pet child. On the contrary, the Labour Party 
 condemned the Peace, as an end of Peace and the 
 seed of more wars, and demanded its Revision from 
 top to bottom in accord with the famous " Fourteen 
 Points" upon which the Armistice was signed and 
 the Peace should have been built. 
 
 Yet again, the Labour Party had no hand in the 
 brutal Blockade and war against Soviet Russia, 
 the thrice-cursed policy of our modern mixture of 
 Falstaff and Napoleon. On the contrary, the Labour 
 Party called both off as disastrous to European 
 reconstruction, and went to the extreme length of 
 threatening " Direct Action," with all its attendant
 
 92 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 risks of civil war, if the Government did not cease 
 its fooling. 
 
 Again, in Ireland the Labour Party has consis- 
 tently and persistently opposed the Reign of Terror 
 initiated and effected with more than Prussian 
 " frightfulness " by the Government of Superior 
 persons. In fact, wherever the Government of all 
 the talents or none have sown dragons' teeth of 
 MiHtarism, the Labour Party has followed close 
 on their heels in order to cut off the heads of the 
 monsters which have sprung up. Labour has played 
 Perseus to the Government's Dragon. In poHcy, 
 in temper, and in environment the Labour Party is 
 the only party that has a ghost of a chance of re- 
 deeming the situation, of healing the frightful diseases, 
 physical, economic and spiritual, produced by the 
 War and the Peace, and of applying right remedies 
 to prevent a repetition of World Agony. 
 
 When Mr. Lloyd George and his friends charge 
 Labour with incapacity to rule, it is worth while 
 to analyse the reasons for the charge and to ask 
 the question, What decides capacity to rule ? 
 From my short parliamentary experience " capacity 
 to rule " or " fitness for office " depends chiefly upon 
 the following tests : (i) Glibness of speech with a 
 good parliamentary manner ; (2) capacity of self- 
 suppression, when one disagrees with the policy of 
 the party ; (3) friends in high quarters, ministerial, 
 social, etc. ; (4) capacity to subscribe to party funds.
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 93 
 
 Whether I have put these in order of merit or 
 not I must leave to office-bearers and Cabinet- 
 makers to say. Generally, I presume, capacity 
 to put a good case or to criticize effectively is the 
 first qualification for office and promotion. The 
 higher tests of character, of mind, of distinguished 
 public service in local government, seem to be 
 secondary considerations in the lottery of picking 
 out Ministers and understrappers. One frequently 
 sees strong men, who have won their spurs in other 
 fields, shunted in favour of men with money, with 
 rank, with pliant backs, with a safe seat, or with 
 frothy speech. 
 
 But some one will argue, with reason, that these 
 are defects incidental to Parliamentary Govern- 
 ments, and that the real government of the country 
 is carried out by the Civil Service which, while 
 Governments come and go, goes on for ever. 
 
 The function of Government is (i) to determine 
 the policy and (2) to see that the officials carry it 
 out in the right way. Policy, therefore, comes 
 first, and my claim is that, by the test of policy, 
 the Labour Party is not only admirably fitted to 
 rule, but that it is much better fitted than either 
 the Tory, Coalition or Liberal Parties. The Labour 
 Party may be deficient in effective criticism in the 
 present House of Commons, may be short of star 
 turns in parliamentary debate and platform oratory, 
 but if these are serious defects, the next General
 
 94 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Election and the provision of higher Education for 
 the masses will soon remedy them, and the Labour 
 Party will possess as many shooting stars as the 
 other parties. " Measures, not men," is the watch- 
 word forgotten by Liberals. " Policy, not verbosity," 
 is Labour's watchword. 
 
 Locking back a little, is there any critic of the 
 Labour Party who believes that a Labour Govern- 
 ment would have invaded Egypt for the benefit 
 of " bondholders " ? or indulged in the South 
 African War for cheap Chinese labour and gold- 
 mines ? or made War on Russia to restore Tsarism 
 and to exact dividends ? or organized a Reign of 
 Terror in Ireland ? or " staggered " into the Great 
 War for Constantinople, Oil and World Power .? 
 Tories, Liberals and Coalitionists have had their 
 chance, and have made a mad and a sad Vv-orld. 
 Labour must have its chance, and its policy is cal- 
 culated to cure the madness and to turn the sadness 
 to gladness. 
 
 Labour and Foreign Policy. 
 
 The first thing a Labour Government would do 
 would be to end all the wars and sorts of wars in 
 which the Coalition Governments have involved 
 our country, by withdrawing our armies of occupa- 
 tion from Ireland, Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia, Con- 
 stantinople and the Rhine ; by making peace with 
 Russia, and, of course, recognizing the " Soviet
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 95 
 
 Government " ; by replacing the Supreme Council 
 of the Allies by a Council elected by the Assembly 
 of the League of Nations, to which Austria, Germany, 
 Russia, Turkey and the United States of America 
 would be invited to send representatives, so that 
 the League should be fully representative of all 
 nations ; by Revision of the Peace of Paris (pre- 
 ferably) by this new World Council ; by Revision 
 of the Covenant of the League of Nations in accord- 
 ance with reason and the wishes of America, Italy, 
 etc. ; by co-operating with America, or with all the 
 Governments of the world through the League of 
 Nations, to rehabilitate the shattered finances of 
 Europe ; by immediate and drastic Disarmament 
 either by direct agreement with America, France 
 and Japan or, better, through the League ; by drop- 
 ping the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of which we know, 
 and of any secret Alliance of which we know not. 
 
 This is a colossal although not a chimerical pro- 
 gramme. It could be carried out by strong men 
 with faith in Democracy. British Labour could 
 do it. British Labour must try. British Labour 
 must lead the way, because British Militarism is 
 a great danger to World Peace, World Progress 
 and World Freedom. Judged by expenditure in 
 armaments and size of Empire held by force, it is 
 the greatest and most dangerous Militarism in the 
 world. The supreme duty of the Labour Party, 
 therefore, is to smash our own Militarism, and to
 
 96 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 extend the flood of freedom to every part of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 The supreme duty of the French Socialists is to 
 smash French MiHtarism, which some consider 
 even more dangerous than its counterpart in England. 
 That is the affair of the French Labour Party. 
 England is in no position to criticize France. 
 
 What I have to say to my fellow-mem.bers of the 
 British Labour Party is, that unless we smash British 
 Militarism it will smash us as well as our country. 
 How we have to accomplish this noble aim I shall 
 deal with a little later, when we treat of the Remedy 
 for Empire. As faint hearts and bitter-enders may 
 take exception to the withdrawal of the British 
 Army from the Rhine, the solid reasons for doing so 
 are : that the presence of an army there is demoral- 
 izing alike to Germans and to our own soldiers, is 
 delaying Germany's economic recovery by adding 
 fresh financial burdens to her overtaxed people, 
 and is altogether futile, as the terms of Peace have 
 to be completely revised, British Labour must 
 trust German Labour to carry out what reparations 
 and conditions the League of Nations lays down 
 without any more resort to physical force. The 
 cruel and foolish policy of Lloyd George and 
 Clemenceau and Millerand to put Germany in 
 economic bondage would be reversed by a Labour 
 Government for reasons which I have already given, 
 but which I may repeat briefly, because the economic
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 97 
 
 and moral restoration of Germany is the most im- 
 portant step in the reconstruction of Europe, and 
 essential to the well-being of France and England. 
 Instead of trying to keep German goods out 
 of England — any indemnity can only be paid 
 in goods and not in cash — as the Coalition have 
 been doing, Labour would encourage a free exchange 
 of goods, which in consequence would give our 
 manufacturers more orders and our unemployed 
 more work. 
 
 Free Trade would be Labour's policy not only 
 with Germany but with Russia and the world, and 
 in order to avoid the crippling effect of the chaotic 
 rates of exchange, arrangements would be made 
 between the respective Governments to barter goods 
 and to distribute them according to the needs of 
 the peoples. What Capitalism had failed to do 
 in its individualistic and competitive selfishness. 
 Labour would achieve by International Socialism 
 and Co-operation. 
 
 With regard to the chief bone of contention between 
 Russia and Germany, and which little Greece badly 
 wanted and still wants, and which now lies in 
 the British Lion's mouth, Labour would hand over 
 Constantinople to the League of Nations, It might 
 become the home of the League, the great centre 
 of Internationalism, and the hope of the New World. 
 The " mandate " theory — camouflage for " con- 
 quest and annexation " — beautiful invention of 
 
 7
 
 98 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Modern Capitalism under the directorship of the 
 Heavenly Twins, Lloyd George and Clemenceau, 
 has had its day, and must cease to be. All " man- 
 dated " territories must be restored to their rightful 
 owners, the inhabitants ; Mesopotamia to Meso- 
 potamians, Syria to Syrians, Palestine to the dwellers 
 in Palestine, whether Gentile, Jew or Arab. The 
 League of Nations would naturally act as Trustee 
 for these peoples and territories, freed from British 
 and French interference and exploitation, and the 
 precious stones and still more precious oil would 
 be rationed equitably amongst the nations. Labour's 
 policy for the stolen German Colonies would be to 
 transfer them to the League, which would either 
 return them to Germany or hold them in trust, 
 fostering self-government, protecting the natives 
 from exploiters and rationing raw material. 
 
 The principles of Self-determination, of National 
 Freedom and Independence, would be fearlessly 
 applied to Egypt under a Labour Government, 
 and the Internationalization of the Suez Canal under 
 the auspices of the League of Nations would relieve 
 Egypt and England alike of all military and naval 
 responsibilities in regard to this great waterway. 
 
 Labour would give short shrift to secret diplomacy, 
 secret treaties and secret understandings, and would 
 curtail the powers of the Secretary of State for 
 Foreign Affairs by creating a Foreign Affairs Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons.
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 99 
 
 Hitherto the world has been cursed by the rivalry 
 in armaments of the leading European Powers. 
 The financial drain of this malevolent and stupid 
 rivalry is indicated in the following figures for ten 
 years preceding the War : — 
 
 1905-1914. 
 
 
 Army 
 
 Naval 
 
 Tnfal 
 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 Expenditure. 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 I. Great Britain 
 
 278,546,000 
 
 391,916,470 
 
 670,462,470 
 
 2. Russia 
 
 495,144,622 
 
 144,246,513 
 
 639,391.135 
 
 3. Germany 
 
 448,025,543 
 
 185,205,144 
 
 633.230.687 
 
 4. France. . 
 
 347,348,259 
 
 161,731,387 
 
 509,079,646 
 
 5. Austria- 
 
 234,668,407 
 
 46.803,394 
 
 281,471,801 
 
 Hungary 
 
 
 
 
 6. Italy . . 
 
 141,518,105 
 
 81,702,376 
 
 223,220,481 
 
 During the same ten years the United States of 
 America spent £262,627,554 upon the Navy and 
 at the rate of about £25,000,000 a year upon her 
 Army, although the number in the Army only 
 amounts to about one hundred thousand men. 
 
 What volumes these colossal figures speak, if 
 only the people had ears to hear and intelligence 
 to comprehend them ! Their very magnitude is a 
 measure of the deception of Democracy and of 
 the failure of the present systems of government 
 responsible for them. The truth cannot be repeated 
 too often that the democracies have no quarrel
 
 100 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 with each other, and that they do not make wars, 
 although, unfortunately, they pay for them and 
 for warlike preparations not only in life and debt 
 and taxation, but also in high cost of living, unem- 
 ployment, reduction in real wages, and in the loss or 
 postponement of great social reforms, which depend 
 upon finance for their execution. 
 
 The common plea for this prodigal waste of money 
 and labour and moral and intellectual energy on 
 armaments, namely, that it is insurance against 
 war and international piracy, has broken down in 
 practice. Preparations for war have only proved 
 inducements to war. The means to do ill deeds 
 make ill deeds done. The best way to insure against 
 war and international piracy is to get rid of the 
 warlike and piratical systems of Capitalism and 
 Imperialism and the Governments which represent 
 them. 
 
 Two years after the War, the chief rivals in arma- 
 ments are Great Britain, France, United States of 
 America, and Japan. As the breeders of war have 
 forecast that the next great war will be against 
 what they are pleased to call the Yellow Peril — that 
 is, between America and Japan primarily, with 
 England and China dragged in on one side or the 
 other — they are already whipping up their respective 
 naval departments for the Naval Armageddon. 
 What they would fight about God only knows. 
 From past experience one might guess that it would
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 101 
 
 be the same old game for Naval Supremacy, World 
 Power, islands in the Pacific as bases for submarines, 
 or coaling stations, etc., or for minor material matters 
 like " timber," " rubber," " oil," " phosphates " etc., 
 so dear to the Capitalist's heart. 
 
 On January i, 1912, the total first-line ship strength 
 of the three great naval rivals is given as follows : — 
 
 Ships. Tonnage. 
 
 Great Britain . . . . 532 1,601,652 
 
 United States . . . . 330 766,733 
 
 Japan 43 340,59^ 
 
 What should be the attitude and policy of the 
 British Labour Party and a Labour Government 
 towards the mad naval race ? First, to tear up the 
 Anglo- Japanese Treaty, which has alarmed America, 
 with or without reason, on the one hand, and given 
 impetus to Japanese ambitions, with or without 
 reason, on the other hand ; secondly, to decline to 
 enter into any competition in naval construction, 
 recognizing that America has got both the men 
 and the money, and that, if she is out to beat us 
 in barbarism, she can do so ; thirdly to co-operate 
 with Labour in America and Japan to fight our 
 common enemy — Imperialistic Capitalism ; and lastly, 
 to capture and strengthen the League of Nations, as 
 the lifeboat for Labour and Civilization. 
 
 With regard to the Yellow or Asiatic Peril, Labour 
 recognizes the historical truth that the White or
 
 102 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 European Peril has created the Yellow or Asiatic 
 Peril ; that European Powers have acquired by 
 militarism, and hold in subjection, vast territories 
 and populations in Asia ; that the subjection and 
 exploitation of these populations by Europeans 
 must end, or otherwise the Yellow Peril, which is 
 only at its initial stage, will assume colossal pro- 
 portions by China adopting European Militarism 
 and uniting with Japan, and possibly India, to clear 
 the Conquerors out of Asia. 
 
 When will Europe realize that she is the culprit ? 
 that her " brutality, violence and rapacity " in 
 Asia, as well as in Africa, has been disastrous 
 to Liberty and Public Rights, is beyond human 
 endurance, and inevitably produces " reprisals " ? 
 
 The depths of immorality to which the European 
 Powers sank is well illustrated by a recent chapter 
 in Chinese history. In 1895, when Japan (as the 
 fruit of her victory over China) proposed to appro- 
 priate the Liaotung Peninsula, Germany, France 
 and Russia assumed the role of good Samaritans 
 and preserved China from her piratical neighbour. 
 Two years later the scene was changed, and Germany 
 led the European pirates in an attack upon the 
 sovereignty and public rights of China, acquiring 
 by the " mailed fist " a ninety-nine years' lease of 
 Kiaochau ; on March 15, 1898, Russia seized Port 
 Arthur on similar terms ; on July i, 1898, Great 
 Britain comforted her immortal soul with Wei-
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 103 
 
 hai-Wei ; and a little later France followed in the 
 debacle by taking possession of Kwang-Chau-Wau. 
 Italy also put in a claim for territory, but, her fist 
 not being big enough, only received a snub instead. 
 This process of lipping up China was too much 
 for Japan, who took another round in the Imperial 
 game of war for markets and pockets in 1904, de- 
 feating Russia and taking over some of the stolen 
 property of that Power. 
 
 To meet the Yellow Peril, or rather to prevent 
 the Yellow Peril growing and breaking against the 
 White Peril, Labour's great function is to make 
 good the promises of the War by restoring all the 
 " Alsace-Lorraines " in Asia — Hong-Kong, Wei-hai- 
 Wei, India, etc. — to their rightful owners, and by 
 making common cause with Labour in the Eastern 
 Hemisphere. The resources of Labour and of 
 Civilization to find natural peaceful and appro- 
 priate outlets for Japan's overflowing population 
 are not exhausted yet. 
 
 Anglo-American friendship and good relations 
 are not only endangered by the Anglo- Japanese 
 Alliance, but by the bigger issue with which it is 
 intimately associated, namely, the Freedom of the 
 Seas, which President Wilson failed to make good 
 at Paris, and which more than anything else has 
 pushed America into such active naval rivalry with us. 
 
