Part 30 (1/2)

I want to say quite plainly and clearly that, though it would be out of place and wearisoin here, I refuse absolutely and entirely to apologise for the War, or to speak as if I were ashamed of it, or of the part which, as a journalist, I played in regard to it before it caress The War was not only necessary to secure our safety, but it was, I ahteous war Unless we had been willing to run the risk of being enslaved by Gerht for our lives and liberties at the e, ere bound, both by reasons of safety and by reasons of honour, to prevent France being destroyed by Germany If after all that had happened in the ten years before the e had remained neutral, France and Russia would have felt, and with reason, that we had deserted them It is, therefore, quite possible that, if Gerenerous terht have patched up a peace at our expense, and in effect told Gerht have as much of the perfidious British Empire as she required

Gerree to such an arrangement Her rulers, like Napoleon, knew that they could not rule Europe unless the naval supremacy of the British Empire was destroyed

In a word, it was quite clear that if we, France, and Russia did not hang _together_, we should hang separately

That was the arguuer still The notion of allowing Belgium and France to be exposed to the risk of destruction while atched in fancied security was absolutely intolerable We could not say to France, though soht it possible, ”This is not our quarrel You must decide between Russia and Gerht Russia's battles; though ould fight yours if you antonly attacked” But that was as foolish as it was selfish France and Russia were bound to support each other against the foe they found so potent and so ation of God erected into a system” called the Austrian Empire

To be concise, France was bound in honour not to leave Russia in the lurch when she was attacked, and ere also bound in honour not to desert France We had pursued, in the past, a policy which directly encouraged France, not only to ainst Germany, but to coard, indeed, that alliance as part of the security of the world, part of the insurance against a German domination of Europe, part of the joint peace preadir and afterwards, and then suddenly to step aside with the cry of ”Angela, there is danger I leave thee,” would have been so base that, had we perpetrated it, we could never have recovered our national self-respect But self- respect is as essential to the welfare of nations as it is to the welfare of the individual

The War was a terrible evil, and we have suffered very greatly, but I refuse absolutely to be apologetic in regard to our h On the contrary, I think there is nothing in hunificent than the way in which people in the British E to ht Here I appeal to a contement passed on us by the fire Wonderful and deeply lish people of all classes and of all political creeds and temperaments withstood the shock of the declaration of war and of its first dreadful ienerally his descriptions of the years '14, '15, and '16--”Years which reeled beneath us, terrible years”--are as great and asever recorded in hu the supreme test and seen in the fullest inti even in Thucydides A noble passion inspires and consecrates the narration-- vibrant with the sense not only of sorrow but also of exaltation and co It was the happiest of accidents that one of our own race, and blood, and language should have been able to view the nation's sacrifice as he viewed it, and yet be able to speak as could only ain the sacrifice, and was not actually part of the nation An Ae, like Mr Page, could say things, and say thelishue-tied by the sense that he was plucking laurels for his own brow _Page's i the words with sober deliberation and not in any inflated rhetoric--stand as the best and greatest national _

That noble attitude of the British people, that gallantry without pose or self-glorification, that valour without vain glory, that recognition that pity and truth must be shared by the conqueror with the conquered all were maintained by our people in war as in peace There were tears for the sons of the enemy as well as for our own In spite of endless provocations we kept our humanity and so our honour

If our battle spirit became us, our spirit since then has been as worthy of the best that is inthe Peace, we said and did s, both as far as the rest of the world is concerned and also in regard to our own interests; but we have a perfect right to say that all was done in honour and nothing in malice, in selfishness, or in that worst of all crie There is no justice in revenge It is a hateful and prenoble panic, and not of faith and courage It is pure evil

I even refuse to beacies of the War The War has left us in poverty and in peril But even though that poverty and that peril are largely the result of the ement of those to e have entrusted the work of reconstruction, I a to sit down by the international roadside and rave about it The way in which that social peril and that poverty have been borne by the vast majority of our population has been wholly adh to see and salute a nobility of sacrifice in all classes which to lish-speaking race--of the other half no reat as was its past

Could anything have been better than the way in which the rich, opulent, well-to-do classes of this country have taken the tremendous revolution in their lives and fortunes accoe has been as great and alht by any social revolution in the world's history Yet they have hardly caused a reat country-houses of England, only solory, are passing rapidly out of the hands of their old owners Some are destined to fall actually into ruin, some to become institutions, schools, hospitals, or asylums, and a few--but only a few--to pass into the hands of the new possessors of wealth--a body much smaller in numbers than is usually represented There are thousands of families whose members, once rich, have now passed into a condition so straitened that only ten years ago they would have regarded it as utterly insupportable--a position to which actual extinction was preferable Yet, Heaven be praised! this great social revolution has not caused one drop of blood, and very little bitterness or coreat national sacrifice, it has been accepted with a patriotisreat as that which accepted the sacrifice of the War English people of all classes are tenacious of their rights, and one , if they felt an injustice was being done thele Of such civil strife, however, there has never been a thought In a word, our revolution has couise of a patriotic duty and sacrifice

