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BY 
 FRANK HARRIS 
 
 Elder Conklin and Other Stories 
 
 MONTES THE MaTADOR 
 
 Unpath'd Waters 
 The Veils of Isis 
 
 The Bomb 
 Great Days 
 
 The Man Shakespeare 
 The Women of Shakespeare 
 Shakespeare and His Love (Play) 
 
 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Love in Youth (in Press) 
 
 Oscar Wilde : His Life and Confessions 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Daventry (Drama) 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 OR 
 
 GERMANY 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK HARRIS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE WILMARTH PRESS 
 
 835 BROADWAY 
 MCMXV 
 
Copyright, 191 5 
 
 BY 
 
 Frank Harris 
 
 MAY 1919*5 
 
 ©aA4U6046 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ENGLAND OR GERMANY-? 
 
 Chapter Page 
 Foreword 4 
 
 I. Christian Morality and the War 11 
 
 II. The Conflict of Ideals: English and Ger- 
 man 22 
 
 III. England's Oligarchy 35 
 
 IV. England's Laws 48 
 
 V. English Justice 64 
 
 VI. The German Nation and Its Ideal 81 
 
 VII. Paris in the First Weeks of War 106 
 
 VIII. The Censorship and Its Effects 132 
 
 IX. Who Will Win in the War? 147 
 
 X. The "Soul of Goodness in Things Evil" 166 
 
 XI. Some Effects of the War upon America 177 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Some of the best heads in the world have written 
 about this war, and yet no one stands out as having 
 approached impartiality. The first half dozen sen- 
 tences always show on which side the sympathies of 
 the writer are engaged. The Germans all believe 
 that they have been attacked: Herr Von Jagow de- 
 clares that the plot against them was got up by Eng- 
 land; Hauptman is confident that all Germans feel 
 they are in the right; Harden asserts that Germany 
 is a law to herself. On the other hand, the Allies 
 consider Germany as the aggressor: Anatole France 
 throws down his pen and enlists at nearly seventy to 
 fight the "barbarians"; Wells professes to regard the 
 Germans as "inferior" beings; Sir Edward Grey be- 
 lieves that they desire "universal domination"; even 
 Bernard Shaw appears to have regretted his attempt 
 to see things as they really are and agrees that the 
 Germans must be crushed. And now comes M. Fa- 
 guet, eager to show that a really eminent literary 
 critic may also be blinded by prejudice. 
 
 He begins by stating that the Germans are hated 
 by all nations, and he infers therefrom that they are 
 hateworthy, lacking at least in amiable qualities. 
 The inference is plausible, but hardly more. M. Fa- 
 guet appears to have no notion of the fact that men 
 are apt to hate their superiors just as they like their 
 inferiors; in proportion as a man rises above the or- 
 dinary he is sure to be disliked. That is the lesson 
 
FOREWORD 5 
 
 of all genius: Socrates was hated in Athens not be- 
 cause he was unamiable, not because he "corrupted 
 the youth," as his indictment phrased it; but because 
 he was more reasonable, wiser, braver and more 
 pious than other men. We mortals crown our great- 
 est with thorns. The Germans are hated because 
 they have done great things in the last twenty years ; 
 they are not only strong in a military sense, but they 
 have shown themselves as successful in business as 
 in music and philosophy. Their population and 
 wealth have grown by leaps and bounds, and, strange 
 to say, they have been wise enough at the same time 
 to do away with poverty. Much less would have 
 sufficed to earn them general dislike, even if their 
 manners had been as urbane and distinguished as 
 they are reputed to be rude and aggressive. 
 
 Partisans, especially English-speaking partisans, 
 are pretty sure to condemn this book of mine as if 
 it were written in a spirit of bitter prejudice. There 
 is probably an inclination in me to take the weaker 
 side, the side of those who have the odds against 
 them, for I have often noticed this inclination in 
 other Celts; but this tendency, if it exists, is not the 
 bias usual among American writers. In self-justifi- 
 cation I say that those who would stand upright 
 must lean against the prevalent wind in proportion 
 to its strength. Of course, one may lean too far and 
 lose balance; if I have done that, it is involuntary 
 and I shall have to pay for the folly. 
 
 One curious fact has given me a good deal of con- 
 fidence. I had practically written this book before I 
 came across the "Englische Fragmente" of Heine. I 
 was astounded to find that the conclusions to which 
 Heine came after visiting England three-quarters of a 
 century ago were almost exactly the conclusions 
 which had gradually forced themselves in on me and 
 I had set down after living and working twenty-five 
 years in the country. Now Heine was a Jew, and 
 
6 FOREWORD 
 
 apt, as most Jews are, to honor success and material 
 prosperity such as England possesses, unduly; yet 
 Heine condemns English laws and the modern Eng- 
 lish ideals as passionately as I do: Jew and Celt ex- 
 amining the subject from opposite viewpoints and 
 arriving at the same result! 
 
 We both condemn the English oligarchy, English 
 snobbishness and English hypocrisy; we were both 
 struck with horror by the incredible cruelty with 
 which the English treat the poor, and the unimagin- 
 able savagery of their laws, mainly directed against 
 the weak. It v/as Heine who taught Matthew Ar- 
 nold to see the "degradation of the English working 
 class," "the ignorance and sordid narrow-mindedness 
 of their middle-class,'* and the "barbarianism'* of 
 their nobility. Heine left England, he tells us, to get 
 away from "gentlemen" and live among ordinary 
 knaves and fools as the only man with a clear under- 
 standing of human squalor. 
 
 Yet, though I agree with Heine in his condemna- 
 tion of much in England, I differ from him in having 
 some hope. The vices of the English governing class 
 and the savagery of their laws only serve to set in 
 relief the fact that such of the working-class as en- 
 joy decent conditions of life are among the finest 
 specimens of humanity to be met with anywhere. 
 There is, so to speak, a well of pure loving-kindness 
 about the heart of them which is amazing and a 
 sense of humor as well. What shall be said of that 
 English soldier who, after an unsuccessful sally 
 against the German trenches, called out to his foes: 
 
 "Don't be downhearted, Dutchies; you'll get home 
 yet." 
 
 It is my admiration of such Englishmen that lends 
 passion to my hope that there may be a social revo- 
 lution in Great Britain as an outcome of this war, a 
 revolution which will put an end forever to the self- 
 ish, senseless domination of the titled class and set 
 
FOREWORD 7 
 
 free at length the generous humanity of the common 
 people. If it be partisanship to plead for this, then 
 I am guilty of passionate partisanship ; but not other- 
 wise, I believe. In fine, I belong as Victor Hugo 
 said he did, to the party of Revolutionary civiliza- 
 tion; the party which will control the twentieth cen- 
 tury; and out of which must come the United States 
 of Europe first, and then the United States of the 
 World. 
 
 And in order to hasten the good time and bring 
 the dream to consummation we should all try to be 
 pitiful to the faults of others and pitiless to our own. 
 
 How conceited, how vainglorious we must be to 
 blame this or that nation for causing this world-war, 
 without realizing that we ourselves are all compact 
 of the very faults which have led inevitably to the 
 catastrophe. Greediness, combativeness, vanity, 
 cruelty, we have all the vices of the fighter, and our 
 faults are manifestly stronger than the correspond- 
 ing virtues: self-denial, gentleness and loving kind- 
 ness. 
 
 Instead of blaming other men for savage selfish- 
 ness, why should we not try to realize how easily the 
 war might have been averted if European statesmen 
 had consulted their higher natures, and acted to the 
 best in them. Austria and Russia have no real rea- 
 son to quarrel: Constantinople and Salonica can be 
 used by them now as ports for everything except 
 making war and the building of warships. Germany 
 should long ago have restored the French parts of 
 Alsace-Lorraine to France, and so founded peace on 
 justice and goodwill. England, too, might have freed 
 India and Egypt or confided them to international 
 guidance, and could have given South Africa to Ger- 
 many as a field of colonization, or if that were too 
 high an effort of unselfishness, she might have 
 helped Germany to build up a great colony in Cen- 
 tral Africa, or the United States might have aided 
 
8 FOREWORD 
 
 the Kaiser to establish south of the Rio Negro an 
 oversea Germany with the consent of the Argentine 
 Republic. For surely a German experiment in colo- 
 nization would be worth studying and would prob- 
 ably serve as a spur to effort throughout the world. 
 
 Such arrangements as these would benefit every- 
 one and would be a thousand times more profitable 
 than arming ourselves to fight, to say nothing of 
 really fighting. 
 