 The fearful power of the Blockade established by 
 the British Navy during the War thoroughly alarmed
 
 104 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 America, and Mr. Wilson fought the wild beasts at 
 Paris, in order to make the League of Nations the 
 Mistress of the Seas, and the sole possessor of the 
 right to declare a Blockade. His unfortunate failure 
 is heard in the clang and the bang of the naval 
 shipbuilding yards of America, Britain and Japan, 
 and in the wild cry of the unemployed in the peaceful 
 and peacemaking industries of these countries. Here 
 again we realize how inseparably Foreign Policy is 
 associated with Unemployment and how essential 
 it is to meet America's just grievance against Great 
 Britain on the high seas. 
 
 The Labour Party, by satisfying America on the 
 burning question of the Freedom of the Seas, on 
 the recognition of our War Debt to her, on the 
 question of Ireland, on the revision of the Peace of 
 Paris, on the transference of " mandated " territories 
 to the League of Nations, and the rationing of raw 
 material like oil, etc., amongst the nations, and on 
 denouncing the Alliance with Japan, would remove 
 all the grievances and causes of friction between 
 us and our American cousins and lay the solid 
 foundations of a lasting friendship and co-operation 
 in world problems. 
 
 In the most vital department of Foreign Affairs, 
 of Peace and War and Armaments, where Liberals 
 and Tories have most blundered, the Labour Party 
 is strongest, because it is free from the malevolent 
 environment of Capitalism, and because it is in
 
 BRITISH POLITICAL PARTIES 105 
 
 fullest and heartiest sympathy with the struggling 
 workers of other countries, with whom it will foster 
 and develop the new spirit of InternationaHsm and 
 Brotherhood instead of the old spirit of Imperial 
 expansion and National enmity. In Foreign affairs, 
 therefore, the Labour Party is better fitted to govern 
 than either of the other poHtical parties, and gives 
 richer promise of Peace and Progress.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY FOR EMPIRE 
 
 The Allied reply of January lo, 1917, to the United 
 States laid down as amongst the essential terms 
 of peace — 
 
 " The restoration of Belgium, Serbia and of 
 Montenegro. . . . 
 
 " The evacuation of the invaded territories in 
 France, Russia and Roumania. 
 
 " The restitution of territories formerly torn from 
 the Allies by force or contrary to the wishes of 
 their inhabitants." 
 
 Behold the key to Labour's Remedy for Empire. 
 
 " The restoration of Ireland, Egypt and of India 
 
 " The evacuation of the invaded territories in 
 Constantinople, Mesopotamia, Persia, etc. 
 
 " The restitution of Wei-hai-Wei, Hong-Kong, 
 Malta, Cyprus, Ceylon, etc., formerly torn from 
 China, etc., by force or contrary to the wishes of 
 their inhabitants." 
 
 It is all so simple. Why waste time in discussing 
 it further ? When the rulers of the Allies were in 
 
 106
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 107 
 
 a hole, when they were at the end of their financial 
 resources, when their military machines were run 
 down, when victory was vanishing and stalemate 
 or defeat was facing them, they went on their 
 knees to beg America to come and save them. 
 With contrite hearts and penitential prayers they 
 professed to President Wilson, who knew their 
 past history (their public AUiances, their criminal 
 conduct to weaker nations and races like Ireland, 
 Morocco, TripoH, etc.), that they had seen the error 
 of their ways, that German MiHtarism had taught 
 them a lesson they had never learnt before, namely, 
 that MiHtarism was an evil thing in itself, that 
 ambition for World Power was wrong, that the 
 doctrine that " might was right " must end in 
 their own destruction and in universal anarchy. 
 Suspecting their sudden conversion to international 
 sanity and morahty, and fearing their Pharisaism, 
 Wilson evidently pressed them to put their con- 
 fession in writing. Hence the above declaration, 
 and also the acceptance of the Fourteen Points 
 by the AUies. In plain language, the ImperiaHstic 
 Rulers of France, Italy, Russia, Great Britain and 
 Japan condemned in 1917 without quahfication 
 or equivocation the old order of " right of 
 conquest," and extolled in its place the new 
 order (of the rights) of " nationaUty " and of " self- 
 government." In 1919, by the Peace of Paris, 
 the Imperialistic Governments of France, Italy
 
 108 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and Great Britain re-established the old order of 
 " right of conquest," and knocked the bottom out 
 of " self-government/' as well as of the other 
 " Fourteen Points," The " Big Three," in cheating, 
 duping and betraying Wilson, have cheated, duped 
 and betrayed America, without whose aid the War 
 could not have been won, have cheated, duped and 
 betrayed Democracy. 
 
 Confining ourselves to the British Empire, for 
 whose governance we are directly responsible, 
 the CoaUtion Government has magnified the old 
 order of " right of conquest " by visiting upon 
 Egypt, India and Ireland " Mihtarism " as bad 
 as " Prussianism," and has mocked the new order 
 of " self-government " by declaring a Protectorate 
 over Egypt, by introducing finicking reforms in 
 India, and by Partitioning Ireland against the 
 expressed will and cherished longings of her people. 
 The CoaUtion has cheated, duped and betrayed 
 Democracy. Labour knows what " conquest " is, 
 has suffered oppression from "conquerors" in the 
 field of industry as well as in the field of poHtics 
 and civil government, has tasted the bitter fruits 
 of Militarism in times of strikes, has felt the cold 
 steel of bayonets and bullets in its own flesh. From 
 brutal experience and cold reason, therefore. Labour's 
 hostility to the " right of conquest " is whole- 
 hearted. To smite it hip and thigh, to restore 
 the acquisitions and annexations of the past as
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 109 
 
 well as of the present to their rightful owners, to 
 free the peoples from domination (foreign or home), 
 to break the chains of servitude, to set the captive 
 free, is the natural and happy province of the 
 Peoples' Party. 
 
 Further, Labour is becoming more and more 
 aware that the British Empire outside of the self- 
 governing Colonies is not only a contradiction of 
 Freedom, Self-government and NationaHty, but is 
 a hotbed of wage-slavery, a forcing ground of low 
 wages and cheap servile labour. 
 
 British Labour has seen the powerful use British 
 CapitaHsm has made of the difficulty of competing 
 against cheap German labour by reducing the 
 wages of British workmen, and the Labour Party 
 realizes that depression of wages in Germany tends 
 to depression of wages in England, that in fact 
 the same law holds good universally, that depression 
 of wages in one part of the world tends to depression 
 of wages in another part ; that, in other words, low 
 wages, like infectious diseases, have a tendency 
 to spread and contaminate generally. In its 
 struggle, therefore, for economic justice Labour is 
 persuaded, and rightly, that the fight against 
 Capitahsm can only be successful by fighting Imperial- 
 ism at the same time, and by making every unit 
 in the British Empire free and self-governing. 
 
 It seems idle and illogical to argue that Freedom 
 must be " within the Empire " ; that is to say, that
 
 110 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Britons have the right to dictate to South Africans, 
 Australians, Canadians, Irish, Egyptians and 
 Indians, etc., Hmits to their free choice and self- 
 determination. Mr. Bonar Law said, " If the 
 self-governing Dominions chose to say to-morrow, 
 ' We will no longer make a part of the British 
 Empire,' the Government would not try to force 
 them. Dominion Home Rule means the right to 
 rule their own destinies." We congratulate the 
 Leader of Tory Imperialism upon his definite refusal 
 " to force" Canada, AustraHa, etc., to remain within 
 the Empire, and when the Labour Party refuses to 
 " force " Ireland, India and Egypt to keep within the 
 Empire, we shall expect to have his valuable support. 
 Labour's minor ideal may be to convert the 
 British Empire into a Commonwealth of Free Nations, 
 but its major ideal is a League of Free Nations, 
 and the greater includes the less. Of one thing 
 Labour is quite certain, that no Empire has any 
 moral justification to use " force " or " compulsion " 
 to keep or bind any nation within its boundaries. 
 To use " moral suasion " with Indians, Egyptians, 
 Irish, Australians, Canadians and South Africans, 
 etc., to remain within a British Commonwealth of 
 Free Nations is legitimate, but to employ " force " 
 would be illegitimate, would, in fact, be " Mihtarism," 
 the antithesis of Freedom, the curse of Humanity, 
 and the cause of the decline and fall of every Empire 
 which the World has ever known.
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 111 
 
 If Ireland and South Africa want Republics 
 to-day and Canada and Australia to-morrow, not 
 all the King's horses and all the King's men can 
 prevent them. Peaceful persuasion may, kindness 
 may, magnanimity may, a change in temper and 
 tone on the part of arrogant and overbearing British 
 administrators and politicians may. The only things 
 that can permanently bind nations and indi- 
 viduals together are mutual respect, admiration 
 and love. These things, the beautiful things of 
 life, the Coalition Government has marred and 
 mangled ; England is no more respected, admired 
 or loved, not even in the British Dominions. By 
 its Carthaginian Peace for Central Europe and its 
 wild orgy of military Terrorism in Ireland, Egypt, 
 India, Mesopotamia, etc., it has destroyed whatever 
 reputation England had for justice and honesty, 
 and has made England the object of almost uni- 
 versal contempt. The Labour Party, cherishing the 
 beautiful things in national hfe — respect for the 
 ideals of other peoples, warm-hearted sympathy 
 with their aims and aspirations towards self-expression 
 and freedom, hatred of all the artifices, deceits 
 and devilry of Militarism and CapitaHsm — must 
 restore the good name of England and win the 
 sympathy and confidence of Irish, Indian, Egyptian, 
 South African. In that way alone can a Union 
 of Hearts be brought about in the British Common- 
 wealth and the current of pubHc opinion towards 
 Freedom " outside the Empire " be reversed.
 
 112 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 The Great Adventure in the undiscovered land 
 of Liberty, with all its glorious treasures of respect, 
 and goodwill made by Durham in Canada and 
 Campbell-Bannerman in South Africa, should be 
 repeated by Labour in Ireland, Egypt, India, 
 Mesopotamia, etc., and, if the final outcome should 
 be complete Independence " outside the Empire," 
 we shall not be grieved, because the boundaries 
 of Freedom will have been enlarged, and the World 
 enriched. The bhndness of ImperiaUsts seems 
 beyond treatment. Their last and only argument, 
 for instance, against Irish Freedom, against an 
 Independent Irish RepubHc, is that in case of 
 England being involved in war with some powerful 
 adversary Ireland would take her opportunity 
 of revenge for centuries of British cruelty, and 
 would offer facihties to enemy submarines, if she 
 did not actually join in a war of humihation 
 and vengeance. The converse proposition never 
 strikes them, namely, that England's refusal to 
 grant Irish Freedom " without reservations," and 
 to acknowledge an Independent Irish RepubHc, 
 must inevitably influence and incite Ireland to 
 seize every occasion to injure and destroy her 
 hereditary enemy. 
 
 To protect England from a justly irate Ireland, 
 Labour would make friends with Ireland, by 
 treating her as a free and independent equal, by 
 confessing contrition for the awful excesess of
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 113 
 
 English domination in the past, and by co-operating 
 with Irish Labour to free England and Ireland 
 from Capitalistic Imperialism. 
 
 For purposes of clear thinking and treatment 
 the British Empire may be divided into two parts : 
 (i) Self-governing Colonies, making their own 
 laws, managing their own affairs, even to taxing 
 goods from Great Britain as well as from foreign 
 countries, and in reality, though not oiiicially, 
 directing their own foreign policy. (2) Depen- 
 dencies, to which are denied the sacred and natural 
 right to govern themselves. To the first category 
 belong Canada, Australia, New Zealand, New- 
 foundland and South Africa ; and to the second, 
 Gibraltar and Malta in Europe, India, Aden, 
 Persia, Sokotra, Kuria, Muria Islands, Bahrim 
 Islands, British Borneo, Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong- 
 Kong, Labuan, the Straits Settlements, the 
 Federated Malay States, Wei-hai-Wei in Asia ; 
 Egypt, Ascension Island, Basutoland, Bechuana- 
 land, British East Africa, Central Africa, Zanzibar, 
 Mauritius, Rhodesia, St. Helena, Tristan d'Acunha, 
 Seychelles, Somaliland, Swaziland, Nigeria, Gold 
 Coast (Lagos), Gambia, Sierra Leone in Africa ; 
 Bermudas, Falkland Islands, British Guiana, British 
 Honduras, Bahamas, Barbadoes, Jamaica, Leeward 
 Islands, Trinidad and Windward Islands in North 
 and South America ; British New Guinea, Fiji 
 Islands, Tonga, etc., in Australasia ; and the recently 
 
 8
 
 114 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 " mandated " Mesopotamia, Palestine and German 
 Colonies in various parts of the world. 
 
 Those belonging to the first category may be 
 called " Commonwealth of Free Nations " or 
 " solved Empire," because they are free from armies 
 of occupation and all forms of domination — could, 
 in fact, create, if they hked, their own armies and 
 navies — and because they enjoy self-government, 
 based on freedom and democracy ; while those 
 in the second category form " unsolved Empire," 
 because they are held " within the Empire " by 
 force, by MiHtarism, because they are subject to 
 domination by Great Britain, and because their 
 forms of government are alien and contrary to 
 liberty and democracy. 
 
 It is important to emphasize the truth that 
 Australia, Canada and South Africa only remain 
 " within the British Commonwealth " — Empire is 
 a misnomer for them — because they are free to 
 do what they please apart from Downing Street ; 
 that, for example, they entered the Great War 
 of their own free will, and their subscriptions to 
 the British Navy are purely voluntary. It is a 
 question even if they would be bound by decisions 
 in London in regard to Peace and War. For 
 instance, in case of Jingo England co-operating 
 with Japan in a war against America, Canada and 
 Austraha would either stand " neutral " or fight 
 alongside of the United States.
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 115 
 
 Before dealing with the " unsolved " part of 
 the British Empire dehneated in the second cata- 
 logue we are constrained to consider Ireland, 
 which has been the most " insoluble " part of the 
 Empire, and the grave of Imperial statesmanship. 
 
 Labour and British Militarism in Ireland. 
 
 The suspension of the Home Rule Act (1914) was 
 
 due to fear of " Ulster " and its EngHsh MiUtary 
 
 Allies. The province of Ulster is almost half 
 
 Nationalist and Roman CathoHc in composition, 
 
 but a considerable Protestant and Unionist majority 
 
 is concentrated in the four North-Eastern Counties 
 
 of Down, Antrim, Armagh and Londonderry, Led 
 
 by Sir Edward Carson and assisted by the leaders 
 
 of the EngUsh Tory Party, a very formidable 
 
 opposition to Irish Home Rule had been in progress 
 
 for some years before the War. The so-called 
 
 " Ulster " men armed themselves without let or 
 
 hindrance, and Sir Edward Carson, with the open 
 
 encouragement of Mr. Bonar Law, the present 
 
 Lord Chancellor (F. E. Smith) and the Tory leaders, 
 
 threatened to " break every law " rather than to 
 
 allow " Ulster " to come under the rule of a United 
 
 Irish Parliament at DubHn. 
 
 It is extremely important to observe that, though 
 there is in Belfast a strong anti-Irish and anti- 
 CathoHc fanaticism, even amongst the workers, 
 the Carsonite movement was not of purely local
 
 116 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 inspiration. " Ulster " was used as a pawn in 
 the game of British reaction. This came out very 
 clearly early in 1914, when the Liberal Government 
 having suddenly determined to move against Carson 
 and check the warhke preparations in Belfast found 
 itself confronted by the Curragh Revolt ; that is, by 
 the refusal of a number of smart EngHsh regiments 
 stationed at the Curragh, to go on service in Ulster 
 except under conditions. It is stated that at one 
 moment a warrant was issued against Carson, but that 
 Redmond intervened. Henceforward the Liberal 
 Government lay at Carson's mercy. 
 
 A month after the outbreak of the War, in placing 
 the Home Rule Bill on the Statute Book, Mr. Asquith 
 simultaneously pledged himself " not to coerce 
 Ulster." This pledge gave Carson all that he could 
 desire. It meant that in any subsequent negotiation 
 regarding the revision of the Bill in the hght of 
 the claims of " Ulster," " Ulster," representing 
 a small minority of the people of Ireland, would 
 be a contracting party, whose will could override 
 not only that of the Irish Nationalists but also 
 that of the British electorate. 
 
 Nevertheless the Irish people as a whole offered 
 in August 1914 their support to Great Britain, 
 beUeving the War to be one for Justice and for 
 the Freedom of NationaUties. Several NationaHst 
 M.P.'s enhsted, and two of them. Major Redmond and 
 Lieutenant Kettle, lost their Uves in Flanders, their
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 117 
 
 last words being a pathetic expression of faith in 
 the cause for which they died, and in the identity 
 of that cause with the aspirations of their own 
 country. 
 