It was accoe to tell, by a sudden, and therefore unsettling, te the poorer part of the coh not reater, every bit as great as those made by the rich and the well-to-do They were borne by the working-classes hat one reater nobility of conduct Education made matters explicable to the prosperous, and especially to their woreater part of the woe part of the men, had to take the reasons for the War wholly on trust They had not been sufficiently forewarned of the danger, and the War burst upon them literally as a horrible surprise--a surprise which so soon meant for the woh there seems a likelihood that proportionately the reat for the manual workers than for those who are above them in the economic scale, the loss caused by the world's destitution is bound to be great, even though it will not be revolutionary Still, I ae, provided our rulers, through panic or through false ideas of expediency, do not feed the manual workers of the nation on a diet of mere flattery, sophistry, and opportunism, but rather instruct and inspire theh I see how ers that surround us, I believe that as a nation and an Eed hair It has been said that the Alain soard as a mere accident has saved it froain I find no difficulty in agreeing and also have no desire to apologise for calling it the Will of God that our nation shall not perish I admit, however, it would be more in the philosophic fashi+on to describe it as the resultant of the Life- Urge, or of ”the So behind the Somebody”--a formula which is possibly destined to take the place of Matthew Arnold's hteousness”

But when I say this of the new voices, I hope that no one will iine that I speak cynically or even in sympathetic irony It e” in reality mean very nearly what I mean when I speak of ”the Grace of Heaven” They, indeed, may be more honest and e and in their determination not to deceive themselves, even by an iota Their fierce preservation of the citadel of agnosticism, till they are sure, may make them unhappy and hard-pressed in spirit It can never noble

ForGod, or of acknowledging the greatness of the issues of life and death than that splendid devotion to truth which will not allow even the minutest dilution,--which de but the truth Who dare blahts of the Holy Ghost” who make their Gospel a de which has no admixture?

Does not our Lord Himself tell us, ”_Blessed are the pure in hearty for they shall see God_”? And does not purity of heart mean no mixed motives, no substitutes, no easy concessions, no coht, single and undefiled?

But I fear Itouch with that of which I speak, or claiuidance for ht All that I do is to cherish the belief that the trend of events is towards ress, and that the chief instru race In speaking thus, as a lover or a child, I a to the road of selfishness If the English- speaking kin is to take the lead and to bring ht, it can only be through care, toil, and sacrifice-things little consistent with national selfishness or national pride

CHAPTER XXVIII

UNWRITTEN CHAPTERS

The writing of memoirs is a pleasant exercise At any rate, I have found it so It has led s which I had wholly forgotten They came unbidden in the train of events which I had always remembered ”in principle” and was at pains to evoke in detail But though the process has obvious advantages, it has had one drawback My recollections, and still more my reflections, and what I may call my self-comments Conscious and Subconscious, have been so hty torrent

The result has been that, though I have writtenlike the a at a list of unwritten chapters A list as long as that of those chapters included in my book or else eliminated lest the volume should swell to the size of the London Directory or to one of those portentous catalogues which Mr Bernard Quaritch used to put forth in the days when I first began to love books, not merely for their contents, but as books

The titles of the unwritten chapters have, however, so fascinated me, and seem so necessary to my life and, therefore, to my book, that I ether with some faint indication of their nature, lest my readers should think there is some deep reason why I do not touch them It is, I feel, only natural that people should think the worst of an Autobiographer

The unwritten chapter which I ret is that chapter on the War Hospital which we opened in the house in which I aht not to say this, ed, in spite of ill-health and h physically disabled, she, for nearly five years, anisation and direction of a well-equipped surgical and medical institution in a house not built for that purpose, though, oddly enough, one which in certain ways lent itself to hospital purposes The Newlands Corner Hospital had an average of forty beds

Four and a half years is a long tier time in which to turn your hoether soh the hospital The doctors of the Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich, hich ere affiliated, and Colonel Simpson, the ADMS of that Hospital,--a ift for administration,--soon found out that Newlands air and Newlands care were excellent things for difficult and anxious cases Therefore we had our full share of bad, or, as the Sisters and nurses put it, good, cases