 It is surely impossible to shut one's eyes to the 
 fact that it is the two great Germanic peoples, the 
 English and the Germans and their striving for the 
 first place which brought about the war and is now 
 the chief obstacle to a world-peace. Is the Kaiser 
 or Mr. Asquith the more humane? Who will first 
 hold out his hand? If either of them went to coun- 
 sel with his own soul, or even with the lowest self- 
 interest he would see that the first to propose peace 
 would thereby show himself the wiser. I cannot be- 
 lieve that Mr. Asquith has much sympathy with the 
 land-greed which has driven the English oligarchy 
 in our day to annex Burma and Egypt and make 
 war on the South African republics when already in 
 Canada and Australia the English have larger pos- 
 sessions than they know how to use. For genera- 
 tions England fights and intrigues to prevent Russia 
 getting to Constantinople; now she gives up her tra- 
 ditional policy in this respect. Yet stupid as that 
 policy was, it was not so stupid as the belated at- 
 tempt to stay the expansion of Germany. 
 
 And Germany in fighting England and France, is 
 only helping to make Russia the Master of Europe. 
 The hate-policy of England and Germany from every 
 point of view is worse than idiotic. 
 
 In this conflict France has shown herself less ea- 
 ger for war than any of the other countries, though 
 she has the best reason, or at any rate the most ob- 
 vious and avowable reason, for engaging in it To- 
 
FOREWORD 9 
 
 day, too, France would make peace on more reason- 
 able terms than any of the other nations, though she 
 is as confident as any of them in her strength and 
 ultimate victory. 
 
 The truth is that in France the sense of justice is 
 more active than in any other country in the world. 
 Thanks to this sense and to the consequent parti- 
 tion of land in the Revolution, there is hardly any 
 poverty in France, and wealth is more widely dif- 
 fused there than elsewhere. On the other hand, 
 France does more for art and artists and the "intel- 
 lectuals" generally than any country except Ger- 
 many, and if she prefers a measure of well-being and 
 happiness to large families and energetic growth, 
 who shall blame her? It is this "sagesse" which one 
 admires in the French. Everyone loves France be- 
 cause her follies even are generous, and more than 
 any other people the French cherish the humane 
 ideal. 
 
 And Russia? Whichever side wins, whatever hap- 
 pens, Russia is almost sure to profit in a material 
 sense through the war; but it is the Tsar and his 
 counsellors who are fighting and not Russia; Russia 
 as yet is without national policy or purpose; the brain 
 and the heart of her not geared properly to direct 
 the huge body. Thirty years ago I wrote that 
 sooner or later Russia would express herself in a 
 new birth in religion or a new form of society. It 
 is perhaps the mission of Russia, Holy Russia as 
 her children call her, to found the United States of 
 Europe. 
 
Shortly before the war, Mr. H. G. Wells, in 
 his book entitled "Social Forces in England 
 and America," wrote as follows: 
 
 *'We in Great Britain are now intensely jealous 
 of Germany. We are intensely jealous of Ger- 
 many not only because the Germans outnumber 
 us, and have a much larger and more diversified 
 country than ours, and lie in the very heart and 
 body of Europe, but because in the last hundred 
 years, while we have fed on platitudes and vanity, 
 they have had the energy and humility to develop 
 a splendid system of national education, to toil at 
 science and art and literature, to develop social 
 organization, to master and better our methods of 
 business and industry, and to clamber above us in 
 the scale of civilization. This has humiliated and 
 irritated rather than chastened us." Mr. Wells 
 informed us further that one must learn German 
 ''if one would be abreast of scientific knowledge 
 and philosophical thought, or see many good plays 
 or understand the contemporary mind." 
 
 Since the commencement of the war, Mr. Wells 
 has changed his tune. He now says : 
 
 "That trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of 
 Europe that has arrested civilization for forty 
 years, German imperialism and German militar- 
 ism, has struck its inevitable blow" 
 
 10 
 
England or Germany 
 
 ? 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Christian Morality and the War 
 
 For Christian nations waging war with each 
 other to talk of morality is mere hypocrisy. 
 This war is a proof, if proof were needed, of the 
 bankruptcy of Christian morals and of the weak 
 hold the unselfish teaching of Jesus has on 
 the modern world. Science, with its "struggle 
 for existence" and "survival of the fittest" ; sci- 
 ence, which has reinforced Paganism with its 
 Nietzschean ideal, is the inspirer of the present 
 struggle. Yet so strong is habit and so pro- 
 found the influence of the Gospel that the first 
 weeks of the war were filled with discussions 
 as to the moral guilt or innocence of the various 
 nations engaged — such mouth-honor, at least, 
 was paid to the higher law. 
 
 It seems to me almost a waste of time to at- 
 tempt to apportion moral responsibility for 
 what even the German Crown Prince, in an 
 interview at the end of November, 19 14, called 
 
 II 
 
12 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 "the most stupid, senseless and unnecessary 
 war of modern times." 
 
 Yet something must be said on the matter, 
 for the American bias in favor of the Allies is 
 continually being used as a proof that right is 
 on that side. In a recent speech. Lord 
 Bryce, whilom British Ambassador in Wash- 
 ington, asserted that the sympathy of the 
 Americans for the cause of the Allies was 
 a sympathy based on moral grounds and there- 
 fore doubly valuable. Of course, fair-minded 
 people knew that American sympathy had no 
 such foundation, but was in reality an unrea- 
 soned prepossession due mainly to the fact that 
 Americans and Britons speak the same tongue. 
 The tie of speech has once more proved itself 
 "light as air and binding as iron," stronger even 
 than any bond of blood or intimacy of inter- 
 course. Russian Jews are all praying and 
 fighting for "Holy Russia"; on the other side 
 of an imaginary line, equally pious Jews are 
 passionately fighting for the "Vaterland," while 
 the Belgian and French Jews pray and fight in 
 order that France may win and Germany be 
 dismembered. The tie of language is stronger 
 than that of race, even when the racial tie is 
 backed by religion, secular life in a Ghetto 
 and immemorial customs. It is the most dur- 
 able of all bonds between men. And in this 
 war the great bond of language which always 
 tends to assimilate American opinion to Brit- 
 ish opinion is still further strengthened in many 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 13 
 
 ways. American papers share the expense of 
 getting news with London papers and use Brit- 
 ish correspondents as freely as American. The 
 chief New York journals, like all London jour- 
 nals, belong to the capitalist class, and are di- 
 rected by the same self-interest. And last but 
 not least, whenever an American paper pub- 
 lishes an article greatly in favor of the Allies, it 
 can reckon that the article will be reproduced 
 in the English press and praised beyond meas- 
 ure. The effect of such genial eulogy on writers 
 and editors is prodigious. The great financial 
 institutions, too, and the principal banks in 
 New York and London are intimately allied 
 and are accustomed to act in concert. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that Ameri- 
 can opinion, particularly at the outset, should 
 have been captured by British arguments and 
 dominated by British sympathies. 
 
 But already one sees a gradual swinging 
 round of American feeling in favor of Ger- 
 many, chiefly because Americans admire effi- 
 ciency above all things, and it will not be long 
 before the assertion of Lord Bryce will be seen 
 here to be a piece of special pleading, an as- 
 sumption, indeed, out of all relation to fact. 
 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw has already made fun of 
 the British "bulldog breed" trying to masquer- 
 ade as "meek gazelles"; "incorrigibly com- 
 bative and snobbish," he calls the British aris- 
 tocratic caste and condemns British diplomacy 
 for taking sides with the Russian autocracy 
 
14 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 against the German people. It is clear to him, 
 as to every impartial mind, that that is one 
 meaning of this war. 
 
 I must confess that at the outbreak of the 
 war I cherished a certain confidence in Sir 
 Edward Grey and the violation of the neutral- 
 ity of Belgium by the Germans inclined me to 
 the side of the Allies and made me regard the 
 Germans as the aggressors. 
 
 The publication of the British "White 
 Papers" cleverly edited as the book was, proved 
 that the violation of the neutrality of Belgium 
 had nothing to do with the resolve of Great 
 Britain to support France. When this became 
 clear to me I resented the pretences of Sir Ed- 
 ward Grey, whom I had hitherto trusted. The 
 following despatch in the British "White 
 Papers" is conclusive on this point, and most 
 informative besides, to one familiar with the 
 reticence of official England : 
 
 "Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen. Lon- 
 don Foreign Office, August i, 191 4. 
 
 "Sir: I told the German Ambassador to-day 
 that the reply of the German Government with 
 regard to the neutrality of Belgium was a mat- 
 ter of very great regret, because the neutrality 
 of Belgium affected feeling in this country. 
 . . . He asked me whether, if Germany gave a 
 promise liot to violate Belgian neutrality, we 
 would engage to remain neutral. I replied that 
 I could not say that : our hands were still free 
 and we were considering what our attitude 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 15 
 
 should be. . . . The Ambassador pressed me 
 as to whether I could not formulate conditions 
 on which we would remain neutral. He even 
 suggested that the integrity of France and her 
 colonies might be guaranteed. I said that I 
 felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to 
 remain neutral . . . and I could only say that 
 we must keep our hands free." 
 
 Now, if one reads that despatch of Sir Ed- 
 ward Grey carefully, one sees that he was sur- 
 prised by the lengths to which Germany was 
 willing to go in order to avoid complicating 
 the struggle with Russia, by a war also with 
 France and Britain. So far from being arro- 
 gant or overbearing, the German ambassador 
 "even" suggested that the neutrality of France 
 and her colonies might be guaranteed and 
 "pressed me as to whether I could not formu- 
 late conditions on which we would remain 
 neutral." 
 