 A section of the Irish Volunteers — a body which 
 had been formed as a response to the Ulster move- 
 ment — objected to the recruiting policy of Mr. 
 John Redmond, and the leaders of this section 
 in April 1916 planned a rising in the streets of Dublin, 
 which opened with the Proclamation of an Irish 
 Repubhc to a somewhat sceptical crowd at the 
 General Post Office. These young men, mostly 
 scholars and professors, had not counted upon 
 success against the British Army, but they calculated 
 — and, as events proved, rightly — that their action 
 in sacrificing their lives would create a feehng in 
 favour of " romantic " Nationalism, and throw 
 discredit on the pedantic policy of Mr. John 
 Redmond and the Parliamentary Party. The re- 
 bellion was put down violently. Sixteen of the 
 leaders were shot after summary trial by Court 
 Martial, many others were sentenced to long terms 
 of imprisonment, and thousands of arrests and 
 deportations — often of men who had no concern 
 in the affair — were made throughout the country. 
 
 Sir Roger Casement, who had watched events 
 from Berhn, crossed to Ireland on a submarine, 
 was seized, placed in the Tower, tried for High 
 Treason and hanged. At his trial as prosecuting
 
 118 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 counsel appeared none other than Sir F. E. Smith, 
 the politician who had assisted the " Ulster " rising 
 against Home Rule, as " galloper " to the Carsonite 
 forces. There was no moral difference between 
 prisoner and prosecuting counsel. Both had advo- 
 cated Direct Action — Casement on behalf of a weak 
 nation, Smith on behalf of a strong political party. 
 Casement was hanged, Smith became Attorney- 
 General and afterwards Lord Chancellor. 
 
 The psychological effect of these events was very 
 great. They involved the Nationahst ParHamentary 
 Party in ruin and set Sinn Fein up in its stead. The 
 causes of the Sinn Fein triumph were several, namely, 
 discontent with Mr. Redmond's leadership, the 
 conviction that no British party could be trusted 
 to do justice to Ireland — a conviction that was 
 greatly fortified by the difference between the treat- 
 ment meted out to the rebels of Easter week and 
 that accorded to Carson and his friends, who were 
 now in high office in England — and finally, a romantic 
 respect for the memory of the men who had risked 
 and lost their lives in a forlorn but patriotic 
 cause. 
 
 And yet the rising of Easter week was not of 
 Sinn Fein origin, Sinn Fein, which dated from 
 about 1904, had been merely a policy of passive 
 resistance to British authority in Ireland. It 
 proposed to Hberate Ireland, not by force, but by 
 patient constitutional and constructive effort and
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 119 
 
 " self-help," Its central doctrine was non-recogni- 
 tion of the legality of the Act of Union, from which 
 doctrine it followed that Irishmen should not sit 
 in the British ParHament. 
 
 Previous to the rising Sinn Fein had sunk to so 
 low an ebb as to be unable to pay rent for the offices 
 which it occupied in DubHn. Now it was accepted 
 by the Irish people as the only possible alternative 
 to parliamentarianism, with which they had become 
 disgusted. At the elections of 1918, Sinn Feiners 
 were elected almost everywhere in Ireland by huge 
 majorities, and these representatives of the people, 
 instead of proceeding to Westminster, gathered 
 together in the DubHn Mansion House, whence 
 they issued " laws " and " decrees." 
 
 Mr, Asquith, and subsequently Mr. Lloyd George, 
 sought to recover their mistakes of 1916 by certain 
 tentatives of conciliation. Many of the Easter-week 
 prisoners were released, and in 1917 a so-called 
 Irish Convention was brought together at Mr. 
 Lloyd George's instance. It was a body of a totally 
 unrepresentative character, and the Sinn Feiners, 
 who had been offered five seats upon it, refused 
 to recognize the validity of its decisions. The 
 Convention pronounced by a considerable majority 
 for a moderate scheme of Home Rule for the whole 
 of Ireland, but as the " Ulstermen " refused to 
 sign the Report, nothing was done. Mr. Lloyd 
 George repeated his dictum, " Ulster must not
 
 120 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 be coerced," and forthwith proceeded to coerce 
 Nationalist or Sinn Fein Ireland, 
 
 " Dail Eirann," the Sinn Fein Assembly, was 
 broken up by force ; Sinn Fein and the Gaelic 
 League, a society formed for the promotion of the 
 Irish language, were declared illegal and criminal 
 associations. Mr. Duke, a Tory of decent tradition, 
 resigned the Chief Secretaryship following upon the 
 fiasco of the Convention. His successors in office 
 were Mr. Shortt, Mr. MacPherson and Sir Hamar 
 Greenwood, all of them characteristic creatures 
 of the neolithic epoch in British politics, the epoch 
 of the Lloyd Georgian CoaHtion. 
 
 Seizures of the persons and property of Sinn 
 Feiners, midnight raids and arrests, became the 
 order of the day. In 1918 and the early part of 
 1919 the number of the assaults against the elected 
 representatives of the Irish people and their supporters 
 ran into thousands. Then, of a sudden, towards 
 the end of 1919, an extremist section of Sinn Fein 
 began to retort by the assassination of poHcemen 
 and other agents of the Crown, and so hated had 
 the Government become, that it was found impos- 
 sible to secure information against the criminals. 
 At the end of 1919 these " gunmen " — Sinn Fein 
 francs-tireurs — made an abortive attack on the life 
 of Lord French. 
 
 Early in 1920 reprisals of an independent character 
 were instituted. At the outset " small groups of
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 121 
 
 soldiers and police acted on their own initiative," 
 but the process " speedily became systematized," 
 and under Sir Hamar Greenwood became " part 
 of the ordinary machinery of Government." The 
 town of Thurles was " shot up/' the Sinn Fein 
 Lord Mayor of Cork was murdered in his bed in 
 March, Tuam was sacked in July, and outbreaks 
 of the military and police occurred at Kilmallock, 
 Ballyanders, Ballah and many other places. Only 
 in one case, that of Balbriggan, where two boys 
 were hacked to death, did Sir Hamar Greenwood 
 make the semblance of an apology, and even so he 
 sought to minimize the disgrace and dishonour 
 which his conduct had brought upon himself and 
 Great Britain, by arguing that Sinn Feiners were 
 the chief sufferers. 
 
 " The leading part of the campaign was allotted 
 to the Black-and-Tans, recruited from demobiUzed 
 soldiers to fill the gaps in the ranks of the Royal 
 Irish Constabulary. Their achievements were 
 crowned by the burning of Balbriggan, and the 
 merciless hacking to death — the phrase is literally 
 accurate — of two of its inhabitants who refused 
 to turn informers. Before Balbriggan, some eighty 
 towns had been wholly or partially sacked. . . . 
 But the Black-and-Tans have had no monopoly of 
 this helHsh business. Since Balbriggan, regular troops 
 have burned Mallow and devastated Lahinch, where a 
 man named Joseph Connole was done to death with
 
 122 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 a savagery equal to that shown by the Black- 
 and-Tans in the kilHng of Lawless and Gibbons." » 
 
 The culminating point of atrocity and counter- 
 atrocity seemed to be reached on November 22nd, 
 when a number of bands of young men entered the 
 houses of fourteen British officers, who had been 
 concerned in the Court Martial of Irish Volunteers, 
 and killed the occupants in their beds. These 
 crimes were avenged the same afternoon, when 
 the mihtary with machine guns attacked a crowd 
 of five thousand innocent persons watching a DubHn 
 football match, killing ten and wounding seventy. 
 
 Lest the writer — a Scotsman — should be con- 
 sidered a partisan of Ireland, which in his opinion 
 is as much entitled to Freedom from British domina- 
 tion as Belgium is from German domination, he 
 quotes from The Nation and The Athenceum of 
 February 26, 1921 : — 
 
 " Most observers of Monday's attack on the 
 Irish administration of Mr. Lloyd George will be 
 struck by one singular characteristic of the defence. 
 The Government made no attempt to repel the 
 moral and poUtical indictment of their policy. 
 With one exception, Mr. de Valera's accusation 
 of the violation of women. Sir Hamar Greenwood 
 allowed every specific atrocity alleged against his 
 irregulars to go by default. This seems astonishing, 
 but it is true. 
 
 I The New Statesman.
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 128 
 
 " Take first the accusation of violating the 
 usages of civihzed war, as laid down by the Hague 
 Convention. Captain Wedgwood Benn adduced 
 from such violations the taking and exposure of 
 hostages, the infliction of penalties on the population 
 for offences for which they were not responsible, 
 the destruction of pubhc property in revenge for 
 private offences, and the seizure of private property 
 when not demanded by the necessities of war. Sir 
 Hamar allowed every one of these grave charges 
 to pass. He was equally dumb before specific 
 stories of misconduct. A County Court Judge 
 stated, from the Bench, that in County Clare alone 
 139 criminal offences had been committed by the 
 forces of the Crown. The Irish Secretary offered 
 no denial or palHation of any one of these crimes. 
 It was affirmed that the officers of the Crown donned 
 civihan clothes in order the more freely to commit 
 murder in them. Sir Hamar Greenwood did not 
 deny it. He was told, on the authority of Cardinal 
 Logue, that a certain encampment of Black-and- 
 Tans was a ' nest of bandits and homicides.' 
 He did not dispute the description. He was con- 
 fronted with his admission that Cork City had been 
 given to the flames by his auxiliaries, and told by 
 Lord Robert Cecil that he dared not pubhsh the 
 military report on that crime because he feared 
 for its effect on the maintenance of law. No 
 Minister rose to repel the suggestion. He was
 
 124 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 reminded of his denial of responsibility for the 
 burning of the creameries, of his fiction on the 
 incendiarism in Cork. He had no explanation to 
 offer. Crimes against obviously innocent people 
 — such as aged women and children — the murder 
 of clergy, insults to highplaced Irishmen, instances 
 of burglary, highway robbery and petty theft 
 on the part of Auxiliaries and Black-and-Tans, 
 and a state of widespread riot and indiscipHne, 
 were recited in detail. The only remedial measure 
 that the Irish Secretary could recall was the dis- 
 missal or the unspecified punishment of fourteen 
 men. He was told that his government was a 
 failure, and that for one Sinn Fein outrage com- 
 mitted in 1919 fifteen were committed in 1920. 
 He alleged a fictitious improvement in Ireland, 
 only to confess that the Sinn Fein campaign was 
 ' extending ' to this country. He was asked for 
 a poHcy other than one of force. He had none 
 to suggest. . . . The Government would go on 
 ' fighting the assassins ' by imitating and outdoing 
 them. ... 
 
 " Why not admit that in the case of the British 
 Government of Ireland we have committed one 
 of the most fearful mistakes in history, that in 
 using the sweepings of our Army to crush her by 
 any means, foul or fair, we have behaved like 
 barbarians and fools ; and that in outraging the 
 soil, the reHgion, the institutions and the character
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 125 
 
 of the Irish as we have done during the last four 
 months, we have half ruined our own ? " 
 
 As the Government refused an Independent 
 Enquiry, The British Labour Party sent a Commission 
 of Enquiry to Ireland, and their Report will stand 
 as an historical indictment of the Reign of Violence 
 initiated and conducted by Mr. Lloyd George in 
 Ireland immediately after the Great War to kill 
 Prussianism. 
 
 While these events were passing in Ireland, the 
 House of Commons was occupied with a new " Home 
 Rule " Bill, which satisfied no party in Ireland. 
 Its principal provision was the repeal of the Home 
 Rule Act of 1914. The new Bill divided Ireland into 
 two parts, and proposed to set up two Parliaments, 
 one in Dublin and one in Belfast, thereby giving 
 legal sanction to the fiction of " two Irish Nations." 
 Nationalists had always been prepared to agree 
 to special safeguards for the Unionist majority 
 of the North-West being incorporated in a Home 
 Rule Bill, prepared even to allow the North-Eastern 
 Counties to " vote themselves out " of Home 
 Rule for a term of years, but the Government Bill 
 went much further, constituting the Unionists of 
 the North-East into a separate State, with a legalized 
 veto on any further project of Irish Unity. In 
 spite of the criticisms of Irish Southern Unionists, 
 who objected both to the particularist character 
 of the scheme and to its financial clauses (under
 
 126 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 which practically every power of taxation was 
 retained in British hands) the Government forced 
 the measures through the House of Commons with- 
 out any sort of amendment. 
 
 In the Irish debate in the House of Commons on 
 March 23, 1921, Mr. Lloyd George confessed, " I have 
 failed up to the present, and so have my colleagues." 
 As a people, Britons are deficient in imagina- 
 tion. How do Italians regard British brutality 
 in Ireland ? First, Itahans say, " What business 
 have British soldiers in Ireland ? They have no 
 more right there than Austrian soldiers had in 
 Italy." It was Mr. Lloyd George himself who, 
 speaking on " The Greatness of Little Nations," 
 said of Belgium, " What business had German 
 soldiers there at all ? Belgium was acting in 
 pursuance of a most sacred right — the right to 
 defend your own home." Italians repeat Mr. Lloyd 
 George's dictum, " Ireland is acting in pursuance 
 of a most sacred right — the right to defend its own 
 home." 
 
 Until the British Government recognizes this 
 fundamental truth in its relations with Ireland, 
 there is no hope for a satisfactory Irish settlement, 
 and there is no hope of restoring the lost honour 
 and reputation of England in the world. 
 
 What do our American cousins think of us ? 
 An " unofficial " Commission of men representative 
 of all shades of American opinion was appointed
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 127 
 
 by the New York Nation to enquire into the Con- 
 ditions in Ireland, and the Commission's conclusions 
 are as follows : — 
 
 " We find that the Irish people are deprived of 
 the protection of British law, to which they would 
 be entitled as subjects of the British King. They 
 are likewise deprived of the moral protection granted 
 by international law, to which they would be 
 entitled as belligerents. They are at the mercy of 
 Imperial British forces which, acting contrary both 
 to all law and to all standards of human conduct, 
 have instituted in Ireland a ' terror ' the evidence 
 regarding which seems to prove that — 
 
 " I. The Imperial British Government has created 
 and introduced into Ireland a force of at least 
 78,000 men, many of them youthful and inexperienced 
 and some of them convicts, and has incited that 
 force to unbridled violence. 
 
 " 2. The Imperial British forces in Ireland have 
 indiscriminately killed innocent men, women and 
 children ; have indiscriminately assassinated persons 
 suspected of being Republicans; have tortured 
 and shot prisoners while in custody, adopting the 
 subterfuges of ' refusal to halt ' and ' attempting 
 to escape ' ; and have attributed to alleged ' Sinn 
 Fein extremists ' the British assassination of promi- 
 nent Irish Republicans. 
 
 " 3. House-burning and wanton destruction of 
 villages and cities by Imperial British forces under
 
 128 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Imperial British officers have been countenanced and 
 ordered by officials of the British Government ; and 
 elaborate provision by gasoline sprays and bombs has 
 been made in a number of instances for systematic 
 incendiarism as part of a plan of terrorism. 
 
 " 4. A campaign for the destruction of the means 
 of existence of the Irish people has been conducted 
 by the burning of factories, creameries, crops and 
 farm implements, and the shooting of farm animals. 
 This campaign is carried on regardless of the politi- 
 cal view of their owners, and results in widespread 
 and acute suffering among women and children. 
 
 " 5. Acting under a series of proclamations issued 
 by the competent military authorities of the Imperial 
 British forces, hostages are carried by forces exposed 
 to the fire of the Republican Army ; fines are levied 
 upon towns and villages as punishments for alleged 
 offences of individuals ; private property is destroyed 
 in reprisals for acts with which the owners have' 
 no connection ; and the civilian population is 
 subjected to an inquisition upon the theory that 
 individuals are in possession of information valuable 
 to the military forces of Great Britain. These acts 
 of the Imperial British forces are contrary to the 
 laws of peace or war among modern civilized nations. 
 
 " 6. This ' terror ' has failed to re-establish 
 Imperial British civil government in Ireland. 
 Throughout the greater part of Ireland British 
 courts have ceased to function ; local, county and
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 129 
 
 city governments refuse to recognize British authority ; 
 and British civil officials fulfil no function of service 
 to the Irish people. 
 
 " 7. In spite of the British ' terror,' the majority 
 of the Irish people having sanctioned by ballot 
 the Irish Republic, give their allegiance to it, pay 
 taxes to it, and respect the decisions of its courts 
 and of its civil officials. 
 
 " It would appear to your Commission that the 
 Imperial British Army in Ireland has been guilty 
 of proved excesses not incomparable in degree and 
 kind with those alleged by the Bryce report on 
 Belgian atrocities to have been committed by the 
 Imperial German Army." 
 
 American opinion has been so stirred, that another 
 Commission^ — a Relief Commission — has been formed 
 which is also " unofficial " but backed with the 
 blessing of President Harding. A large sum of 
 money is to be raised to restore the creameries 
 and to rebuild Cork, etc. As the Manchester Guardian 
 puts it, "It is to be hoped that EngHsh people 
 will realize the full ignominy of this charitable 
 movement. It is as though Ireland were Armenia 
 and we the Turks." With our accustomed sang-froid 
 and insular imperturbability we may try to screen 
 our National humiUation by telling Americans and 
 others to mind their own business, but that would 
 be no answer to the grave charges against us, and 
 instead of mending matters would only intensify 
 
 9
 
 130 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 International acerbity and estrangement. It was 
 Gladstone who thundered against Bulgarian atrocities 
 and awakened the conscience of the world. We 
 should therefore be the last people to resent outside 
 criticism, which the Labour Party would meet by 
 a reversal of the policy which has given just grounds 
 for that criticism and condemnation. 
 
 The effect on World Opinion of the Irish policy 
 of the Coalition Government may be summed up 
 in saying that in the eyes of the world the horrors 
 of British Rule in Ireland have surpassed all the 
 Horrors of the German occupation of Belgium, 
 and all the Horrors attributed to Bolshevism in 
 Russia. Besides alienating American opinion and 
 making an Entente Cordiale with the United 
 States wellnigh impossible, it has blackened British 
 Tradition of Justice in the Empire, so that India 
 and Egypt can no longer trust our promises of 
 self-government, and Canada, AustraHa and South 
 Africa are heartily ashamed of us. It has shaken 
 the British Empire to its foundations, and before the 
 whole world England stands as a " whited sepulchre." 
 
 The British Labour Party should bring Peace 
 and Contentment to Ireland by recognizing that 
 England has no more right to govern Ireland than 
 Austria had to govern Italy, by removing the armed 
 forces of the Crown, by inviting Irishmen in Con- 
 stituent Assembly to frame their own Constitution 
 and to reshape their own National destiny. By
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 131 
 
 co-operating with Irish Labour, British Labour 
 should bring about that change of heart and atti- 
 tude between the Irish and EngHsh peoples which 
 is so necessary to end the long years of bitter 
 estrangement and misunderstanding, and to open 
 up a new vista of sympathetic and enlightened 
 reciprocal and international service. 
 
 Labour and British Militarism in India. 
 
 India stands at the cross-roads of peace and war. 
 She is determined to govern herself. " Partnership '" 
 with EngUshmen in the government of their own 
 country will no longer satisfy the legitimate aspira- 
 tions of Indians. British domination has become 
 intolerable, and self-respecting India will never 
 rest content until British Rule is cleared out " bag 
 and baggage." A few years ago, before the War, 
 " Partnership " would have appeased the Indian 
 appetite for " self-determination " maybe for many 
 years, but now the policy of Indian patriots, who 
 count the masses amongst their supporters, is " our- 
 selves alone," " non-co-operation " with aliens. 
 
 Why this sudden and tremendous change in 
 India's attitude to England, this revolutionary 
 change ? India has been stirred to her profoundest 
 depths by the Great War. India has found her 
 Mazzini and England has produced her Haynau. 
 Some people say that history never repeats itself, 
 but the history of Mihtarism is the same more or
 
 132 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 less all the world over, and British Militarism is 
 behaving itself as Austrian Militarism did in Italy, and 
 producing the same effects. British Militarism is 
 now repeating itself, and is doing in India what it 
 did in the United States of America, what it did 
 in Canada, and what it is doing in Ireland, namely, 
 goading the people into rebellion. 
 
 Gandhi is India's Mazzini and Dyer is England's 
 Haynau. By the massacre of four hundred unarmed 
 and unresisting Indians at Amritsar and by the 
 wounding of fifteen hundred more, General Dyer 
 condemned British Rule in India. The failure 
 of the Coalition Government to bring this firebrand 
 of Empire to trial, to recall the Viceroy, and to 
 dismiss the Secretary of State for India for their 
 supineness after the massacre made this condemna- 
 tion complete. 
 
 The harrowing story of the massacre is told in 
 all its f rightfulness by B. J. Horniman in Amritsar : 
 Our Duty to India. The chronic discontent against 
 our alien and despotic Government became aggra- 
 vated during the War, when India was " bled 
 white " — to use Lord Hardinge's expression — when 
 the cost of living bounded up, when vast quantities 
 of food were exported for the benefit of the armies, 
 making a scarcity in India, when profiteering at 
 the expense of the people was rampant, when the 
 Government delayed to control food, when " pressure 
 and persuasion " of a hard and cruel character
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 183 
 
 was carried out by British officials in recruiting 
 for the Army, when the Government refused com- 
 missions to Indians, when " pressure and persuasion " 
 of an offensive and oppressive nature was employed 
 too often in extorting money from people unable to 
 subscribe to the War Loans, when riots occurred 
 in consequence. Political repression followed close 
 on the heels of economic suffering. Under D.O.R.A. 
 and the Press Acts all political propaganda for 
 Indian self-expression was ruthlessly suppressed. 
 Mahomet Ali and Shaukat Ali, two of the most 
 popular Moslem leaders, were interned and their 
 paper suppressed. Mrs. Besant suffered the same 
 fate at the hands of Lord Pentland, once a Liberal. 
 Gandhi was arrested and prohibited from entering 
 the Punjab, wholesale arrests and imprisonments 
 were made without charge or trial, and cases of 
 madness and suicide took place in prison, where 
 torture to extort evidence was practised. 
 
 The situation was momentarily eased by Mr. 
 Montagu's declaration in August 1917 that the 
 policy of the British Government was Responsible 
 Government for India, by the release of Mrs. Besant, 
 and by less repression. When the Montagu-Chelms- 
 ford scheme of Dyarchy was published, the Indian 
 National Congress in a special session condemned 
 it as " disappointing and unsatisfactory " and de- 
 manded a " Declaration of Rights " guaranteeing 
 liberty of the Press, person, speech and association. 
 
 \
 
 184 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 To this the Government of India replied with the 
 Rowlatt Act— the "Black" Bills— which created 
 new tribunals which could sit in camera, without 
 juries, without preliminary proceedings for com- 
 mittal — which are provided for in the ordinary 
 criminal law — and without any appeal from their 
 decision, and with power of life and death or deporta- 
 tion to the Andaman Islands, a veritable hell. 
 Besides these new Star Chambers, the powers of 
 the Executive were enormously increased and the 
 liberty of the subject entirely abolished. Agitation 
 against the Rowlatt legislation — the denial of 
 Justice — broke out afresh, but kept in peaceful 
 courses until the Government of the Punjab ai rested 
 and deported Dr. Satyapal and Dr. Kitchlew, two 
 of the most distinguished and beloved local leaders 
 of the people. Immediately a large crowd pro- 
 ceeded to ask the Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar 
 to release their leaders. On their way to the Com- 
 missioner's bungalow they were fired on by troops, 
 and several were killed and wounded. Infuriated, 
 they returned to the city, attacked and damaged 
 or destroyed several buildings and killed five Euro- 
 peans. " A lady missionary doctor. Miss Sherwood, 
 was set upon by the mob, struck with sticks and 
 fists, and left unconscious in the street. She was 
 subsequently rescued by some Indians, who took 
 her into a house, and cared for her until she was 
 restored to her friends."
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 135 
 
 " For two days after this outbreak on April loth 
 the city was at peace. At 12.40 on April 13th 
 General Dyer heard that a public meeting at the 
 Jallian Walla Bagh was to be held that evening. 
 But he took no steps to prevent it. He waited 
 for it to assemble, and then he marched down on 
 it with his force of rifles and machine guns. He would 
 have used his machine guns, he declared, if he could 
 have got them into the enclosure. But they were 
 attached to armoured cars, which could not be 
 got through the entrances. The thousands of 
 helpless, unarmed people, some of them boys and 
 children, were at his mercy, practically penned up 
 in an enclosure from which they could not escape 
 except over walls or through the entrances com- 
 manded by his soldiers. And deliberately, in 
 cold blood, calmly directing the fire where the 
 crowd was thickest, he fired upon them for ten 
 minutes, until his ammunition was exhausted." 
 In answer to questions before the Hunter Committee, 
 General Dyer said that after the firing he did not 
 take any steps to attend to the wounded. " Certainly 
 not. It was not his job. Hospitals were open, 
 and they could have gone to them." 
 
 " It was a horrible duty I had to perform. I 
 think it was a merciful thing. I thought that 
 I should shoot well and shoot strong, so that I, 
 or anybody else, should not have to shoot again." 
 " I think it is quite possible I could have dispersed
 
 136 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 the crowd without firing, but they would have 
 come back again and laughed, and I should have 
 made what I consider to be a fool of myself." He 
 admitted that the number of killed might have been 
 four or five hundred, and he estimated the number 
 of wounded at three times the number killed. 
 " The same day he issued a Curfew Order, that all 
 persons must be indoors after 8 p.m. and would 
 go out into the streets at the risk of being shot at 
 sight. Is it surprising that the wounded lay in 
 their agony, that the dead lay putrefying in the 
 hot atmosphere of an Amritsar April night, that 
 the vultures and jackals came to tear the flesh 
 from the bodies of the innocent victims of this 
 dreadful holocaust, while the anxious relatives 
 remained terrified in their houses ? " "By his 
 orders, for several days, everyone passing through 
 the streets in which Miss Sherwood was assaulted 
 was ordered to crawl with belly to the ground." 
 Under Martial Law which followed the massacre 
 " men were publicly flogged in the street " before 
 being " tried or convicted " for assaulting Miss 
 Sherwood. " On major charges 298 people were 
 put before the Martial Law Commissions, who 
 tried cases unfettered by the ordinary recognized 
 rules of procedure or laws of evidence. Of these 
 218 were convicted ; 51 were sentenced to death, 
 46 to transportation for life, 2 to imprisonment 
 for ten years, 79 for seven years, 10 for five
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 137 
 
 years, 13 for three years, and 11 for lesser 
 periods." 
 
 All the horrors and crimes perpetrated under 
 Martial Law, how crowds were bombed and machine- 
 gunned, in other parts of the Punjab, at Lahore, 
 Gujranwala, Kasur, etc., would fill another chapter 
 
 Immediately after the massacre at Amritsar, Sir 
 Michael O'Dwyer, the Lieutenant-Governor of the 
 Punjab, allowed a telegram to be sent to General 
 Dyer : " Your action correct. Lieutenant-Governor 
 approves." The Government of India, " anticipating 
 the enquiry of the Hunter Committee, rushed an 
 Indemnity Bill by their official bloc through the 
 Imperial Council, in the face of the strong protests 
 of the non-official members. The result of this 
 is that, so far as India is concerned, officials responsible 
 for excesses and abuse of authority are immune 
 in the India Courts from prosecution or civil suits 
 for anything done under Martial Law in good faith." 
 
 A few honest British workmen whipped the 
 Austrian tyrant when he dared to show his face 
 in their yard, but the British tyrant was publicly 
 presented with a sword of honour, and was hailed 
 in the House of Lords and in the Imperial Press 
 of London as a Saviour of Empire because he had 
 taught Indian patriots a lesson in Prussianism and 
 had struck terror into their hearts. 
 
 Many Indian leaders believe that the " crawling " 
 order issued after the massacre has done infinitely
 
 138 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 more harm to British Justice and British Rule 
 than the massacre itself, that it has broken for 
 ever Indian faith in either. The worst of the 
 " crawling " order was that it was obeyed. In 
 fear of her life — ^for the Punjab was under Martial 
 Law, and Martial Law is no law — India " crawled " 
 at the feet of England. East " crawled " before 
 West. And now India is mad with anger, with 
 resentment and rage, because her courage failed 
 her in the hour of crisis and she " crawled " before 
 her taskmaster. " Oh ! this shame, this ignominy, 
 this humiliation can only be \viped out by ending 
 British Rule in India for ever," is indignant India's 
 reply. They say that the worm turns on its attacker, 
 but the Punjabi is no worm, India is no worm. 
 Witness the eulogium passed in Parliament upon 
 the Indian troops for their courage and magnificent 
 services in every field of the War. For the moment 
 the Indian Elephant lies low before the British Lion, 
 nursing its wrath and biding its time for a suitable 
 opportunity to crush its insensate and cruel enemy. 
 May I remind the Coalitionists and MiHtarists — 
 for they forget so easily their own half-thought-out 
 dicta that cruelty begets cruelty — that crimes foster 
 crimes, that frightfulness produces reprisals, and 
 that if, in violent and increasing fury, Indians in 
 their struggle for freedom perpetrate hideous crimes 
 against English men and women, the responsibility 
 will rest upon O'Dwyer (the Governor of the Punjab),
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 139 
 
 Chelmsford (the Viceroy of India), Montagu (the 
 Secretary of State for India), Lloyd George, and 
 the Coalition Government for faihng to punish 
 General Dyer, who butchered men, women and 
 children in cold blood, and who disgraced the 
 British flag as it has never been disgraced before. 
 The massacre of Glencoe has been outdone in sheer 
 callousness and criminality by the massacre of 
 Jallian Walla Bagh. In competitive crime England 
 has equalled Prussia. 
 
 If we were not involved in this hideous and 
 miserable slaughter, if we had no share or responsi- 
 bihty in these diaboHcal displays of Mihtarism, 
 if our honour were not at stake as a people and a 
 nation who profess to be guided by Christian 
 standards, how easy it would be to criticize and 
 taunt ImperiaHsts, and to prove that they are the 
 breakers of Empire, that Mihtarism breaks as well 
 as makes Empire. 
 
 Who are the breakers of the British Empire ? 
 Not the Labour Party, nor the members of the 
 Labour Party, who go out to India as peacemakers 
 and missionaries of freedom and self-determination ; 
 not Keir Hardie, nor Ramsay MacDonald, nor 
 Josiah Wedgwood, who advocate Home Rule for 
 India by Constitutional methods. They and their 
 policy and their methods tend only to estabhsh 
 good relations and permanent ties of affection 
 between India and England. No ! the breakers
 
 140 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 of Empire are the Militarist and Imperialistic 
 Parties — Tories, Coalitionists and Liberal-Imperialists 
 — who with the left hand offer a homoeopathic dose 
 of Morley and Montagu reform, whilst with the 
 right hand — the mailed fist — they suspend every 
 elementary right of civil and pohtical hberty, 
 arrest and imprison Indian leaders " without charge 
 or trial," estabhsh Martial Law and Reigns of Terror 
 which ahenate, anger and drive to devious courses not 
 only the intellectual leaders of the people, but also 
 the masses, so that British over-rule is hated. The 
 real breakers of the India Empire are the " full- 
 blooded " "no damned nonsense " Imperiahsts like 
 Curzon and Dyer, who are wedded to force and apply 
 it with brutal thoroughness. The half-hearted and 
 pusillanimous poHcy of Morley and Montagu, as 
 representing the Liberal Party, only succeeded in 
 putting in a pad of reform for the Indian to fall 
 on, when wounded or murdered by the miHtary 
 machine. 
 
 All the pohtical parties except the Labour Party 
 have had their opportunity to solve the Indian 
 problem, and have failed ignominiously. It is more 
 than time that Labour had its chance, and Labour 
 should succeed, because its poHcy is to allow Indians 
 to determine their own form of government, and 
 to co-operate with Indians in saving India from 
 MiHtarism and Capitahsm. 
 
 Other causes of the revolutionary change in
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 141 
 
 India are the treatment of Turkey by Mr. Lloyd 
 George, who has consoHdated the union between 
 Mahomedans and Hindoos by angering Mahomedans 
 in regard to the Khilafat, the Holy Places, and the 
 Esher Report, which latter proposes to add insult 
 to injury by using the Indian Army for retaining 
 and exploiting in the interests of British Capitahsm 
 the territories torn from Turkey. In other words, 
 India has to devil for England and for the Enghsh 
 hounds of hell in some of the hottest and unhealthiest 
 regions on earth ; and England is a Christian, not 
 a Mahomedan country. Well may honest Indians 
 say, " God save us from Christian England ! " 
 
 The Imperialistic behaviour of the Coalition 
 Government in Persia, both during the War and 
 since the Armistice, has also alarmed Mahomedan 
 and Hindoo opinion throughout India, so that 
 Indians are driven to the conclusion that the real 
 objects of the Great War were to destroy German 
 and Turkish Mihtarism in order to give British 
 Mihtarism a free hand to dominate the Middle 
 East and to strengthen her paralysing grip over 
 India. That is to say, that India's stupendous 
 sacrifices in the Great War have been repaid by 
 force and fraud, and Lloyd George or the King of 
 England is the Kaiser of an Asiatic Empire extending 
 from Constantinople to Singapore with outposts in 
 China and the Pacific Islands. 
 