 Germany thereby said to England in effect— 
 "tell us how to insure your neutrality ; we shall 
 accept your conditions if possible." Britain, 
 by the mouth of Sir Edward Grey, "refused 
 definitely to remain neutral" on any conditions. 
 The violation of the neutrality of Belgium had 
 nothing whatever to do with the decision of 
 Great Britain. Sir Edward Grey himself ad- 
 mits that categorically. 
 
 All European nations are much on the same 
 level when it comes to respecting promises or 
 treaties. Russia violated the treaty of Paris; 
 
i6 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Austria tore up the Treaty of Berlin without 
 even an apology. England pledged herself not 
 to interfere in the internal affairs of the Trans- 
 vaal and her promises to evacuate Egypt were 
 so numerous that they excited derision. 
 
 The French have attempted to prove, in a 
 Second Yellow Book, that the German Kaiser 
 v/as turned into an advocate of war by the 
 Agadir incident, which he is said to have con- 
 sidered as a defeat for German diplomacy, and 
 that the French from the beginning to the end 
 were lambs forced to defend themselves against 
 German wolves. Much as I love France and 
 greatly as I admire the French, I cannot ac- 
 cept this view. It becomes necessary to tell 
 the truth about that occurrence. 
 
 At the time of the Agadir affair, M. Caillaux 
 was Premier of France and intensely patriotic 
 and high-spirited. He admitted to me in con- 
 versations (which he allowed me to use ; and I 
 did use by publishing the gist of them in a 
 London paper) that in igii he offered Great 
 Britain, on three several occasions, to break off 
 all negotiations with the Germans over Agadir 
 if Sir Edward Grey would promise to support 
 France with arms. "We were eager to fight," 
 he declared boldly, and continued : 
 
 "Sir Edward Grey told M. Cambon again 
 and again that Great Britain would support 
 France if France were attacked, or indeed, if 
 France could keep public opinion on her side. 
 He laid great stress," said M. Caillaux, "on 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 17 
 
 this point which seemed to me insignificant; 
 but parliamentary diplomacy, I suppose, tied 
 his hands. Of course, I could not act without 
 a definite and unconditional promise of sup- 
 port." 
 
 That is, Sir Edward Grey in 191 1, as in 191 4, 
 was more than willing to fight; but wanted to 
 have public opinion on his side; "to keep up 
 appearances" at all costs. And France when 
 backed by Russia and England was eager for 
 the conflict. 
 
 But if it is clear, as Mr. Bernard Shaw has 
 shown, that Sir Edward Grey could have main- 
 tained peace in 191 4 by simply telling Russia 
 he would not support her if she mobilized, 
 surely it is equally clear that the German Em- 
 peror might have kept the peace if he had 
 agreed to Sir Edward Grey's proposal to sub- 
 mit the Austro-Servian dispute to arbitration. 
 Indeed, in some respects, German diplomacy is 
 the most difficult to defend in the whole im- 
 broglio. Here is the position. In the last 
 twenty years Germany has grown in popula- 
 tion, in wealth and in power, in the most ex- 
 traordinary way. While the French popula- 
 tion has been stationary, the German popula- 
 tion has increased from forty-five millions to 
 over seventy millions. If Germany had only 
 kept the peace for twenty years more she would 
 have had ninety millions of people and France 
 would have been hopelessly dwarfed. It was 
 Germany's cue not to be drawn into a quarrel ; 
 
i8 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 every year was increasing her relative power 
 and strengthening, too, her vital contention 
 that a nation growing in this way must not be 
 cribbed and coffined in a small country no 
 larger than France. Peace and diplomatic ne- 
 gotiations were Germany's game; but Ger- 
 many, too, was eager to draw the sword and 
 submit the decision to force. 
 
 The truth is, all the peoples engaged in this 
 war are almost equally to blame. Behind all 
 the moral pretenses there was hard national 
 selfishness. Russia was determined to support 
 Servia and thus add to its already immense ter- 
 ritory by forcing its way to Constantinople and 
 the Mediterranean; the Germans, hemmed in 
 on all sides, as in a straight waistcoat, felt 
 compelled to find an outlet to the sea and colo- 
 nies which they might fill with men of their 
 own blood ; France was eager for revenge and 
 resolved to win back Alsace-Lorraine; and 
 England — 
 
 Why was Sir Edward Grey so determined 
 not to remain neutral under any circumstances, 
 so resolved to take up arms against Germany 
 in August, 191 4, when Germany had to defend 
 herself against both Russia and France? No 
 one who has followed British policy in the past 
 can remain for a moment in doubt! British 
 policy has often been admired just because it 
 has had only one object, self-interest. 
 
 Long ago, Ranke showed that it has always 
 been a matter of vital importance for Great 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 19 
 
 Britain to keep command of the seas. For that 
 reason she waged war against Spain and broke 
 the power of the Invincible Armada. A little 
 later, she defeated Protestant Holland, and 
 half a century afterwards began the great war 
 which lasted, with interludes of peace, for more 
 than a century and ended with the defeat of 
 France as a maritime rival. 
 
 As soon as Germany began to build a navy 
 to protect her mercantile marine, the feelings 
 of Great Britain towards her underwent a sea- 
 change. Up to that moment she had been 
 friendly though somewhat annoyed by the as- 
 tounding growth of German trade and com- 
 merce. Now at once Great Britain resolved to 
 build two war ships to each one of Germany's, 
 and when she found this costly, she proposed 
 to rest on her oars, if Germany would do the 
 same and consent thereby always to remain 
 vastly inferior in naval strength. 
 
 Again and again, by the mouth of Mr. Win- 
 ston Churchill, Great Britain voiced her desire 
 to remain mistress of the seas at the smallest 
 possible expenditure. When Germany replied 
 that she had no aggressive designs but required 
 a navy for protection and would not accept dic- 
 tation as to its strength. Great Britain began to 
 construct a new naval base at Forsyth and sta- 
 tioned a fleet in the North Sea. 
 
 One incident occurred which shows the whole 
 position in the dry light of unconscious humor. 
 It was habitually asserted in England that Ger- 
 
20 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 man trade was growing because the Germans 
 imitated English goods and passed off inferior 
 and cheaper articles for the better class pro- 
 ductions of Great Britain. On the other hand, 
 British consular agents reported that German 
 trade was prospering because the German man- 
 ufacturers studied foreign markets and were 
 more intelligent and better informed than Brit- 
 ish manufacturers, and were served besides by 
 German travellers who thought nothing of 
 learning two or three foreign languages in or- 
 der to win clients. But it was more consoling 
 to British pride to declare German goods infer- 
 ior and cheaper ; and at length Parliament took 
 the matter up and in its wisdom decreed that 
 all goods brought into Great Britain and her 
 colonies should be plainly marked with their 
 place of origin. Every effort was made in the 
 press to turn the stamp, "made in Germany" 
 into a symbol of contempt. But, alas, one soon 
 found that the only knives and razors that 
 would cut were all stamped with the hateful 
 mark, "made in Germany." In every depart- 
 ment this trade-mark became a badge of honor, 
 and very soon the English manufacturers went 
 about crying to have the law repealed. 
 
 Year by year the industries of Germany and 
 the over-sea trade of Germany grew as no trade 
 had ever grown before, and year by year the 
 jealousy of Great Britain kept pace with it. In 
 cool blood, before the war, Mr. H. G. Wells ac- 
 knowledged and deplored this sordid but nat- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 21 
 
 ural meanness. British journal after journal 
 turned from admiration of Germany to envy 
 and dislike and the dislike grew quickly to ha- 
 tred and loathing. Soon the feeling became 
 active, and in spite of Fashoda, Great Britain 
 struck up a treaty with France in order that 
 she might free her fleets from the Mediterran- 
 ean and be able to concentrate them opposite 
 the German coast. From that moment on, it 
 was only a question of time when Great Brit- 
 ain would declare war on Germany. Bernard 
 Shaw is absolutely justified when he tears to 
 pieces the hypocritical pretence that Great 
 Britain is fighting for poor little Belgium or 
 treaty rights or even for the balance of power 
 in Europe. Living in England he can hardly 
 be blamed for not telling the whole truth — 
 that Great Britain has taken up arms to crush 
 a successful trade rival and for no other reason. 
 As soon as war was declared the Times and 
 Daily Mail and many other London papers 
 threw off the mask and published column after 
 column showing how this, that and the other 
 department of trade could now be taken from 
 the Germans. The facts are too plain to be 
 disputed. In private life, for the last ten years, 
 Englishmen of the governing class have ad- 
 mitted the trade jealousy and its inevitable 
 consequences with smiling complacence. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 The Conflict of Ideals: English and German 
 
 Lord Bryce asserts that this war is a conflict 
 of the two ideals of England and Germany. 
 There is a great deal to be said for his state- 
 ment, though he may not be satisfied with the 
 scientific definition of it. Let us examine it 
 impartially. And, first of all, what is the Eng- 
 lish ideal? 
 
 There are two chief ways of looking at Eng- 
 land as at all other countries; as she sees her- 
 self and as others see her. Mr. Arnold Bennett 
 has given us a picture of her as she sees her- 
 self, while the poet Heine long ago gave us a 
 notev/orthy picture of her as others see her. 
 Mr. Arnold Bennett simply asserts that Eng- 
 land stands for freedom and free institutions, 
 while Germany is under the heel of a frightful 
 military despotism which threatens the peace 
 of mankind. Mr. Bennett knows no German. 
 
 When I asked Mr. H. G. Wells recently: 
 what he knew about Germany that he should 
 condemn her so absolutely, he told me that his 
 son's tutor had been a German. Sir Edward 
 Grey was not ashamed in a speech made so 
 late as March 22nd, to declare that "the Ger- 
 man ideal is that the Germans are a superior 
 people to whom all things are lawful and 
 against whom resistance is unlawful." 
 
 22 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 23 
 
 It is impossible to take such ignorant parti- 
 sanship seriously. It reminds me of what Doo- 
 ley said to Hennessy at the beginning of our 
 war with Spain, "I don't have any more use 
 for thim Spaniards than what you have, Hin- 
 nessey ; I've never known one of 'em." 
 
 It is necessary to know a nation before one 
 talks of it; and the better we know men, the 
 more disinclined we are to lump a whole peo- 
 ple together in eulogy or condemnation. Burke 
 declared that it was impossible to frame an 
 indictment against a nation. 
 
 Mr. Arnold Bennett appears to be ignorant of 
 the fact that of the nations now at war, Ger- 
 many is the only one which has practically 
 kept the peace without a break for over forty 
 years and that Great Britain spends fifty per 
 cent more on armaments per year in propor- 
 tion to her population than Germany spends. 
 Besides, the military caste in Germany has no 
 power to be compared with that of the titled 
 oligarchy in England. 
 
 The comparison between Britain and Ger- 
 many needs to be taken in hand by someone 
 who knows both countries and has a desire to 
 state the truth, and nothing but the truth. Let 
 us weigh, first, the claim of England to stand 
 for liberty and all that liberty means. 
 
 In popular esteem the claim rests mainly on 
 the fact that Great Britain was the first coun- 
 try to free her negro slaves and to give up the 
 slave-trade. It was pointed out at the time, 
 
24 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 that after losing her chief North American col- 
 onies, the large profits Britain had been mak- 
 ing out of the slave traffic had fallen away to a 
 small amount and that by freeing her slaves, 
 she only wished to read the United States a 
 lesson which would cost them infinitely more 
 than it could cost her. Besides, the twenty mil- 
 lion pounds sterling set apart to compensate 
 the slave-holders was so expended that while 
 many got less than a third of what they should 
 have received, a minority was rewarded beyond 
 reason. Still, in spite of the intrusion of mean 
 motives and other drawbacks, the act was a 
 great step in advance, and one redounding to 
 Britain's credit. But, after all, one cannot live 
 forever on the achievements of one's grand- 
 fathers; we must ask how England stands to- 
 day in regard to freedom. 
 
 For over two centuries, from Luther to Vol- 
 taire, the history of Europe was the history of 
 the assertion of the individual and the growing 
 expansion of individual rights. It was natural 
 that England should take the lead in this move- 
 ment; for England as an island was protected 
 from outside pressure and so the individuals 
 forming the English social organism tended to 
 fall apart: individualism became the English 
 creed. "The Englishman's home" was vaunted 
 as "his castle." 
 
 So long as this centrifugal tendency showed 
 itself all over Christendom, England stood for 
 the highest civilization. She endowed Europe 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 25 
 
 with the modern Parliamentary forms of self- 
 government and taught mankind the value of 
 freedom and free institutions in which the in- 
 dividual could develop all his energies unhin- 
 dered. While this ideal was being assimilated, 
 England was held up to admiration on all 
 hands as the model State. 
 
 Moreover, thanks in the main to natural ad- 
 vantages, England easily took the lead in the 
 modern development of industry; she founded 
 the factory system and for a half a century or 
 more was in the van of the world's industrial 
 and commercial progress. 
 
 Just as the individual judgment so bepraised 
 by Luther, ended in the scepticism of Voltaire, 
 so this unrestrained individualism within the 
 state led directly to anarchy, and came to an 
 end in the French Revolution. In 1793 the 
 French tried to limit the rights of the individ- 
 ual by an appeal to equality and the welfare 
 of the whole body politic. In economics the 
 theory of individualism was then opposed by 
 socialism; the interests of the individual had 
 to be limited by the interests of the many. In 
 chemistry, about the same time the atomic the- 
 ory was merged in the molecular theory and 
 analytic chemistry having been pushed as far 
 as possible was superseded by synthetic chem- 
 istry. 
 
 The progress of humanity is rather like that 
 of a skater on the outside edge : as soon as the 
 rhythmic curve of movement takes the skater 
 
26 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 away from the line of progress forward, the 
 swing to the opposite side is already outlined. 
 
 The French Revolution marks the end of 
 the centrifugal movement: a centralizing and 
 centripetal movement then took its place. 
 
 The antagonism of the two forces was prob- 
 ably more clearly defined in the Civil War in 
 America than anywhere else. And though the 
 United States are freer from outside pressure 
 than England herself, more in love therefore 
 with outrageous individualism than England, 
 still the idea of the nation, the claims of the 
 whole body politic proved themselves even here 
 stronger than the rights of the individual or 
 even the rights of any state. 
 
 This same centripetal force, or centralizing 
 tendency showed itself all through the nine- 
 teenth century and from one end of Europe to 
 the other in a growth of national feeling. Pied- 
 mont drew the Italian states together and Italy 
 was "rediviva" ; in the same way Prussia drew 
 the German states together and hammered 
 them into one on the anvil of war; giant Rus- 
 sia began to tingle with the new spirit and the 
 freeing of her serfs was the thrill of her nation- 
 hood becoming conscious from Petrograd to 
 Vladivostock ; even England began to dream 
 of a Greater Britain. 
 
 It was inevitable that Germany ("pinched in 
 on all sides by enemies" as Bismarck said) 
 should become the chief exponent of this cen- 
 tralizing tendency, this intensification of na- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 27 
 
 tional feeling and the national ideal. England 
 as an island naturally stood for individual free- 
 dom ; in economics for Free Trade, for the ideal 
 of the "all-round" perfect man; whereas Ger- 
 many ringed about by foes was compelled to 
 stand for the idea of the whole, in economics 
 for socialism, for the ideal of the ''all-round" 
 perfect state. 
 
 Towards the end of the nineteenth century 
 this national movement was quickened chiefly 
 through the extraordinary growth of Russia 
 and the United States of America. It was seen 
 that World Empires of enormous area and pop- 
 ulation were coming into being which must 
 dwarf nations as nations had dwarfed clans and 
 village communities— and these Empires were 
 held together by language and not by race, 
 the centralizing tendency growing steadily 
 stronger. 
 
 Manifestly, Great Britain was called to unite 
 with her colonies and form a confederation of 
 British States and so enter this larger compe- 
 tition. But this new movement did not appeal 
 to England strongly; or rather did not appeal 
 to her governing class, the land-owning oli- 
 garchy which directs her destinies. She hung 
 back hesitating and postponing though her col- 
 onies gave her every possible encouragement. 
 Meanwhile, Germany, helped by the pressure 
 of the surrounding nations upon her, became 
 more and more the exponent of centralizing 
 force and took the lead. 
 
28 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 In every respect to-day Germany represents 
 the ideal of a nation as perfectly as England 
 ever represented the ideal of a perfect individ- 
 ual. Let us now consider these two ideals a 
 little more closely, for it is manifest that in 
 themselves they are both worthy and must ul- 
 timately be reconciled and harmonized. 
 
 It is a curious fact that these two great op- 
 posing movements in politics have led to in- 
 finite confusion of thought and unnecessary 
 friction. The assertion of the individual has 
 been spoken of as liberty, whereas in fact when 
 pushed to an extreme it leads directly to the 
 enslavement of all the weaker individuals in 
 the state who are subjugated by the few strong. 
 This is the "open secret" first seen by Goethe 
 which Carlyle was never tired of preaching; 
 Coleridge, too, wrote of those who "wear the 
 name of Freedom graven on a heavier chain." 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century it was seen 
 that in order to make freedom for the many 
 possible, the few strong must be restrained; a 
 certain equality must be maintained by law or 
 there could be no liberty. Again and again in 
 the last twenty years, the United States has 
 been forced to restrain competition by the In- 
 ter-States Commerce Act and other laws in the 
 interests of justice. In Great Britain there is 
 not equality enough for the many to be really 
 free. What freedom can there be when one- 
 third of the people is always, as Mr. Booth has 
 proved of the British, on the verge of starva- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 29 
 
 tion ; and when one man in every four is buried 
 in a pauper's grave? 
 