 Whether Gandhi will succeed in keeping the
 
 142 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 National movement from violence is now the question. 
 He, himself, is a Tolstoyan and Pacifist, but can 
 he control the forces that he has created and keep 
 them in spiritual and constitutional channels ? The 
 " non-co-operation " movement in other lands 
 suggests that he may not succeed in preventing 
 bloodshed. In fact, British Mihtarism will no more 
 allow him and his followers a peaceful course of 
 penetration than they did De Valera, Griffith, 
 and the Irish Sinn Feiners, Our little Kaisers 
 with flaming swords of fire will repeat the evil work 
 which their forefathers did in America, which 
 Austrian Imperiahsm did in Italy, which the Coalition 
 crowd are doing in Ireland, and in consequence 
 India may have her War of Independence as well 
 as America, Italy and Ireland. The shallow-minded 
 British Imperialists who opposed a United Ireland 
 sang " Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right." 
 Perhaps they will now mutter between their teeth, 
 " India will fight, and India will be right." 
 
 The only way to save India from bloody strife 
 and England from perpetual disgrace is for the 
 British Electors to send the Labour Party to power 
 with an overwhelming majority, so that they can 
 fulfil the pledges and promises of the Great War, 
 and " restore India to Indians." The war has 
 made this fulfilment irresistible, not so much on the 
 grounds of the remarkable loyalty of India, of 
 her whole-hearted co-operation and sacrificial service
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 148 
 
 in the War, strong as these grounds are, but upon 
 the declaration of the Allies that the War was 
 for " liberation from foreign domination." Great 
 Britain cannot afford to pile up more " scraps of 
 paper," and refuse the restoration of India to 
 Indians. Excellent as have been the contributions 
 of Belgium and Serbia to civilization, they are in no 
 way comparable to those of India, either in Science, 
 Art, ReHgion, or Philosophy, and the possibilities 
 of 300,000,000 Indians promise more to human 
 experience and human progress than of 15,000,000 
 Serbs and Belgians. 
 
 It is not for us, for British ImperiaHsts, to say 
 whether India is fit for complete self-government 
 or not. That is a question for Indians. If they 
 are satisfied with their fitness to rule their own 
 country, that is their business, that is their responsi- 
 bility. The British Labour Party has been insulted 
 enough by the ImperiaHstic parties on their own 
 fitness to govern Britain, and refuses to insult 
 Indians by suggesting for a moment that they could 
 possibly govern themselves worse than British- 
 born bureaucrats. Besides, if there were any truth 
 in the impertinent taunts of Imperiahsts, the fault 
 would he with Great Britain, because she had 
 deprived Indians of initiative, of experience and of 
 responsibihty in government — had, in fact, reduced 
 India to a servile State, and robbed Indians of the 
 natural function of government.
 
 144 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 British government of India may be good of its 
 kind, but " good government is no substitute for 
 self-government," as Campbell-Bannerman wisely 
 said. I leave to philosophers, not to Imperialists, 
 to decide whether " foreign " government can ever 
 be " good." In my opinion, even with the best 
 intentions and the finest efforts at disinterestedness, 
 alien government, the government of one nation 
 by another, cannot be good either for governed 
 or governors. The atmosphere of subjection is 
 poisonous, crushing all that is virile and worthy, and 
 fostering all that is vile and ignoble. I am pre- 
 pared to tickle British ImperiaHsts by confessing 
 that I think British overrule is better than Prussian 
 or Russian overrule was under the Kaiser and the 
 Tsar, but at the same time I must remind my 
 countrymen that Britons have stooped and are 
 now stooping to Prussian and Russian methods 
 of " f rightfulness " in the government of India. 
 
 Sir John Seeley's weighty judgment should be 
 read, marked and inwardly digested by every Im- 
 periaHst. The late brilHant Regius Professor of 
 Modern History in the University of Cambridge 
 said : " We trust, indeed, that thanks to the control 
 of Enghsh pubHc opinion, the Indian Empire may 
 stand at a higher level of intelHgence, moraUty 
 and philanthropy than the Mogul Empire which 
 it has succeeded. But at best we think of it as 
 a good specimen of a bad pohtical system. 
 
 • • •
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 145 
 
 We doubt whether, with all the merits of our admin- 
 istration, the subjects of it are happy. We may 
 even doubt whether our rule is preparing them for 
 a happier condition, whether it may not be sinking 
 them lower in misery, and we have our misgivings 
 that perhaps a genuine Asiatic Government, and 
 still more, a National Government springing up out 
 of the Hindoo population itself, might not in the 
 long run be more beneficial, because more congenial, 
 though perhaps less civiHzed, than such a foreign 
 unsympathetic government as our own." 
 
 " As a good specimen of a bad political system " 
 the Amritsar massacre, or martial law with all its 
 excesses and injustices, the Rowlatt Act, Legislative 
 Councils with the most important subjects " reserved " 
 to British officials, an Army paid for by Indians 
 with only a few Commissions reserved for Indian 
 gentlemen, an Education system without provision 
 for the Education of the masses, and lack of legisla- 
 tion to prevent the exploitation of Labour by Capital, 
 are quite enough in impartial eyes to condemn 
 British Rule in India. 
 
 The failure of British Rule in India is nowhere 
 more evident than in the conditions of Labour 
 and in the relations between Capital and Labour. 
 The Government of India has handed over the 
 labourer body and soul to the sweet will of the 
 Capitahsts. The poverty of Indian labourers is 
 proverbial, their long hours of labour are unhealthy 
 
 10
 
 146 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and demoralizing, their child-labour scandalous, 
 and in consequence the masses are discontented, 
 resort frequently to strikes and riots, and naturally 
 attribute their misery to the British Government, 
 which fails to father and protect them. 
 
 The Report of the Mesopotamia Commission is 
 a complete condemnation of the present system 
 of government of India, and flings wide open the 
 door for self-government without reservations. When 
 The Times, which we may accept as representing 
 the Imperialistic wing of the British Press, and the 
 Manchester Guardian, which is undoubtedly the 
 most powerful advocate of Liberty in the British 
 Isles, agree that " the broader question " involved 
 is " the system of government " and the " reform " 
 needed to prevent repetition of the blunders 
 and gambling associated with the Mesopotamian 
 Expedition, we seem to see an opportunity of 
 India coming into her own. As the Manchester 
 Guardian is a little more courageous in its criticism 
 and recommendations than The Times, I quote 
 from it first : — 
 
 " In the hands of this model bureaucracy, which 
 has always been so scornful of criticism or advice 
 from those at home, pure mismanagement became 
 the order of the day, and every day. The Govern- 
 ment of India and its miHtary men proved themselves 
 to be incompetent even to provide properly for 
 the force which they themselves sent up the Tigris
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 147 
 
 and the Euphrates. The armament and equipment 
 were on a scale intended for an Indian frontier 
 expedition ; the supply and transport was hardly 
 organized at all ; the importance of river craft 
 was never realized ; the medical arrangements were 
 hopelessly inadequate, and resulted in much ' avoid- 
 able ' suffering on the sick and wounded ; and so 
 expert was the knowledge and so thorough the 
 care of these ' men on the spot ' that the rations 
 which were originally served out to the Indian 
 soldiers were ' deficient in nutritive qualities/ and 
 caused a serious outbreak of scurvy, which resulted 
 in 7,500 casualties in nineteen weeks. 
 
 " We ascribe this sorry state of affairs to the 
 long existence of the Government of India as a 
 body which stands aloof and autocratic, uncon- 
 trolled by any public opinion. The officials stand 
 in fear of their superiors, who have the power to 
 break them, if they are rash enough to become 
 importunate, and who are themselves almost wholly 
 uncontrolled and stand in fear of no one. It is 
 true that in the House of Commons a few members 
 occasionally ask questions about isolated Indian 
 topics and are usually given to understand that their 
 interest in Indian affairs is something of an imper- 
 tinence and a shght on the all-seeing wisdom of the 
 Indian Government. It is precisely because the 
 Government of India and its officials have no need 
 to bear constantly in mind the need of satisfying
 
 148 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 an exacting Parliament, reflecting a vigilant public 
 opinion, that misdeeds like those exposed to-day 
 can be committed with impunity and continued 
 so long without detection. But England is far 
 from India, and Parliament is weary and over- 
 burdened. We must look definitely for a remedy 
 to India herself. We must give a greater share 
 in the government of India to those Indians who 
 are already capable, and growing ever more capable, 
 of playing a part in the administration of the 
 country. In that direction at least the British 
 ParHament can make its voice heard. For if the 
 Mesopotamia Report makes one thing certain, it 
 is that we must rely on the growth of a public 
 opinion in India, which impHes an increasing share 
 by native Indians in the administration of the 
 country, to keep the Government of the country 
 healthy and efficient." 
 
 The Times, in an article on " Defects of the Indian 
 System," wrote : — 
 
 " The purpose of pubHshing the Mesopotamia 
 Report was to prevent the recurrence of the same 
 scandals under the same men or the same systems. 
 There can, of course, be no delay in deaUng with 
 the individuals principally concerned ; and if we 
 turn this morning to the broader question, it is 
 onty because there is a risk that in clamouring 
 for punishment the public may forget reform. It 
 is of great interest that the Government are already
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 149 
 
 at work on the shortcomings of the India adminis- 
 tration. That means, we take it, that they con- 
 template eventual change in three main directions. 
 The most pressing need of the moment is for a 
 revision of the system of Army control devised by 
 Lord Kitchener, but in this matter the views of 
 General Monro, the present Commander-in-Chief 
 in India, will probably be awaited. The next 
 necessity is for some further modification of the 
 present centraHzed method of executive administra- 
 tion which concentrates too much detailed authority 
 in the hands of the various officials of the Govern- 
 ment of India, and allots too Httle power to the 
 provincial governments ; but this question is 
 associated with the excessively minute control 
 exercised by the India Office, a problem which has 
 never yet been tackled. The third change will 
 doubtless allot to Indians a further share in the 
 control of their own affairs, but here again much 
 careful preHminary investigation is required." 
 
 It is distressing to find The Times, which naturally 
 claims to be up to date, suggesting that " much 
 careful preHminary investigation is required " 
 before Indians obtain " a further share in the 
 control of their own affairs," in view of the fact 
 that successive British and Indian Governments 
 have been investigating and reporting on the sub- 
 ject since the days of Macaulay, Mill and Bright. 
 
 The British Labour Party is prepared to meet
 
 150 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 all the subtle and unsubstantial and selfish argu- 
 ments for the postponement of India's liberation. 
 It will avoid the policy of procrastination and 
 pusillanimity of the Liberal and Tory Parties, 
 which have made British rule a byword in history, 
 and which led to Rebellion in Canada and Ireland 
 and a War of Independence in America. 
 
 The Imperiahstic excuse that a self-governing 
 India would fall an easy prey into the clutches 
 of some ambitious Power hke Germany, Russia, 
 Japan or China — a China deformed by adoption 
 of Western MiHtarism — is of no more value than 
 that Australia or Canada might suffer the same 
 fate, and yet, in spite of the Imperiahsts, Austraha 
 and Canada enjoy complete self-government. Ger- 
 many need not be feared, first because she has no 
 Navy, and only a tiny Army without means of 
 communication so far afield, and secondly because 
 the German Democracy has no wish to imitate the 
 ambitions of its aristocracy. Russia has nobler 
 work to perform for humanity in the field of 
 Socialism than to go prancing over Asia in search 
 of Empire. Russia's military pin-pricks in Persia 
 have been in retaliation for British " offensive " 
 against the Soviet system. From a possible attack 
 of any Power or combination of Powers — White, 
 Red or Yellow — the Labour Party would apply 
 the Monroe principle to India — " Hands off " to 
 all Imperial bounders — until India was prepared
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 151 
 
 to defend herself or, better still, until the League 
 of Nations to Enforce Peace was well in the saddle. 
 
 " A free people are the best defenders of their 
 own home " is a Lloyd Georgism forgotten by its 
 author, but as true of Indians as of any other people 
 in the estimation of Labour. 
 
 That India, being composed of many races, is 
 not fitted for Liberty appHes with equal truth to 
 Great Britain, Germany, Canada and United States 
 of America, which are all composed of many races 
 with many languages. A nation is a state of mind, 
 and India is as much a nation as any other with 
 community of interest, which makes it one. As 
 for fitness for Liberty, " Liberty alone fits for 
 Liberty "is a Gladstonian dictum accepted by 
 Labour. That Hindoos and Moslems would fall 
 upon each other's necks and kill each other, if 
 the British occupation ceased, is as likely to happen 
 as that Roman Catholics and Protestants would 
 tear each other to pieces under the Irish Home 
 Rule Partition Bill of the CoaHtion Government. 
 Self-government for Canada did not lead to religious 
 riots. Responsible government and common national 
 aims have a preventive effect upon racial and religious 
 disorders. 
 
 The British Democracy has wakened up to the 
 fact that India is the greatest poHtical prison in 
 the world, and declines to act as political gaolers 
 any longer. From bitter experience. Labour knows
 
 152 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 that limitation or denial of Liberty in one part 
 of the British Empire means limitation or denial 
 of Liberty at home. Better no Indian Empire 
 than that Indian and British workers should be 
 the slaves of the hounds of hell. 
 
 British Labour's reply to India's demand for 
 Liberty and Independence is, " Hitch your wagon 
 to a star" ; follow your own course in the firmament 
 of freedom ; light the world again, as you lit it afore 
 in Art, Literature, Philosophy, Religion and Social 
 Evolution. 
 
 LABOUR AND BRITISH MILITARISM IN 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 Before the War. 
 
 Next to India, Egypt is the greatest possession 
 in the British Empire which was taken by force 
 and is held by force. To condense the history 
 of this ancient and renowned centre of civilization 
 — this early beacon-light in human evolution — 
 into a few lines cannot be done with justice to 
 Egypt. Her wonderful contributions to language, 
 literature, writing, arithmetic, mensuration, geometry, 
 scientific agriculture, including irrigation, to art, 
 religion, morals, etc., are they not sung by Flinders 
 Petrie and his colleagues ? Softness in Egyptian 
 character and luxurious living seem to have made 
 Egyptians an easy prey to conquest by hardier races
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 153 
 
 — Ethiopians, Assyrians, Persians and Macedonian 
 Greeks before the Christian era, and since by Arabs 
 in the seventh century, and by Ottoman Turks 
 in the sixteenth century. Egypt was one of the 
 first provinces to be lopped off the decaying Turkish 
 Empire in 1805 by Mehemet Ah, an Albanian 
 subject of the Sultan who consolidated his rule 
 as far south as Khartoum, and whose heirs were 
 recognized by the Sultan of Turkey in 1849 as the 
 rightful rulers of Egypt on payment of an annual 
 sum of £675,000 to the Sultan's coffers. 
 
 The construction of the Suez Canal by a French 
 Company in the 'sixties made Egypt the gateway 
 to the East, and in consequence a tempting bait 
 to France and Great Britain. At the same time 
 the ruler of Egypt, Ismail I, full of extravagant 
 schemes of development and dissipation, in which 
 he was encouraged by reckless European money- 
 lenders, ran up the National Debt to about 
 £90,000,000. The financial conquest of Egypt 
 soon led to its military conquest. First Ismail, 
 to meet his embarrassments, sold a huge quantity 
 of his shares in the Suez Canal to the British 
 Government ; then, at the instigation of English 
 and French usurers, the Governments of Britain 
 and France compelled him to accept British and 
 French financial controllers, who took over the 
 management of all Egyptian finances ; then followed 
 over-taxation and public discontent against foreign
 
 154 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 interference, and a national movement to break 
 the autocracy of the Khedive and get the govern- 
 ment of the country into the hands of the 
 people. 
 