 Lincoln declared that the principle that no 
 one was good enough to govern another against 
 that other's will was the sheet-anchor of free- 
 dom. Yet Britain boasts of her freedom while 
 keeping three hundred odd millions in thrall in 
 India and millions more in Egypt. 
 
 For a long time now, the United States and 
 all the British colonies have enjoyed manhood 
 suffrage. France, too, and Italy; Spain and 
 Portugal, Norway and Sweden and even Ger- 
 many have constitutions similarly broad-based 
 on the will of the whole people, while Great 
 Britain still maintains a restricted property 
 suffrage and denies the Irish the elementary 
 rights of free men. It is plain on the surface 
 that England's claim to stand for freedom in 
 this twentieth century cannot for a moment be 
 maintained. 
 
 The further we probe, indeed, the more pre- 
 posterous the claim appears. Great Britain has 
 used the idea of individual freedom mainly in 
 the interests of her oligarchy to degrade the 
 bulk of her population. In his book on "En- 
 vironment and Moral Progress" the great 
 scientist Alfred Russell Wallace formulated the 
 most tremendous indictment of Great Britain 
 and her "hypocritical lack of national morality." 
 This impartial observer declared that "the re- 
 sponsibility of Parliament is criminal; it has 
 deliberately placed money-making above hu- 
 
30 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 man life and human well-being. . . . Most of 
 our towns have been allowed to develop into 
 veritable death-traps for the poor." With good 
 reason he complained that the orders from the 
 Home Office to protect the women broken in 
 dangerous trades were cynically set at defiance 
 by the employers ; "who has murdered the hun- 
 dred thousand children of the poor?" he cries, 
 "who die annually before they are one year 
 old?" and he summed up — "the conditions of 
 labor in Great Britain are a disgrace to civiliza- 
 tion." 
 
 Let me add one instance to show that Great 
 Britain is not only not in the van of human 
 progress in this matter of care for the individ- 
 ual ; 'but lags behind all other European na- 
 tions: Dock laborers are notoriously among 
 the lowest and worst-paid of casual workmen ; 
 the conditions of their employment are of nec- 
 essity, fluctuating. In Hamburg these laborers 
 must be employed by the week; in Antwerp 
 they can be employed by the day; in London, 
 alone of European cities, they can be hired by 
 the hour— this one fact proves that the wage- 
 slave is degraded in England below the level of 
 the negro-slave. Great Britain is among the 
 least free of modern nations. Her chief titles 
 to esteem belong to the past. 
 
 Let us now glance at the respective success 
 of England and Germany in the struggle for 
 existence, and particularly in the industrial 
 field, in order to win some light on the future. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 31 
 
 There's a common English proverb which 
 warns one against the dangers attending pros- 
 perity :— "few men can stand beans". The Brit- 
 ish have had a long run of mercantile success 
 and though they can see the results of material 
 prosperity very clearly in the overweening con- 
 ceit of the Germans they are unable apparently 
 to recognize similar effects in themselves. Yet 
 the success of Great Britain is due, one would 
 say, almost as much to position and chance as 
 to merit ; an island placed between the civilized 
 nations and the new world, on the road every- 
 where, so to speak, for the sea is the cheapest 
 and best of roads, needing no repairs. Besides, 
 at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
 which has been called the age of steam. Great 
 Britain had great coal-fields and beds of iron 
 ore, both close together and both near the sea 
 or on the coast. With these unparalleled ad- 
 vantages it is little wonder that Great Britain 
 outstripped all competitors, developed industry 
 after industry, established an extraordinary 
 trade and commerce and made London the first 
 port and the banking centre of the world. 
 
 The very evils of English laws seemed at 
 first to benefit her. The unjust advantages ac- 
 corded by the law of primogeniture to the eld- 
 est son drove out the younger children of her 
 great families to her colonies and dependen- 
 cies, and the barbarous severity of her bank- 
 ruptcy and poor laws insured a steady stream 
 of emigrants from the industrial classes. 
 
32 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Accordingly almost without conscious ef- 
 fort she founded and developed great colonies 
 of her own children who not only purchased 
 her manufactures in times of peace, but in war 
 were eager to fight and die for the land which 
 had treated them as the harshest of step- 
 mothers. 
 
 From the beginning, these colonies, yielding 
 to the spirit of the age, took the form of demo- 
 cratic republics. They never dreamed of trans- 
 planting into the new lands the feudal aristoc- 
 racy which has made of Great Britain an oli- 
 garchy with all the worst vices of despotic rule. 
 
 Naturally enough, the colonists took with 
 them English laws ; but they immediately mod- 
 ified their harsher provisions and mitigated in 
 all directions the barbarities of the English 
 penal code. The consequence is that life in 
 Canada, Australia or New Zealand is almost 
 as democratic as it is in the United States of 
 America, showing an equal love of individual 
 freedom and of equality before the law, tem- 
 pered with a kindliness to the weak and unfit in 
 the struggle for existence which is unknown in 
 the Motherland. 
 
 For nearly a century Great Britain held an 
 undisputed premiership in trade and commerce ; 
 and became not only the richest nation in the 
 world, but probably the most powerful, with 
 the hegemony of the seas for her heritage. 
 
 It is true that the United States, growing 
 rapidly in population and wealth, began soon 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 33 
 
 after the Civil War to show herself as a dan- 
 gerous competitor in certain fields ; but the suc- 
 cess of a people of the same race only increased 
 the vainglorious self-esteem of the British. 
 The trade advantages given them by their in- 
 sular position, the natural advantages of their 
 coal and iron beds, were all left out of the ac- 
 count. Up to the mid- Victorian time they 
 thought and spoke of themselves habitually as 
 the only capable business people in the world, 
 and fondly imagined that no other race was 
 their equal as colonizers. 
 
 In the last quarter of a century the Germans, 
 cherishing the national ideal and believing that 
 all the spiritual and physical powers of their 
 people should be developed, have shown them- 
 selves abler organizers and business men than 
 the English. Without any advantages of posi- 
 tion or natural wealth, simply by knowledge 
 and energy, they have built up great industries, 
 an extraordinary trade and a vast oversea com- 
 merce. With a far larger birth-rate than the 
 English, they have been able to absorb and use 
 all their people; the growth of population has 
 in consequence been far quicker than that of 
 England. Nearly two hundred thousand Eng- 
 lishmen still leave England every year; while 
 emigration out of Germany has ceased. In- 
 stead, about half a million of foreigners flock 
 into Germany each year and its population in- 
 creases at the rate of over a million per an- 
 num. In a country no larger than France and 
 
34 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 not nearly so rich by nature, they have crowded 
 seventy millions of people as against forty mil- 
 lions of Frenchmen. "Where good laws are," 
 said Benjamin Franklin, "much people flock." 
 
 A few examples may here be given to show 
 the growth of German industries ; they are typ- 
 ical of a hundred branches of trade. Twenty- 
 five years ago the English produced twice as 
 much steel as Germany; in 1913 Germany pro- 
 duced three times as much steel as Great 
 Britain. 
 
 For generations, English sporting shotguns 
 had been regarded all over the world as the 
 best. Forty years ago, the sportsmen who 
 came together to compete for the great pigeon- 
 shooting prizes at Monte Carlo were all 
 equipped with English weapons. About twenty 
 years later, however, it became known that bar- 
 rels of Krupp steel were superior to English 
 barrels. First one sportsman and then another 
 bowed to German superiority. Now, in the 
 catalogues of British firms, you find the an- 
 nouncement: "barrels of Krupp steel can be 
 supplied for £10 extra." 
 
 The fine dental instruments, too, which were 
 formerly all made in the United States are now 
 "made in Germany." In the last twenty years 
 of the race for wealth, Germany has outstripped 
 all her rivals. 
 
 In this conflict of ideals, it looks as if the 
 English ideal belonged to the past while the 
 German ideal holds the future. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 35 
 
 In order to decide which ideal is the higher, 
 let us see how the account stands between the 
 two peoples in the broad field of politics to-day. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 England's Oligarchy 
 
 "Let art and learning, trade and commerce die ; 
 But keep, oh keep our old nobility." 
 
 — Lord Henry Manners. 
 
 Macaulay says that "of all aristocracies the 
 English is the most democratic, and of all dem- 
 ocracies the English is the most aristocratic." 
 The statement sounds nobly ; but is not so clear 
 as might be desired, and appears to be curiously 
 inaccurate. Macaulay apparently means that 
 the English aristocracy is recruited more 
 largely from the untitled classes than any other 
 aristocracy and that the English democracy is 
 more snobbish than any other. 
 