 European commentators do less than justice 
 to the truth when they describe this national move- 
 ment as a mere mutiny of a few discontented 
 Egyptian Army officers under Arabi Pasha. It 
 would be just as true to describe Garibaldi's efforts 
 for ItaHan emancipation as a mutiny of a few dis- 
 contented Italians, or the Russian Revolution 
 against the Tsar as a military rebellion. The 
 historical fact remains that the Arabi Revolution 
 was a complete popular success, that the Khedive 
 was deprived of his power, and that the government 
 passed to the National Assembly, which the Khedive 
 was compelled to summon. So successful was this 
 practically bloodless revolution, that the European 
 money-lenders, terror-stricken lest the Egyptian 
 Parliament would repudiate the debts of their 
 autocratic ruler or fail to weather the financial 
 storm, moved heaven and earth to stir the British 
 and French Governments to stamp out the national 
 movement by armed action. The French Govern- 
 ment, to its honour, declined to have anything 
 to do with so ghastly and infamous a proceeding. 
 The British Government, on the other hand, tempted 
 by the bait of the gateway to India in front and 
 lashed by the bondholders' whip behind, bombarded
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 155 
 
 Alexandria, then landed an army, which crushed 
 Eyptian nationality with " blood and iron." 
 
 This cruel and dastardly crime, this Murder of 
 a Nation, alarmed the conscience of the world and 
 the jealousy of the European Powers, to allay which 
 Mr. Gladstone's Government disclaimed all intention 
 of annexation and establishing a Protectorate, and 
 announced that the occupation of Egypt would 
 only be temporary and would cease when the finances 
 were put in order and stable government established. 
 The following dispatch of Lord Granville, Secretary 
 of State for Foreign Affairs, was addressed to 
 the Powers on January 3, 1883 : "Although for the 
 present a British force remains in Egypt for the 
 preservation of public tranquillity, Her Majesty's 
 Government are desirous of withdrawing it as soon 
 as the state of the country and the organization 
 of proper means for the maintenance of the Khedive's 
 authority will admit of it. In the meantime, the 
 position in which Her Majesty's Government are 
 placed towards His Highness imposes upon them 
 the duty of giving advice with the object of securing 
 that the order of things to be established shall be 
 of a satisfactory character, and possess the elements 
 of stability and progress." 
 
 British " advice " amounted to complete British 
 Control under a British Agent possessing autocratic 
 powers, with Egyptian Ministers as movable puppets 
 of British " Advisers," and with a British Army of 
 Occupation to enforce British Rule.
 
 156 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Lord Cromer, as British Agent from 1883 to 
 1907, instead of " teaching Egyptians to govern 
 themselves," suppressed the Egyptian Parliament, 
 flooded the country with British bureaucrats, and 
 crushed every expression of Nationalism with a 
 heavy hand. His failure to found Universities 
 and to provide adequate schools for the people is 
 unpardonable. To his credit, he pushed forward 
 large schemes of irrigation, abolished forced labour 
 {corvee) and the lash, and put the National finances 
 in order. During his regime the Sudan was re- 
 conquered and administered as a British possession, 
 and French antagonism to the British occupation 
 was bought off by the Anglo-French Agreement 
 of 1904. Six years after his retirement the Egyptian 
 Parliament (the Legislative Council) was partially 
 restored as a sort of sounding-board for Nationalist 
 aspirations. 
 
 During the War. 
 
 At the outbreak of the War, Egypt, which was 
 technically part of the Turkish Empire, was pro- 
 claimed a British Protectorate without consulting 
 Egyptians, and a member of the house of Mohammed 
 Ali was made " Sultan " in place of the ex-Khedive 
 Abbas, who went over to the enemy. Martial 
 Law was adopted, the Legislative Assembly was 
 suspended, and a strict Censorship of the Press, 
 etc., was stupidly enforced, all causing bad blood
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 157 
 
 and the impression that the AUies were being 
 defeated. 
 
 Contrary to the Proclamation that Eg^'ptians 
 would not be asked to fight against their fellow - 
 Mahomedans, one-thirteenth of the population 
 (1,000,000) were enlisted, at first voluntarily, and 
 then, when the supply of recruits flagged, con- 
 scripted into the Eg>T)tian Labour Corps, which 
 were employed not only in Eg^'pt but in Palestine, 
 Syri.a, and even in France, and sometimes under 
 fire. The provision and conduct of hospitals for 
 these corps was altogether unsatisfactory and 
 scandalous, and the death-rate exceptionally high. 
 
 The commandeering of food, fodder and animals 
 without quick and just pa}Tnent, the rise in the 
 cost of living, the scourge of influenza, and the 
 cruel abuses attached to Conscription added to the 
 general discontent and unrest. 
 
 After the War. 
 This general discontent and tmrest was fanned 
 slowly but surely into RebeUion by the following 
 acts of Mr. Lloyd George's Government : (i) The 
 tightening of Martial Law and the treatment of 
 EgA-ptians as a subject race in spite of the pubHc 
 declaration of Field-Marshal Lord Allenby that 
 the aid of Eg>-pt was the most important factor 
 of success in the campaign against the Turks ; 
 {2) the refusal of Egyptian representatives at the
 
 158 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Peace Conference at Paris, the injustice and impolity 
 of which was accentuated by the fact that the New 
 Arab Kingdom of Hedjaz sent an Envoy ; (3) the 
 refusal to permit the Prime Minister of Egypt, Rushdi 
 Pasha, to visit London to confer with the Foreign 
 Office, in consequence of which refusal the Egyptian 
 Ministry resigned, and the country was without 
 legal government for almost six months ; (4) the 
 refusal of passports to the Delegation of Nationalists 
 under Saad Zagloul Pasha, late Minister of Education 
 and Vice-President of the Legislative Assembly, 
 which desired to present the case of their country 
 to the Paris Peace Conference ; (5) the deportation 
 of Zagloul Pasha and three of his colleagues to Malta 
 
 in March 1919. 
 
 Immediately the arrest and deportation of Zagloul 
 Pasha became known the Rebellion broke out, 
 communications were cut, British officers were 
 murdered in a tram South of Cairo, and British 
 forces were besieged in Assiout. Competition in 
 crime ensued, and reprisals were carried out by 
 Britons on a scale of ferocity and cruelty only 
 surpassed in Ireland. " Whole villages were wiped 
 out," and Egyptian opinion consolidated against 
 British Rule by British atrocities. 
 
 General Allenby endeavoured to soothe outraged 
 Egyptian opinion " by releasing members of the 
 Zagloul Delegation, by dismissing the most un- 
 popular British official in the Government (the
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY 159 
 
 Adviser to the Ministry of Education), by inducing 
 Said Pasha, a discredited politician, to form a 
 Ministry ; by transferring (July) trials arising out 
 of the Rebellion from the Courts Martial to the 
 Civil Tribunals, and by abolishing the Censorship of 
 the Press — two concessions that have been indeed 
 more apparent than real, since the Courts Martial 
 had already imprisoned innocent Egyptians who 
 were not released, while as for the Press, a tight 
 hold was kept over it by suspensions and fines, and 
 the Censorship was re-imposed wherever it was 
 deemed expedient." 
 
 Since the March Rebellion was suppressed, dis- 
 content continued to break out in riots, in strikes 
 among the students, the schools being under Martial 
 Law even as to the curriculum, and most serious of 
 all in industrial strikes, from which Egypt has 
 hitherto been entirely free, the strikes combining 
 economic with political grievances, as " most of 
 the employers of labour (e.g. the water and tram 
 companies of Alexandria) are foreigners." 
 
 " Too late " Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Curzon 
 awakened to their responsibility in the Government 
 of Egypt. Not till May 1919 did they announce 
 a Mission to Egypt (i) to enquire into the causes 
 of the March Rebellion and (2) to frame a Con- 
 stitution for Egypt under the Protectorate. Not 
 till December — again " too late " — did the Mission 
 sail.
 
 160 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 In view of Britain's broken pledges to restore 
 Egyptian Independence, in view of the promise of 
 the Great War of Self-determination, which Egyp- 
 tians, being simple and honest people, expected 
 would be fulfilled immediately after the Armistice ; 
 in view of British Militarism breaking all bounds 
 in Egypt, both during and after the War ; and in 
 view of the fact that Lord Milner, an Imperialist 
 with a terrible record, was President, the Mission 
 inspired nothing but distrust in Egypt and was 
 boycotted by every section of Egyptian Society. 
 The next stage is enough to make the Olympian 
 Gods laugh. Unable to secure Egyptian evidence 
 on the " spot," the Milner Mission begged on bended 
 knee Zagloul Pasha and his co-delegates to come 
 to London to confer and take counsel together. 
 Zagloul came, and now the world possesses the 
 Milner Report in a White Paper — Egypt No. i 
 (1921) — and Zagloul's reservations and alterations 
 thereon. 
 
 The chief points of Lord Milner's scheme are 
 an Alliance between Great Britain and Egypt which 
 binds Egypt (i) to subordinate her Foreign. Policy 
 to Britain, (2) to submit to a British Army of 
 Occupation in order to protect the Suez Canal, and 
 (3) to accept Britain as the " Protector " of all 
 foreigners in Egypt with the right to interfere in 
 legislation and taxation affecting foreigners. These 
 conditions deprive Egypt of every shadow of " In-
 
 LABOUR AND THE REMEDY IGl 
 
 dependence " and subject her naore than ever to 
 the will or the whim of any British Foreign Secretary, 
 who will always have the Army on the spot to 
 apply the mailed fist, and who will be free from 
 any interference of other Powers, whose " privileges " 
 under the Capitulations will be handed over holus- 
 bolus to Great Britain. 
 
 The reservations of the Egyptian Delegation, 
 including the formal abolition of the Protectorate, 
 were drawn up after consultation with Nationalists 
 in Egypt and presented in October 1920 to Lord 
 Milner, who refused to examine them on the ground 
 that they could be considered by the respective 
 Governments of England and Egypt at a later stage. 
 
 As Lord Milner resigned his position in the Cabinet 
 early in 1921, the natural inference is that the Cabinet, 
 which had a memorandum of his scheme before 
 it since August 1920, refused to accept his recom- 
 mendations, and that the Government has no other 
 remedy for Egypt than force. 
 
 While Egypt burns, Mr. Lloyd George runs away 
 from his principles ! By delaying a settlement 
 until after he has consulted India and the Dominions 
 in Imperial Conference, he is adding fuel to the 
 fire in Egypt, and shirking responsibility. When 
 did England wait on Colonial opinion for its Irish 
 policy ? Why does the Coalition Government delay 
 and defer to Anglo-Indian opinion ? Is it afraid 
 to set the pace in Egyptian Freedom, which the 
 
 11
 
 162 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR . 
 
 British Bureaucracy in India would tremble to 
 follow ? Or is it " strategy " — in other words, 
 Militarism — which keeps back the flood of freedom 
 from Egypt as well as India and Ireland ? Is 
 " strategy " for ever to make England a bog to 
 Freedom ? 
 
 The reply of the Labour Party to this policy 
 of pusillanimity, procrastination and Prussianism 
 is Internationalization of the Suez Canal under the 
 auspices of the League of Nations, withdrawal of 
 the Army of Occupation, and fulfilment of British 
 pledges by the restoration of Egyptian Independence. 
 
 "It is not to be thought of that the flood 
 Of British freedom, which to the open sea 
 Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity 
 Hath flowed ' with pomp of waters unwithstood ' 
 Roused though it be full often to a mood 
 Which spurns the check of salutary bands. 
 That this most famous stream in bogs and sands 
 Should perish, and to evil and to good 
 Be lost for ever "
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOW? 
 
 Capitalism and Imperialism being evils in them- 
 selves and the fruitful cause of almost all our woes. 
 Labour — mental-workers and hand-workers — has to 
 make the awful decision of how to remove these 
 evils and to reconstruct society on just and moral 
 foundations. Has Labour to fight them with their 
 own weapons or not ? That is the question ; with 
 force and fraud, or with reason and righteousness ? 
 with picric acid and poison gases, or with pamphlets 
 and points ? with methods of barbarism, or with ballot- 
 boxes ? with carnal or with spiritual means ? It 
 is unnecessary to dwell upon the frightful conse- 
 quences which would follow should Labour and 
 Democracy determine to fight its enemies — CapitaUsm 
 and ImperiaHsm — with their own weapons. It would 
 be Civil War in Great Britain. It might become 
 Universal Civil War — Lenin's dream — by contagion 
 or by plan, or both. This would be the Great Class 
 War carried from the poHtical, economic and indus- 
 trial stage to the field of Mars. It would probably 
 entail indescribable horrors, slaughter, torture, 
 
 163
 
 164 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 disease and exhaustion, moral, physical and material, 
 on mankind. Mr. Bertrand Russell believes that 
 " the most probable result would be a warfare last- 
 ing for many years, taking the form of unprece- 
 dentedly bloody and brutal civil war in all civilized 
 countries, involving universal starvation and ferocity, 
 destroying the means of industrial production, re- 
 ducing the population of the world by about 50 per 
 cent., and leaving at the end an unciviHzed peasant 
 population terrorized by robber bands." 
 
 Personally I do not accept the "inevitable" 
 theory as regards wars in general and this Great 
 Civil War in particular. I beUeve that Labour and 
 Democracy can win a " bloodless " victory by edu- 
 cating public opinion, by capturing Parliament, 
 and by passing laws, which Capitalism dare not 
 and would not avoid or disobey, although they 
 spelt the death of Capitalism. 
 
 A short, sharp bloody Revolution, with a few 
 crowned and uncrowned heads strewn about, may 
 appear as nothing to those touched with war 
 psychology, but who is going to hmit the scope 
 and character of the conflagration when once begun ? 
 Anyway it would be a gamble in human lives, an 
 immoral proceeding to which Labour should give 
 no countenance. Besides, it might end in failure, 
 in riveting the fetters of Capitahsm and ImperiaHsm 
 deeper in the hves of the workers, so that the sacri- 
 fice of Hfe and treasure would be worse than useless.
 
 HOW ? 165 
 
 Revolutionists cannot neglect the fact that Capi- 
 talism is in power, that all the engines of war are 
 at its disposal, that the CoaHtion Government has 
 made all the necessary preparations for a grand attack 
 on Labour, that it has only to press the button and 
 the whole phantasmagoria of murder would move 
 in horrid phalanx of aeroplane, machine gun, tank 
 and bomb against the proletariat. 
 
 According to Jesuitical teaching the end justifies 
 the means. So that it behoves the advocates of 
 revolution to make sure of their ends before resorting 
 to bloody means ; in other words, to win the soldiers 
 to their side and to make sure of their active co- 
 operation. The officers, of course, belong to the 
 Capitalist caste for the most part, and with rare 
 exceptions would fight against Democracy. To win 
 the soldiers means tuition and intellectual drill. 
 The sooner, therefore, the revolutionaries open their 
 continuation classes in the Army the better for 
 their aims. 
 
 In the long run, the world is governed by public 
 opinion. Even England, Tory England, landlord- 
 ridden England, set in the silver sea of Capitalism, 
 with all the external trappings of Democracy, is 
 governed by public opinion. At the General 
 Election after the Armistice pubHc opinion was 
 captivated by the prospect of seeing the Kaiser 
 dangling in the air in a fit of suffocation, and his 
 impoverished dupes paying the British bill of costs,
 
 166 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 and in consequence Lloyd George got five years' 
 power, which he has misused to hang Ireland, 
 India, Russia and British Trade Unionism, and to 
 make Mesopotamians pay in oil and British Labour 
 in unemployment and reduction of wages the War 
 Profiteers' Bill. Disillusioned public opinion is only 
 waiting the next General Election to give the 
 Great Betrayer the sack, and to entrust the Labour 
 Party with five years' power. If in that time 
 Labour quits itself well, grapples resolutely and 
 intelligently with the Social, Economic, Industrial 
 and International problems which the War and the 
 Reactionary Governments have created or increased 
 in intensity, PubHc Opinion will renew its trust 
 and the Labour Party will have another lease of 
 power to make good its pledges and promises. Ergo, 
 why waste precious lives when the vote will do 
 everything ? The young bloods of Democracy, like 
 the young bloods of Aristocracy, are spoihng for 
 a fight, and a fight to the finish. Both are infected 
 by War. Force, Supremacy, Paramountcy, Power, 
 World Power — the Great Evils which the War was 
 waged to banish — have got hold of their imaginations, 
 and "killing being no murder" according to the 
 gospel of ImperiaHsm and as practised by Lloyd 
 George and his colleagues in Ireland and elsewhere, 
 these young bloods see no harm, much less any crime, 
 in getting each other by the throat and making 
 society at large pay for their devilry.
 
 HOW ? 167 
 
 Lenin's lead on the one side and Lloyd George 
 and Clemenceau's on the other have raised Mars 
 to the supreme Godhead. Little wonder, therefore, 
 that the hotheads of Labour and Democracy and 
 the blockheads of Capital and Aristocracy want to 
 have a scrap. Physical Force, Brute Force, Bar- 
 barism as a remedy is still in the ascendant, in spite 
 of all the horrors and failures of the Great War, 
 and if the Labour Party imitates the Tory and 
 Liberal Parties in accepting this false doctrine, 
 then the Labour Party is doomed to failure and the 
 World to Ruin. 
 
 The apostles of " red " and " white " revolution 
 would be well advised to re-read history and to count 
 the cost before embarking on Civil War. In 1871 
 the CapitaHsts of France massacred 30,000 to 40,000 
 Communists, beHeving that their " dear brothers " 
 were more dangerous to their " system " than the 
 Germans at their gates. When property and power 
 are at stake no sacrifice is too great in the mind of 
 modern Capitalism. Let British Democracy make 
 no mistake about it, that her aims and aspirations 
 are more hateful to British Capital than Germany^ 
 and that, in the event of a trial by fire, she would 
 be mown down with the same merciless cruelty as 
 the Parisian proletariat. 
 
 The British Labour Party has done well to denounce 
 the Third International and the Moscow programme 
 of violence and Universal Civil War for the overthrow
 
 168 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 of Capitalism. At the same time it is to be pro- 
 foundly regretted that there is division in the party 
 over the means to be employed to win the common 
 goal, and that a not inconsiderable number have 
 cut themselves adrift and formed a Communist 
 Party. While Capital is clapping its hands over 
 this division in the ranks of Labour, the right and 
 left wings of Labour should avoid wasting their energy 
 in mutual recrimination, and the right wing should 
 go a step farther and insist upon the left wing enjoy- 
 ing the same freedom of speech as the orthodox 
 " MiHtarists," whose thunder they have stolen. 
 In the war of ideas let there be equal opportunity 
 for all and equahty of treatment, and let the people 
 decide at the ballot-boxes which idea shall rule. 
 
 Pubhc opinion has made mistakes in the past, and 
 will make mistakes in the future ; it is capable of 
 action and reaction, of revolution half-way or all- 
 the-way. My point is that the Labour Party can 
 educate public opinion, can win power through the 
 vote, and can exercise that power, peacefully gained 
 without sacrifice of life or treasure, for the accom- 
 plishment of all its noble, social and Communal 
 aims, for the extinction of the systems of Capitahsm 
 and Imperiahsm, and for their replacement by 
 systems of Sociahsm and InternationaHsm. 
 
 What Lenin has accomplished by force plus 
 reason, the British Labour Party can win by Reason 
 alone. England may be slow, dull-witted and Con-
 
 HOW ? 169 
 
 servative, but politically she is far in advance of 
 what Tsarist Russia was, and will respond without 
 the whip to Democratic ideals. Supposing, how- 
 ever, that the voters, misled by the Press, the Pulpit 
 and the Pub — all agencies of CapitaHsm with rare 
 exceptions — did not return Labour with a working 
 majority in the House of Commons, what then ? 
 Has Labour to lie on the mat for another five years, 
 while Capitalism picks its brain and muscle ? After 
 a Great War for freedom the continuation of economic 
 and industrial bondage might well be beyond human 
 endurance. What other remedy could Labour use 
 besides force, besides blood and iron, besides red 
 revolution, the cursed instruments of CapitaUsm 
 and Imperialism ? Passive resistance (the refusal 
 to pay rates or taxes), non-co-operation (the refusal 
 to recognize or co-operate with the Government), 
 direct action (the refusal to work under certain con- 
 ditions), are the resources of civihzation still at its 
 disposal and strong enough to gain its ends. Into 
 the ethics of passive resistance, non-co-operation 
 and direct action I need not enter further than to 
 say that passive resistance has received the imprima- 
 tur of the " Nonconformist conscience," that non- 
 co-operation — another phase of passive resistance — is 
 not proscribed by law, and that direct action as de- 
 fined above is perfectly legitimate. The practical 
 success attending these methods is quite another 
 matter. The Nonconformist strike against Balfour's
 
 170 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Education Act, which offended their conscience by 
 making them pay for rehgious teaching which they 
 did not Uke, was short-Uved and unsuccessful. 
 "Non-co-operation" with Government has been 
 tried in many lands, especially when the Govern- 
 ment is alien and despotic, with varying success. 
 At present it is particularly on trial in India and 
 Ireland, where the ahen Governments, by their 
 tyrannical methods, have driven and are driving 
 non-co-operators over the boundary of passive into 
 active resistance, and where, of course, the entire 
 blame attaches to the Governments, for the simple 
 reason that no Government has any justification to 
 govern against the will of the people or without their 
 consent. 
 
 Direct action for both economic and poHtical 
 purposes, however anti-social and anarchical, is legiti- 
 mate and much more defensible than direct resort 
 to arms, to war or bloody revolution. The General 
 Strike is Labour's last weapon in a CapitaUstic 
 State, and cannot be rehnquished until the State 
 is converted into a Social Commonwealth. Its 
 effectiveness is variable in different countries, and 
 in the same country under different circumstances. 
 The secret of its success, as illustrated, for instance, 
 in preventing the CoaUtion Government of England 
 making war directly instead of indirectly upon 
 Russia, is pubHc opinion behind it, proving again 
 that public opinion governs the world in the long run.
 
 HOW ? 171 
 
 Whether the threat of a General Strike would have 
 prevented the South African War or not is very 
 speculative, for pubUc opinion at the time was 
 poisoned by the Imperial Press and the Militant 
 Church. Still more speculative is the question 
 whether a General Strike in the countries concerned 
 would have prevented the Great War. In the 
 existing circumstances, with the unfortunate influ- 
 ence of Church and Press, the strikers would have 
 probably been denounced as traitors, would have 
 been shot down by their Imperial brothers, and 
 would finally, as actually happened, have been con- 
 scripted as cannon fodder by antagonistic systems 
 of ImperiaHstic Capitahsm. 
 
 More and more, therefore, are Labour and Demo- 
 cracy led to the great truth that Ignorance is their 
 greatest enemy, and Education their greatest friend. 
 Cognizant of that truth, the Capitahstic Government 
 of England has just dehvered a knock-out blow at 
 Labour by postponing and emasculating Fisher's 
 Education Act — their own infant — the schemes of 
 Continuation Schools, etc., to " remain in abey- 
 ance " ; higher school-age " withdrawn " ; finance 
 to be " strictly hmited " ; building new schools, 
 especially Secondary Schools, " discouraged " ; fees 
 at Secondary Schools to be increased, so that the 
 children of working men cannot enter there ; and 
 private schools — for the better classes — helped, etc. 
 
 Why are the peoples so easily fooled by their
 
 172 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 rulers, and like sheep led to the slaughter by Im- 
 perialists, and to the wage-slavery market by Capi- 
 taUsts ? Because in times of peace, and still more 
 in times of war, their environment is incompatible 
 with health, with knowledge and clear thinking. 
 The people still perish for lack of knowledge. In 
 times of peace the struggle for bare existence is so 
 intense, so cruel and so demoraHzing that the masses 
 have neither the leisure nor the strength to think 
 beyond what they shall eat and what they shall 
 drink — and drinking is not conducive to thinking —   
 and wherewithal they shall be clothed. With vast 
 masses of the population underpaid and underfed, 
 inadequately, insanitarily and immorally housed, 
 an easy prey to poverty, disease and disaster, what 
 chance has education, spiritual or intellectual ? 
 Perpetual motion on the brink of poverty degrades 
 large sections of the community into little better 
 than dazed insects. Besides, what chance is there 
 of awakening thought and reason, when children 
 are thrown body and soul into the whirlpool of labour 
 and commerciahsm before either the mind is trained 
 or the body is developed ? 
 
 Ignorance, unhealthy environment, both of body 
 and mind, is the sea of ice which congeals the warm 
 current of democratic aspiration and ambition, 
 and which fastens the good ship " Democracy " 
 in the frozen embrace of Capitalism. The removal 
 of ignorance is therefore the first step towards
 
 HOW ? 173 
 
 Democracy's deliverance. Without education, with- 
 out a quickened intelligence on the part of the masses, 
 Labour cannot hope to win its own and to make 
 even Direct Action successful. Lenin knows and 
 acts upon this fact. His greatest and probably 
 most enduring service to Russia is the spread and 
 development of Education. Education is the foun- 
 dation for successful revolution, as well as for evolu- 
 tion of the best. Labour's first duty, therefore, when 
 charged with Responsible Government, will be to 
 capture the schools and colleges and Universities 
 for the children, making them pubHc institutions 
 in the fullest sense, free from financial and class 
 distinctions and barriers. 
 
 This brings us back to Direct Action — the General 
 Strike — as the means of combating MiHtarism and 
 Capitalism, and from what w^e have said it would 
 appear that without an enlightened proletariat and 
 an intellectual soldiery. Direct Action would have 
 but a poor chance of success. 
 
 In Italy (in October 1920) Labour, in reply to 
 Capital's attempt to lock out the men, seized the 
 factories, which they could only imperfectly carry 
 on for many reasons, amongst which one was the 
 want of control of the banks. Thanks to the Govern- 
 ment, influenced by though not completely devoted 
 to Sociahstic Ideals, Labour gained a promise of a 
 genuine share of control for Shop Councils, with the 
 right to examine the Company's books. It is, of
 
 174 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 course, only a small step forward compared with 
 Russia's Revolution, but it will give Labour in- 
 valuable knowledge and experience in management, 
 and enable her eventually with fuller control to avoid 
 many of the mistakes of her Russian brothers, who 
 have had no gradual transition from CapitaHsm to 
 Communism, and who have been compelled by circum- 
 stances to go back to Capitalism with restrictions. 
 
 In England, if Labour followed the example of 
 Italy and seized the factories and the mines, etc., 
 she could hardly expect to win even the partial 
 success of ItaHan Labour, because the British Govern- 
 ment is overwhelmingly CapitaHstic, and would be 
 only too glad of the opportunity to use the Army, 
 which with us is a Class Institution, to support 
 Capital and to suppress Labour. In Italy the work- 
 ing man enjoyed possession of the factories and the 
 farms without molestation from the miHtary. In 
 England the working man would be fired out by the 
 Black-and-Tans. In Italy the workmen only yielded 
 up possession on the definite promise of a sympathetic 
 Government to secure for them a large measure of 
 control. In England a hostile Government not 
 only hed to the miners regarding the Sankey Com- 
 mission, but called up the Reservists when the 
 owners locked out the miners. In England, Hberty- 
 loving England, the Destroying Angel is still with 
 us in the form of D.O.R.A. and the Emergency 
 Powers Act.
 
 HOW ? 175 
 
 Since writing the above, Italian Labour has had a 
 rude shock. The Fascisti di Combattimento — a sort 
 of Black-and-Tans with a large admixture of middle- 
 class adherents — have been organized to fight for 
 Capital and a Class War has been conducted by them 
 against Labour with fearful violence and terrible 
 results. Labour newspapers, Labour clubs. Labour 
 organizations. Labour property. Labour meetings, 
 Co-operative stores and workshops have been attacked 
 systematically and brutally with enormous loss of 
 life and property. The reign of terror has extended 
 even to the General Election for Parliament, electors 
 being molested and murdered, and ballot-boxes 
 being tampered with and destroyed by the Fascisti. 
 The Government attitude to this anarchy, to this 
 civil war, was one of laissez-faire, just as it was 
 towards the workmen when they took possession 
 of the workshops. What the end will be no man 
 can foresee. 
 
 Before British Labour follows the example of 
 Italian Labour in seizing factories, it should follow 
 Italy's lead in electing a House of Commons in har- 
 mony with Labour, and then improve upon Itahan 
 precedent by securing Democratic Control of Industry 
 by Act of Parhament without imitating MiUtarism 
 by forceful occupation of the factories with its in- 
 separable risks of reprisals. 
 
 Foohsh, indiscriminate and unjust charges are 
 made against the Labour Party, especially by Mr.
 
 176 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Lloyd George, that its aims are selfish and sectional, 
 that it is out to bless itself alone, that it is waging 
 a Class War, that it is Bolshevik and heading for 
 Revolution. As the workers, intellectual and manual, 
 comprise nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every 
 thousand of the population, the charge of selfishness 
 and sectionahsm is silly. To raise the standard of 
 life of the nine hundred and ninety-nine is to raise 
 the National standard and to bless the whole country. 
 If it is sectional and selfish to help the poor, the 
 needy, the afflicted, the despised and rejected, and 
 to build up a contented and merrie England fit for 
 heroes to live in, then the Labour Party must plead 
 guilty. While the old political parties lionize the 
 Tyrant with the sword and the muckrake, and make 
 it easy for him to rob the people at home and to 
 spoil the Egyptians abroad, the Labour Party plays 
 the part of the Good Shepherd, who protects the 
 sheep from the wolves and is ready to lay down his 
 life, if need be, in their cause and for their salvation. 
 Whether the S.O.S. comes from the sweated seam- 
 stress or the hewer buried in the mine, or from Ireland 
 or Persia tortured to death, Labour is always ready 
 to rescue. To slay the Goliath of Militarism and the 
 Crcesus of Capitalism is Labour's lot. The Magni- 
 ficat is Labour's song : "He hath showed strength 
 with His arm. He hath scattered the proud in the 
 imagination of their hearts. He hath put down 
 the mighty from their seat ; and hath exalted the
 
 HOW? 177 
 
 humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with 
 good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away." 
 
 That it is waging a Class War by constitutional 
 means is perfectly true, but who commenced the 
 Class War ? Certainly not Labour. The Class War 
 was declared in the ancient of days by the strong 
 against the weak, by Cains against Abels, by mono- 
 polists of land and other sources of wealth against 
 the landless and the labourers. The History of the 
 Class War is the History of the World. The Kings 
 went for the Barons, and the Barons for the Kings 
 until the Barons won the day. The Middle Classes, 
 the merchants, rebelled against the Upper Classes, 
 the Aristocracy, until they won the day, in France 
 in 1789 and in England in 1832. The poor labourer 
 has kicked against the pricks, and had his revolution 
 and won his political rights, though, by the way, 
 he won them not by revolution so much as by con- 
 stitutional means. 
 
 In France the agricultural labourer won more 
 than political rights, for his revolution made him 
 a peasant proprietor. In spite of the fact that 
 the British agricultural labourer enjoys the full 
 rights of political citizenship, he is still in a condition 
 of economic servitude, which he can end at any 
 Parliamentary Election by returning Labour to 
 nationalize the land. 
 
 How far British women owe their political emanci- 
 pation to " revolutionary " means is an interesting 
 
 12
 
 178 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 psychological puzzle. One should like to credit 
 British sense of justice as being much more influenced 
 by women's arguments than by their brickbats. 
 
 As for the charge of " revolutionary," the British 
 Labour Party is opposed to violence as a remedy, 
 and is wedded to lawful and parHamentary action. 
 Under great and frequent provocation, British Labour 
 has exhibited admirable self-control. Sadly lack- 
 ing in this cardinal virtue, it is your Capitalists 
 and Imperialists who, believing in violence, are 
 the real revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. British 
 Labour has not declared for a Dictatorship of the 
 Proletariat, whilst British Capital actually exercises 
 a Dictatorship over the Press, Parliament and 
 People. 
 
 Pohtical rights do not embrace all the rights of 
 man. Political liberty comes first, and in itself 
 is a mighty achievement and necessary for the 
 winning of Economic Liberty, but political liberty 
 without economic liberty is like living on the 
 mountain-tops, where the atmosphere is fortifying 
 and appetizing and the spiritual outlook glorious, 
 but where the pangs of hunger and the pains of 
 exposure and unemployment make the heavenly 
 prospect more maddening. 
 
 The great majority are in economic bondage, 
 mere corks in the maelstrom of Capital, subject to 
 its pitiless exaction and despotic dictation, without 
 real control of their own powers and destiny. Eco-
 
 HOW ? 179 
 
 nomic servitude, like political servitude, is bad, 
 demoralizing and disastrous to human well-being, 
 and therefore not to be tolerated. The War has 
 taught us, if we did not know it before, that no man 
 or no body of men, heaven-sent or earth-born, have 
 any right to rule over any other men politically or 
 industrially without their consent, unless they have 
 been chosen by their fellows on a democratic ticket. 
 The War has established for ever the principle of 
 Self-government, and the Labour Party is bent on 
 applying that blood-won principle to Industry. 
 