 There are not half-a-dozen nobles in Great 
 Britain (I do not believe there is even one) 
 whose son could show the stainless thirty-two 
 quarterings needed in order to obtain admit- 
 tance to the Borussen Student Corps at the 
 University of Bonn. Yet the British nobility, 
 thanks to the right of primogeniture, is far 
 more powerful and privileged and far further 
 removed from the ordinary life of men than the 
 
36 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 German nobility : the rarer the honor, the more 
 it is esteemed. 
 
 It usually takes a generation or two to rise 
 from the ranks to the British Peerage ; for the 
 next two or three generations, as a rule, the 
 new family keeps its pride of place, and then 
 in another generation or so, drops out of sight 
 again because the title is only carried on 
 through the male line. 
 
 More than half the present House of Lords 
 is of creation later than 1814; but the accumu- 
 lation of land, money and titles on the eldest 
 son alone makes it easy to understand why the 
 British House of Lords is the most intensely 
 aristocratic assembly in the world, and the 
 British nobility the wealthiest and proudest of 
 castes. 
 
 When we take into account the unique priv- 
 ileges and wealth conferred by primogeniture, 
 a little study of the classes from which this 
 aristocracy is recruited will make its extraor- 
 dinary position and power clear to us. The 
 whole caste is founded on wealth. Judges and 
 successful soldiers are usually made into peers ; 
 brewers, bankers, manufacturers, all multi- 
 millionaires, indeed, save company-promoters 
 and financial sharks, are encouraged to buy from 
 the political party they prefer the dignity they 
 desire. The price of the Barony or Earldom 
 they want is known and quoted. It depends 
 to some slight extent on the character of the 
 would-be purchaser ; but a few thousands more 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 37 
 
 makes everything easy. The common nick- 
 name "The Beerage'* shows of what elements 
 the British Peerage is made up. The "nouveaux 
 riches" (the new rich) are at once more snob- 
 bish and more greedy than the hereditary no- 
 bility. As soon as your "Beer" magnate gets 
 into the Upper House, he becomes more con- 
 servative than the Conservatives, with a super- 
 added contempt for the workmen whom he has 
 exploited, which is not found in the ordinary 
 aristocrat. The British aristocracy is recruited 
 from people who have not only the snobbery 
 and pride of an hereditary nobility, but also 
 capitalist prejudices to boot. 
 
 The best feature in an aristocracy which, like 
 the British, is also the great land-owning class, 
 is a certain sense of feudal duty and generosity 
 to their farmers and dependents. And, in fact, 
 this feudal relationship of Lord to vassal is 
 sometimes seen on English estates, though it 
 is growing rare; but the "nouveaux riches" 
 have none of this patriarchal feeling. They 
 have all the vices of the aristocracy intensified, 
 with none of the careless kindliness of those 
 who have always considered themselves as 
 benefactors to their dependents and by their 
 position and wealth have been shielded from 
 rude contact with realities. 
 
 On the other hand, the "nouveaux riches" do 
 as a rule know that riches must be bought and 
 paid for with strenuous effort; they have the 
 understanding of individual force, and are sup- 
 
38 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 posed to represent it ; consequently, they exert 
 a great influence on the hereditary peers, but an 
 influence that is usually both sordid and harsh. 
 
 It is undoubtedly the German paste in the 
 English character which is responsible for the 
 maintenance of this hereditary nobility, and 
 for the aristocratic color of all English society. 
 The ordinary German, like the Englishman, is 
 docile and submissive to his social superiors; 
 but because of the wealth of the aristocracy 
 and the Englishman's veneration of money, the 
 British nobility stands infinitely higher than the 
 German, or indeed any other noble caste. A 
 German would sneer if told, as an Englishman 
 is told, to order himself "lowly and reverently 
 to his betters" and to pray to be allowed to 
 exist "in that state of life into which it has 
 pleased God to call him." I quote the words 
 of the English Church Catechism because if I 
 coined them, I should be told that I was exag- 
 gerating the snobbish subservience of the 
 people. 
 
 The Celts, on the other hand, whether in Ire- 
 land, Wales or the Highlands of Scotland, are 
 notoriously independent and wilful; they are 
 inclined to stand for their rights as men and 
 consider themselves the equal of all other feath- 
 erless bipeds. This Celtic fringe is in continual 
 opposition on almost all subjects, political and 
 social, to the Anglo-Saxon majority. In poli- 
 tics its influence is a liberating one and makes 
 for equality and justice, and in social affairs it 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 39 
 
 does something to mitigate that unbounded 
 reverence for rank which is a characteristic of 
 all the Germanic peoples. 
 
 But in Germany real forces, the chief of 
 which are poverty and the necessity of earning 
 a living, work steadily against the dominance of 
 aristocratic pride on the one hand and the ser- 
 vility of the lower classes on the other. A no- 
 ble in Germany has nothing like the position 
 he has in Great Britain; first of all, the high 
 born are numerous, and what is more im- 
 portant, the vast majority of them are poor 
 and have to work in order to live. Besides, 
 there is an immense intellectual middle-class 
 in Germany which criticises the nobility from 
 the heights of knowledge and, at the same time, 
 encourages the working people by insisting on 
 the dignity and necessity of labor. It is this 
 class which differentiates Germany so com- 
 pletely from Great Britain ; it is this class which 
 inspires German life with high purpose and 
 ideals, and has gradually infected the whole na- 
 tion with a triumphant sense of the value of en- 
 deavor and the glory of achievement. Para- 
 sites, whether of the best class or of the low- 
 est, are despised in Germany as only the poor 
 are despised in England. 
 
 Mr. Bernard Shaw thinks he is telling the 
 truth impartially when he admits that the Brit- 
 ish aristocrat is as "snobbish and combative" 
 as the Prussian Junker. If he had said ten 
 times prouder and more snobbish and far more 
 
40 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 ignorant, he would still be within the mark. 
 He reminds Britons of the so-called "On the 
 Knee'* episode when an English officer tried to 
 make his men kneel to him ; he reminds us all, 
 too, of the floggings in English military pris- 
 ons ; but knowing nothing about Germany, and 
 apparently nothing about primogeniture, he 
 misses the point of the comparison. The Ger- 
 man noble is no doubt overbearing and snob- 
 bish and combative, but he is usually poor and 
 has to work or study or both in order to get a 
 living. This necessity keeps him human and in 
 close touch with humanity; he becomes effi- 
 cient, he learns his work and does it; he is in 
 perpetual competition with that intellectual 
 middle-class which is the real driving force of 
 the nation. His name and title help him a lit- 
 tle in the struggle of life; but very little save 
 in the army, and even there incessant hard work 
 is a tradition and a duty. It is the highly edu- 
 cated German of the middle-class who is even 
 prouder than the American of efficient work, 
 who sets the pace in life and gives the tone. It 
 is the German school, the German university, 
 even more than the army, which forms the ani- 
 mating spirit of the people. 
 
 The German noble regards fighting as his 
 business. He is content to work hard as an 
 officer for small pay and no one can question 
 his zeal, his competence, his self-sacrificing 
 courage. His virtues are, at least, as conspic- 
 uous as his faults. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 41 
 
 Very few of the English aristocracy do any 
 work at all. The few who enter the army, 
 choose the Guards or crack cavalry regiments 
 and talk of their duties as a nuisance when 
 they have to spend even an hour a day on the 
 parade ground. The men are taught, not by 
 the commissioned officers as in Germany, but 
 by the non-commissioned. 
 
 It is notorious that almost all the more capa- 
 ble British generals have been drawn from the 
 middle classes: — Roberts, Wolseley, Wood, 
 Brackenbury, French ; all have won their titles. 
 
 A couple of facts will illustrate the vast 
 difference between the British army and the 
 German. At the beginning of this war, Great 
 Britain could only put two army corps in the 
 field. Under 70,000 men were present at Mons 
 when already over two millions of German 
 soldiers had crossed the frontier; yet the Brit- 
 ish army costs more than the German army and 
 there are many more generals in the British 
 army than there are in the German. 
 
 British apologists attribute the difference in 
 cost of the two forces to the fact that theirs is 
 a voluntary army, but if all the pay given to 
 the soldiers be deducted, the little British army 
 is nevertheless more costly than the German. 
 The truth is, money is wasted like water in the 
 British army ; the pay of all the higher officers 
 is enormously larger than it is in any other Eu- 
 ropean army and they do infinitely less for 
 it. 
 
42 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 The ideal of the Prussian Junker as an offi- 
 cer is a hard, proud, efficient soldier, one who 
 lives plainly and is willing at any moment to 
 throw his life away. The ideal of the English 
 noble is to do as little as possible, to live as 
 well as possible and to marry an heiress, even 
 an American, rather than live in straitened 
 ways. 
 
 Heine saw deeper than Shaw: — "England's 
 nobles," he says, "hold themselves far above 
 the common ruck of mankind who are com- 
 pelled to cling close to the earth; like beings 
 of a higher sort they regard little England as a 
 comfortable hotel, Italy as their winter-garden, 
 Paris as a gay reception-room and the whole 
 world as their property. Without care or duty 
 or effort they are content to live like Gods with 
 gold as the talisman to gratify every wildest 
 wish." 
 
 Even Heine does not attempt to trace the 
 soul-destroying influence of this privileged, 
 parasitic, idle class upon all the lower strata 
 of society; its ideal is to live magnificently 
 without working, and thus, work, thrift, en- 
 deavor, indeed all the household virtues, are 
 discredited. The public school boy who has to 
 work for his living feels that he is thereby rele- 
 gated to a lower class. The crowds of young 
 Englishmen in all the colonies who are de- 
 spised as "remittance men" illustrate the infec- 
 tion of aristocratic parasitism. 
 
 "Society is like a fish," says the thinker, "and 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 43 
 
 goes rotten first at the head." But the conta- 
 gion spreads rapidly, and, indeed, inevitably. 
 The ideal of the manhood of Great Britain is 
 not labor and achievement, but play and enjoy- 
 ment; that is part of the price it pays for its 
 noble caste. 
 
 If one attempted to reckon up the whole cost 
 of this wealthy hereditary aristocracy, one 
 would never have done. That there is any 
 health at all, or any manhood in a caste of 
 idlers is astonishing and speaks volumes for 
 the moral sturdiness and health of the race; 
 but the handicap of inherited wealth and posi- 
 tion is appalling. Emerson, who was the kind- 
 liest and most sympathetic of critics, had to tell 
 the English that this institution "lowered the 
 dignity of manhood." 
 
 It does infinitely worse than that ; it poisons 
 the founts of honor at the source and injects 
 a subtle all-pervading venom through all the 
 veins of the nation's life. It falsifies all values, 
 belittles all virtues, debases all effort. It en- 
 feebles the army, corrupts the judiciary, stulti- 
 fies the legislature, degrades the church. So 
 long as Great Britain preserves this oligarchy 
 in its present form, it cannot hope to be among 
 the nations which lead the modem world ; this 
 one institution handicaps it out of the race. 
 
 Such absolute condemnation may seem ex- 
 travagant; of course, too, my criticism is con- 
 fined to the class as an institution and its in- 
 fluence as a whole. Taken in that way, it is 
 
44 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 not harsh; but, though the English aristocracy 
 is the only class I have ever seen in any coun- 
 try which, as an institution, has nothing to be 
 said for it, there are members of it who are 
 not only charming in manners and intercourse, 
 but who are able even to turn the handicap of 
 their position and wealth to account. Such 
 men are, however, rare exceptions and are not 
 numerous enough to leaven the mass. 
 
 For the life of me I cannot recall in the last 
 couple of centuries, a single occasion when the 
 English aristocracy has contributed an unsel- 
 fish thought or the example of a noblfe deed to 
 the history of the race. The British House of 
 Lords has opposed every reform from Catholic 
 and Jewish emancipation to Home Rule for 
 Ireland, and has taxed industry indefatigably 
 for its own enrichment in a hundred base and 
 senseless ways. 
 
 I tried to believe for years that the British 
 aristocracy had manners and taste, though the 
 manners were but a veneer and the taste was 
 shown chiefly in dress and in the pleasures of 
 bed and board; but I was gradually forced to 
 admit that their detachment from work and de- 
 votion to sense-enjoyment had dwarfed and 
 stunted their appreciation even of art; it is 
 mainly their influence that tends to degrade the 
 artist in England to the level of the public en- 
 tertainer as a sort of acrobat or mime. Lord 
 Southampton evidently thought it a privilege 
 of his position, if not a duty, to place Shake- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 45 
 
 speare beyond the reach of want ; but the mod- 
 ern leaders of fashion in England would not 
 even know the name of a Davidson or a Mid- 
 dleton and would laugh anyone to scorn who 
 told them that they had any interest in a poet's 
 well-being. 
 
 One fact will exemplify the influence of 
 the aristocracy, their manners and their sense 
 of spiritual values beyond dispute. At one of 
 my first lunches in London, I remarked a little 
 man with snowy hair, blue eyes and healthy 
 complexion sitting opposite to me about the 
 middle of the table. On the right of the hostess 
 was a peer, on the left, a Minister of State, and 
 then came ordinary folk. A daughter of the 
 house, a peeress like her mother, was at the 
 other end of the table and supported on the 
 right and left by titled people. Suddenly I 
 heard someone speak of the little man opposite 
 me as "Mr. Browning." 
 
 "Is that Robert Browning, the poet?" I 
 asked in wonder. 
 
 "And did you once see Shelley plain?" 
 
 My neighbor nodded indifferently while I 
 gasped with indignation. Fancy putting lord- 
 lings and politicians above an immortal like 
 Robert Browning ! Such a thing would be un- 
 thinkable in any other European country. In 
 France, no nobleman could be induced to take 
 a seat at a table above a great poet or even a 
 Member of the Institute or Academy ; high per- 
 
46 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 sonal merit confers position in Paris. And in 
 Germany, one still recalls Frederick the Great's 
 reproof to his Lord Chamberlain when he 
 placed Voltaire at another table. 
 
 "Great intellects rank with sovereigns," he 
 said; "put M. Voltaire on my right." 
 
 I shrink from depicting the influence of the 
 English aristocracy on morals or religion. I 
 dislike painting with shadows and heavy blacks. 
 It should be sufficient to consider the speech 
 they affect, and from that one example who- 
 ever cares may safely calculate the effect of the 
 aristocratic attitude in all the higher fields of 
 human endeavor. 
 
 There are many points of likeness between 
 the highest and the lowest classes in England; 
 but none more curious than their misuse of 
 language. The poor are so ignorant and so in- 
 articulate by nature that two or three hundred 
 words suffice to express all their ideas. Their 
 speech is chiefly made up of "expletives" se- 
 lected to shock and prized in proportion to 
 their obscenity. The "Smart Set," too, have a 
 vocabulary usually limited to two or three hun- 
 dred words and made up chiefly of adjectives 
 selected as shibboleths and used because no one 
 outside the charmed circle would think of giv- 
 ing them the same significance. 
 
 For instance, one season "useful" was em- 
 ployed as an epithet of highest praise in meas- 
 uring everything. "She's 'useful' as a dancer; 
 he's 'useful' at drinking" or "lowering 'em 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 47 
 
 down." Another season, "high-stepping" was 
 adopted as a synonym for "fast" or "loose." 
 "She's a 'high-stepper/ don't you know," had a 
 huge success. As soon as the middle-classes 
 begin to use the same epithet, it is discontinued 
 by those who wish to be smart. 
 
 Innumerable comedies have made sport of 
 their affected use of the adjective "awful" ; it's 
 "awfully" funny; it's "awfully" wet or hot or 
 cold or dry or amiable or anything else you 
 please in English society. The language is at 
 once impoverished and degraded to an extra- 
 ordinary degree by both the highest and the 
 lowest classes ; by the lowest as a defiant sign 
 of their abject condition; by the highest as a 
 symbol of snobbish superiority. Which is the 
 more poisonous motive may be debated, but 
 the fact paints English society in its habit as it 
 lives. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the influence of 
 the "corner-boy" or "bar-loafer" is extraordi- 
 narily like the influence exercised in every de- 
 partment of English life by the hereditary no- 
 ble. Your Earl Fitz this or Fitz that is almost 
 always on the same moral and intellectual level 
 as the street-loafer. The child spoiled by lux- 
 ury and subservience is curiously like the gut- 
 ter-snipe degraded by destitution and misery. 
 
 No picture of the English aristocracy would 
 be complete without at least a specimen or two 
 of the religious maniac. There is a protestant 
 Duke (there are only about a dozen English 
 
48 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Dukes all told) who is an Irvingite, and be- 
 lieves in the "gift of tongues" accorded to Car- 
 lyle*s friend, Irving. 
 
 There is another Duke, a devout Catholic, 
 who is intensely proud of his name and lineage. 
 He married a cousin, mainly, it was said, be- 
 cause he thought no other blood blue enough. 
 His eldest boy was deformed and anything but 
 bright. The father took him to Lourdes again 
 and again, bathed him in the holy well and 
 prayed over him. Neither prayers nor pilgrim- 
 age did any good. The poor little fellow died. 
 A few years afterwards the mother died also. 
 The Duke evidently did not understand the 
 lesson, much less take it to heart, for he has 
 since married another cousin. The children of 
 this marriage are said to be normal. But what 
 can be expected from the offspring of such a 
 union? 
 
 And what can be said for a caste that pro- 
 duces such men as these among its finest flow- 
 ers? 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 England's Laws 
 
 England's laws are still more barbarous 
 (grausamer) than her oligarchy. — Heine. 
 
 While one agrees with Montesquieu that one 
 can learn more about a nation from its lav/s 
 than from all other institutions, it is most im- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 49 
 
 portant not to be led astray by particularities 
 which are not characteristic but to consider the 
 whole trend and tendency of the legislation. 
 
 If we find certain features of the civil law 
 repeated in the criminal law, and supported 
 again by well-known customs, it is almost cer- 
 tain that these traits are characteristic of the 
 people. 
 