 If Industrial Self-government were ensured, what 
 changes we should see ! — hours reduced in accordance 
 with physiological laws, wages advanced in keeping 
 with economic justice, sanitary improvements 
 carried out in harmony with health and decency, 
 self-respect restored to the toilers, poverty and 
 unemployment no longer stalking through a fear- 
 haunted land, homes brighter, bitterness and class 
 distinctions relegated to the evil days of industrial 
 frightfulness, and peace and plenty smiling on a 
 contented people. 
 
 Self-government is not only the natural solvent 
 of Political Empire and of Military Conquest, but 
 also of Financial Empire and Economic Conquest. 
 The spirit of the War has settled that Empire, poli- 
 tical and financial, is doomed, and that reparation 
 and restoration must be made by conquerors, mili- 
 tary or economic, to those whom they have spoiled.
 
 180 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 Instead of putting these war-worn principles into 
 practice, the CoaUtion Government has betrayed 
 them by taking sides with Capital in the Class War, 
 and in betraying them has shaken the confidence 
 of the people in constitutional and parliamentary 
 redress of their grievances, and has sown broadcast 
 the seeds of Revolution. 
 
 The Labour Party, by its policy of Self-government 
 wiselessly and fearlessly applied to both Financial 
 and Political Empire, can restore confidence in Par- 
 liamentary Government, and save England from 
 Revolution. 
 
 Of all the steps hitherto proposed or tried to ensure 
 
 and enforce industrial peace — arbitration, voluntary 
 
 or compulsory, co-operation and co-partnership, 
 
 wages boards, conciliation boards, limitation of 
 
 profits, etc. — none seem to promise so much as 
 
 Nationalization with Democratic Control. These 
 
 measures may appear too heroic to the timid and 
 
 selfish, but 
 
 "Diseases, desperate grown, 
 By desperate appliances are relieved. 
 Or not at all." 
 
 Nationalization has not proved so " desperate " 
 an appliance in regard to postage, telegraphs, tele- 
 phones, education, the Army and Navy, as to cause 
 anything but a happy issue from its extension to 
 railways, mines, armaments, and, most important 
 and urgent of all, to land.
 
 HOW ? 181 
 
 Nationalization of the land could not put us in a 
 worse position than we were during the War in face 
 of the submarine menace and the imperfectly de- 
 veloped and undeveloped condition of the land. 
 Our present land system is incompatible with getting 
 the most out of the soil, with agricultural develop- 
 ment, with personal liberty, with national safety 
 and with the democratic ideal of the land for the 
 people. In nationaHzing it the Labour Party would 
 be strict guardians of the public purse, and mindful 
 of the fact that land owes its value to the needs 
 and the services of the people. Landlords need 
 have no fear of Confiscation, a mean and con- 
 temptible trick which their class played on the people 
 in appropriating public commons and lands by 
 Acts of Parliament, when Parliament was a House 
 of Landlords. Labour can be trusted, where land- 
 lordism cannot, and where Liberalism and Toryism 
 have egregiously failed. 
 
 The objections raised to Nationalization fall chiefly 
 into two categories — the fear of Bureaucratic and 
 CentraHzed control, and the destruction of incentive 
 to work by the elimination of individual profits. 
 The remedy for the first is Decentralization and 
 Local Control by Elected Councils according to the 
 schemes, for instance, proposed by the miners. The 
 answer to the second is that the ehmination of 
 private profit would be the best incentive to work 
 on the part of the many. Labour positively and
 
 182 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 rightly refuses to work for the aggrandizement of 
 Capital, for the benefit of the few. Why the multi- 
 tude have toiled so long and so patiently for the 
 advantage of the few beats one's comprehension. 
 
 Critics of Nationalization go farther, and protest 
 that Nationalization would destroy personal Liberty. 
 If their conception of Liberty is that private indi- 
 viduals should be allowed either in their individual 
 capacity or in Combines and Trusts to profiteer 
 to the extent of 20 or 50 or 100 per cent, at the ex- 
 pense of their fellow-citizens, then Nationalization 
 will assuredly destroy personal liberty. If the 
 railways and the mines were transferred to the State, 
 in what way would the personal liberty of the owners 
 and directors be interfered with beyond the profits 
 going to the National Exchequer or to the whole 
 community in lower fares and cheaper coal ? In 
 the early days of Municipalization of Gas, Water, 
 Electricity, Trams, etc., the bogy of interference 
 with the liberty of the subject was raised by Capi- 
 talists, but it is never mentioned now, and no one 
 proposes to restore these services to the sweet will 
 and private benefit of Profiteers. Municipalization 
 is only the little brother of Nationalization. 
 
 Fifty years after the railways, mines and land 
 have been Nationalized, the bogy of interference 
 with the liberty of the subject will be as dead as a 
 Dodo. In the Public Services, Consular, Educational, 
 Postal, etc., captious critics never speak of liberty.
 
 HOW ? 183 
 
 however much they may growl and grouse against 
 State control and State inefficiency and long for the 
 bad old days of private enterprise and Capitalistic 
 exploitation. 
 
 John Stuart Mill, the Champion of Liberty, would 
 be hard pressed to-day to prove what economic 
 liberty intellectuals enjoy under Capitalism, which 
 buys and sells their brains like dry goods, and 
 casts them off like used bandages when it has sucked 
 their brains. Capitalism gives no more security of 
 employment, economic justice and independence to 
 brain-workers than to hand-workers. He would 
 be still harder pressed in the effort to show what 
 Liberty poor nations and weak nations possess in 
 a world of Capitalism, where Liberty alone belongs 
 to the rich and powerful nations and Empires. Under 
 Capitalism the primitive and predatory instincts 
 of man and of nations have " free " and full scope. 
 In consequence a few have " Liberty " to become 
 rich, while the many are condemned to poverty ; 
 a few have " Liberty " to live in healthy homes 
 with gardens " with herb, fruit, flower, glistering 
 with dew," where their children can grow up in 
 surroundings conducive to physical, intellectual and 
 moral well-being, a perennial fountain of joy to their 
 parents and a perpetual source of National Strength 
 and welfare, while the many are condemned to 
 herd together in habitations in which the rich 
 would decline to keep their horses, without any of
 
 18i MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 the amenities of life, with influences degrading to 
 body, mind and soul, in which the children are a 
 constant care to their parents and a positive danger 
 to National health, vitahty and contentment. Under 
 Capitalism we are condemned to a C3 population 
 with Liberty to eat the crumbs that fall from the 
 rich man's table, and to drink beer to drown the will 
 to strike, with a promise of compensation in a Para- 
 dise beyond the grave, which we are assured on the 
 very highest authority will be reserved for the poor, 
 while Dives has a good time in Hell. 
 
 Under Nationahzation and Internationahzation 
 the primitive and predatory instincts of man and 
 of nations will be fettered, and civihzing and 
 social instincts developed. In consequence Liberty, 
 EquaUty and Fraternity will come to reign on Earth, 
 and the pleasures of Heaven will not be postponed 
 to some dim and distant future. 
 
 Why the crowd, the consumers, allow the Capi- 
 talists to pick their pockets by overcharging, as 
 they so frequently and systematically do, perplexes 
 reason. Cumulative evidence, of which the most 
 recent is the Report issued by the Sub-Committee 
 under the Profiteering Act of which Sir William 
 Beveridge was Chairman, proves that the public 
 is at the mercy of the combinations of Capitalists 
 in trade and industry, of Trusts, which destroy com- 
 petition, fix prices, and fleece the people. The 
 findings of this Sub-Committee were : —
 
 HOW ? 185 
 
 1. That the excess profits duty is really being 
 paid by the present consumers of soap. 
 
 2. That shareholders have received enhanced divi- 
 dends, and large sums have been placed to reserves. 
 
 3. That there is a provision of the Finance Act 
 allowing losses on reduced profits to be set against 
 earlier excess profits. 
 
 4. That the United Kingdom's Soap Manufac- 
 turers' Association is now in a position to fix soap 
 prices above the replacement value level without 
 fear of competition. 
 
 Everyone agrees that the public must be protected 
 from extortion, from soulless Capitalism and Pro- 
 fiteering. Everyone also agrees that combination 
 in industry and commerce achieves great economies 
 both of production and of distribution. Then how 
 can these desired and just aims be better accomplished 
 than by Nationalization ? 
 
 Ethically, Capitalism has not a leg to stand upon. 
 Might is no more right in the financial field than in 
 the political. Economic domination of Labour — 
 mental and manual — by Capital is no more justified 
 or tolerable than the domination of one nation by 
 another — Belgium by Germany, Ireland by England. 
 To suggest that Capitalism, the exploitation of the 
 many for the profit of the few, is a beneficent system 
 bringing out the best in man is a lie, for it fosters 
 the vices of cunning, taking a mean advantage of 
 the weak, of selfishness and cruelty, and suppresses
 
 186 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 the virtues of compassion, generosity and magna- 
 nimity. Like Militarism, neither Peace nor Brother- 
 hood has a place in its orbit. To both Capitalism 
 and Militarism life is a perpetual struggle for exist- 
 ence in which morality takes a back seat or no seat 
 at all, and in which the physically and financially 
 strong play for their own hands and their own 
 pockets in their own brutal ways. Instead of 
 evolutionary systems, raising man to a higher 
 level ethically, spiritually and intellectually, they 
 are degrading. Combined, they have reduced the 
 world to a bear-garden. 
 
 Speaking of Evolution and the struggle for exist- 
 ence in Nature with all its relentless fury and cruelty, 
 I take my stand with my old teacher, Huxley, when 
 he said in his famous Romanes Lecture, " Let us 
 understand, once for all, that the Ethical progress 
 of society depends not on imitating the cosmic pro- 
 gress, still less in running away from it, but in com- 
 bating it." The Tory and Coalition Party is busy . 
 imitating the " cosmic process," the Liberal Party 
 in running away from it, and the Labour Party in 
 combating it. Oh 1 gentle elector, with the destiny 
 of the world hanging on your action, which party 
 will you vote for ? A vote for a Tory, for a 
 Coalitionist, for a Liberal, is a vote for Capitalism 
 and Militarism, for Prussianism and Profiteering 
 and Unemployment, whereas a vote for Labour 
 is a vote for Freedom from these hounds of hell.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 
 The great aims of Labour — Peace and Brotherhood 
 — cannot be attained without the League of Nations. 
 British Labour may chain and slay the British 
 hounds of hell as Russian Labour has done, but 
 unless French Labour and American Labour and 
 Japanese Labour, not to mention German Labour, 
 do likewise, the mad race of armaments will con- 
 tinue and more Armageddons will arise to mock 
 humanity. 
 
 The alternative to the League to enforce Disarm- 
 ament and Peace is Barbarism that will make the 
 Great War pale into comparative insignificance. 
 Already within two years of the termination of 
 the War to smash Militarism, so insatiable, so con- 
 scienceless, so powerful is Imperialistic Capitalism, 
 that it is getting busy in England, America and Japan 
 for the Naval Armageddon. Unless Labour gets 
 busier, and at once. Capitalism will beat it again 
 as it has beaten it before and as it beat it in the 
 Great War. 
 
 " Why worry ? " says the cynic. " You have got 
 
 187
 
 188 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 your blessed League of Nations, and what earthly 
 use is it ? " Little or none, I grant it, in its present 
 shape and surroundings, but surely Labour's business 
 is to reshape it and alter its surroundings, so that it 
 can grow and function as the ParHament of Man. 
 It is the old story, the instrument is no good without 
 the spirit. Parliaments and the League of Nations 
 are no good without the spirit of Labour — Liberty, 
 EquaHty and Fraternity — and Labour must capture 
 the lot. 
 
 Immediately British Labour has captured the 
 British House of Commons, it will replace the 
 Supreme Council of the AlHes — the instrument of 
 ImperiaUstic Capital, and the Great Disturber of 
 the Peace — by the League of Nations, democratized 
 and enlarged so as to include Germany, Russia 
 and the United States of America. With America, 
 Germany, and especially Russia, in the League, 
 what changes should we see ! The heights of 
 Imperiahstic CapitaHsm would be taken without the 
 sacrifice of a British or Pomeranian Grenadier, 
 without a hand-grenade, without a tank or sub- 
 marine. PubHc Opinion would work the miracle 
 with or without Lenin — better with — and then the 
 Third International, with its unfortunate divisions 
 in the ranks of Labour, would be avoided. 
 
 Pubhc Opinion in the world is ripe for this, the 
 greatest adventure in human progress, an adventure 
 which the " Big Two," in their short-sightedness.
 
 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 189 
 
 in their ineptitude, and in their gross selfishness, have 
 done their utmost to render abortive. 
 
 To the collective wisdom and impartial judgment 
 of the reconstituted League the Peace of Paris, 
 with all its injustices and iniquities, would be referred 
 for revision. Its many injustices and iniquities 
 would be removed, and Europe and the world recon- 
 structed as a Family of Nations, whose interests are 
 interwoven and interdependent. 
 
 Disarmament, which the AlHes have sought to 
 rigorously enforce on the Central Powers but have 
 neglected to carry out amongst themselves, would 
 become universal by agreement under the auspices 
 of the League. Armies and Navies and Conscription 
 and International Murder would become nightmares 
 and memories of a past and decadent age. Disputes 
 between nations would be settled by an Inter- 
 national Court. The even-handed justice of Law 
 would take the place of the haphazard decisions of 
 mortal combat, so degrading and disastrous to victors 
 and vanquished ahke. Law and Order would replace 
 War and Anarchy. 
 
 The " mandate " theory, so dear to Imperialists 
 and so ingenuously manipulated by the Supreme 
 Council of the Allies for their own aggrandizement, 
 would receive quick and decent burial at the hands 
 of the League of Nations, and all " mandated " 
 territories would be restored to the inhabitants to 
 govern themselves under the protection of the 
 League and, when asked for, under their advice.
 
 190 MILITARISM AFTER THE WAR 
 
 The Empires of the world would naturally dissolve 
 into their constituent parts, into Free and Inde- 
 pendent Nations, or into Federations of Free and 
 Independent Nations. The backward nations and 
 races would also be allowed to taste the Divine 
 Fruit of Freedom under a Commission of the League 
 until they could swim themselves, free from the 
 attentions of the Shark-Nations. 
 
 The Internationalization of the Suez and Panama 
 Canals, of Constantinople and the Straits of Bos- 
 phorus and the Sea of Marmora, of Gibraltar, would 
 settle a lot of heart-burning in the Family of Nations, 
 as well as the Internationalization of rivers like 
 the Danube, which flows through many lands, and 
 ports like Fiume and Dantzic, which are common 
 to the commerce of many races. 
 
 Economic Freedom and Free Exchange of Goods 
 and Raw Materials would be encouraged by the 
 League of Nations. Quite apart from economic 
 principles as to whether Free Trade or Protection 
 is best for the democracies of the world, hostile 
 tariffs and trade wars are part and parcel of the 
 spirit of Mihtarism, which pits nation against nation 
 in destructive instead of constructive rivalry. For 
 one nation to fight another nation with hostile 
 tariffs is only less fooHsh and less immoral than to 
 fight each other with lethal weapons, and in the 
 present CapitaHstic system is only to take money 
 out of the pockets of the people and put it into the
 
 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 191 
 
 hands of Profiteers. To introduce into trade, which 
 after all is an exchange of goods to the mutual 
 advantage of all parties concerned, the spirit of 
 Militarism is to defeat the purpose of trade, and 
 is diametrically opposed to Internationalism, The 
 natural barriers to InternationaHsm, race prejudice 
 and ignorance, are big enough without adding to 
 them artificial ones of a commercial and economic 
 character. 
 
 The League of Nations would take in hand the 
 rationing and distribution of raw materials, like oil 
 and copper and cotton, etc., the cause of so much 
 international friction and fighting. 
 
 The Slave Trade, Forced Labour, Sweated Labour, 
 can only be stopped and prevented by means of an 
 International Commission of the League of Nations. 
 
 The League of Peace — the lifeboat of humanity — 
 has been badly built, imperfectly equipped, inade- 
 quately manned, and torpedoed by the Supreme 
 Council of the AlHes, so that it cannot serve its 
 glorious purpose of saving civilization. The workers 
 of the world, the democracies, therefore must unite 
 to build and equip another lifeboat, broad-bottomed 
 on the people's will, which will save humanity from 
 the cataclysms which have hitherto afflicted the 
 world. 
 
 Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 
 Ring out the narrowing lust for gold, 
 Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
 
 Ring in the thousand years of peace.
 
 Printed in Great Btitain by 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED 
 
 WOKING AND LONDON
 
 V 
 
 ' n 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 295 050