 All the supporters of England, from Locke 
 and Wordsworth to Sir Edward Grey and Ar- 
 nold Bennett, unite in basing her claim to dis- 
 tinction on "freedom" — in especial on "free in- 
 stitutions" and "free speech." Let us try then 
 to see how England stands in regard to liberty. 
 
 "There can be no freedom," says Locke, 
 "without free speech." One used to hear con- 
 tinually that England was the home of free 
 speech; every Englishman, we were told, was 
 free to tell the truth as he saw it without fear 
 or favor. The boast may have been justified 
 in the past before printing was much used and 
 when England was compared with continental 
 despotisms ; it can hardly be sustained to-day. 
 The right of free speech or free writing and 
 printing has been limited in Great Britain by 
 the most stringent libel laws ever framed. 
 They are wittingly founded on what Milton 
 called "the blasphemy" that it may be wrong 
 to tell the truth. Indeed, British lawyers are 
 not ashamed to stand on the epigram — 
 
 "the greater the truth the greater the libel." 
 
50 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 In the United States there is only one State, 
 Massachusetts, in which the truth can be a li- 
 bel, and even there juries hesitate to punish the 
 teller of the truth. 
 
 The law, of course, should be that if any 
 statement is true, the complainant should be 
 compelled to prove that it is not for the public 
 benefit to publish it, and in all such cases the 
 punishment should be light, and never lead to 
 imprisonment. In Great Britain it is the teller 
 of the truth who is compelled to prove that his 
 statement is for the public benefit, and if he 
 fails to establish this, he is usually sent to 
 prison. Moreover, in cases of publication in a 
 newspaper, timely apology and the withdrawal 
 of a libelous statement should be regarded as 
 sufficient atonment. The British law here is 
 ridiculous in its hatred of truth and dislike of 
 free speech. In every other trade or profession 
 in Christendom, an accident is treated as an 
 accident. Even in Great Britain if your motor- 
 car runs into another man's car and kills his 
 wife and daughter by accident, all he can re- 
 cover from you is the cost of the material in- 
 jury inflicted on his car, clothes, etc. But if a 
 paper happens to libel a man by accident; 
 though it apologizes at once, it may, neverthe- 
 less, be condemned to pay thousands of pounds 
 damages in spite of the fact that no damages 
 have been alleged; nay, even if it has been 
 proven or expressly admitted that no damages 
 whatever have been inflicted. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 51 
 
 One instance of this almost incredible fact 
 must suffice. 
 
 In 1908, the weekly journal, "Vanity Fair," 
 published an article reflecting on Parr*s bank. 
 Shortly afterwards, the journal declared that 
 the article had appeared by mistake and pub- 
 lished the completest possible apology. When 
 the action came on for trial, the representatives 
 of Parr's bank were asked whether they could 
 trace any damages. They admitted that no 
 damage whatever was done. The Judge ex- 
 pressly charged the jury that this should not 
 prevent them giving exemplary damages if they 
 saw fit. Encouraged by this advice, the jury 
 brought in a verdict of five thousand pounds 
 or twenty-five thousand dollars against the pro- 
 prietor of the newspaper. 
 
 The case was taken to the Court of Appeal 
 where Lord Justice Moulton and two other 
 judges declared that they regarded five thou- 
 sands pounds as a very small and reasonable 
 amount, and confirmed the verdict. 
 
 Mad unreason could be pushed no further. 
 An accident which caused no damage was pun- 
 ished vindictively. 
 
 There is much less freedom of speech to-day 
 in England than there is in Russia. 
 
 The libel law of Great Britain is a disgrace 
 to the lawgivers and judges who have framed 
 it and to the people who have accepted it. It 
 is drawn up simply to protect the rich and pow- 
 erful from any word of criticism, true or false, 
 
52 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 purposed or accidental, and by itself, is suffi- 
 cient to prove that England prefers money to 
 both truth and liberty. 
 
 In exactly the same spirit the laws prohibit- 
 ing what is known as "obscene libel" are ad- 
 ministered. Recently a masterpiece of litera- 
 ture, the "Contes Drolatiques" of Balzac, which 
 has been translated and published in every Eu- 
 ropean country, was tardily rendered into Eng- 
 lish. At once it was seized by the police who 
 regulate the infamous nightly traffic of Picca- 
 dilly. The London magistrate immediately or- 
 dered the book to be burned and congratulated 
 the police upon discovering what he called "tlie 
 blackest plague-spot in London." The joyous 
 humorous "Contes Drolatiques" worse than the 
 prostitution of Piccadilly Circus; worse than 
 the child-traffic of the Mile-End road! British 
 justice needs no further exemplification. To 
 talk of free speech in such a country would be 
 ridiculous, were it not shameful. 
 
 Everyone remembers how Bradlaugh was 
 treated for telling the truth and how Mrs. Be- 
 sant, a high-minded religious teacher, if ever 
 there was one, was punished for publishing 
 simple facts of medical science. 
 
 Even the barbarous libel-laws I have de- 
 scribed in outline are not sufficient protection 
 to the oligarchy. In the past, judges tried to 
 protect the administration of justice against 
 undue influence or unfair comment by treat- 
 ing such comment while a case was pending 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 53 
 
 (sub judice) as "contempt of court" and pun- 
 ishing it accordingly either by fine or confine- 
 ment or both. This power was used centuries 
 ago, to give a defendant fair-play, to protect 
 him against the arbitrary power of the Crown. 
 It is evident that there is a class of cases which 
 should be summarily dealt with in some such 
 way. And for centuries these cases were han- 
 dled in Great Britain with a certain rough com- 
 mon sense. The law was held to be that com- 
 ment in the earlier stages of a case would not 
 be regarded as influential enough to require 
 summary treatment, and if the justice of the 
 case could be met by a libel action that was 
 the proper way to proceed. But latterly, Eng- 
 lish judges of the baser sort have used this 
 power deliberately as petty despots. Judge 
 Horridge held recently that libelous comment 
 on either party in a suit was "contempt of 
 court" and though the law declares that in case 
 of libel the editor, the printer and the publisher 
 are responsible, he added that the Managing 
 Director of the Company owning the newspa- 
 per could be held responsible though the only 
 evidence before him was an affidavit stating 
 that the Managing Director had never seen the 
 article in question. And he followed up this 
 iniquitous decision by incarcerating the unfor- 
 tunate Director for contempt of Court. 
 
 The lettres de cachet committing persons to 
 the Bastille without form of trial were said to 
 have done more to bring about the French 
 
54 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Revolution than any other single wrong ; these 
 infamous "letters" had to be signed by the King 
 and the King alone, but in England you have 
 a hundred petty despots called judges who can 
 and do commit innocent persons to prison 
 without form of trial and without any possibil- 
 ity of redress. 
 
 This one instance suffices to show how cru- 
 elly Mr. Arnold Bennett is mistaken when he 
 talks of England as standing for liberty in this 
 century. England is the only country in Eu^ 
 rope where the innocent are sent to prison 
 without trial and kept there in defiance of 
 justice. No habeas corpus act can avail the 
 guiltless against a judge's fiat, and the length 
 of imprisonment is at his discretion. He may 
 even override a doctor's affidavit that the im- 
 prisonment is damaging the health or endan- 
 gering the life of his victim. Your Sir Thomas 
 Horridge under these circumstances will not 
 hesitate to browbeat and insult the doctor in 
 the traditional manner of the infamous 
 Jeffries. 
 
 Such committals for "contempt of court'* 
 which introduce into the ordinary administra- 
 tion of the law all the whimsical idiosyncrasy 
 and the savage cruelty and injustice of the 
 worst of monarchical despotisms serve to show 
 how freedom of speech is hated to-day in Eng- 
 land. All these laws and punishments are cun- 
 ningly framed in the interests of the rich and 
 are intended, as one foreign writer phrased it, 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 55 
 
 to ensure to the public robber the undisturbed 
 enjoyment of his "kill." 
 
 But someone will say if free speech has been 
 abolished in Great Britain since it has grown 
 rich, at least the institutions are free ; there is 
 government of the people and by the people if 
 not for the people. Ireland may be despoti- 
 cally fleeced and flogged, soldiers may be used 
 to take the place of workmen out on strike ; but 
 this mixture of feudal and capitalistic tyranny 
 is approved of by the majority of the people. 
 No wilder misconception was ever popularised. 
 The other day in New York, Miss Christabel 
 Pankhurst in a lecture gaily declared that the 
 people governed in Great Britain but in Ger- 
 many the Kaiser made war and peace accord- 
 ing to his own sweet will. Again and again 
 she asserted that there was manhood suffrage 
 in Great Britain and not in Germany, though 
 every moderately well-informed person knows 
 that the exact contrary is the case. Half the 
 workmen in Great Britain are disfranchised by 
 the so-called "lodger" qualification which pro- 
 vides that only those men can vote who pay 
 six shillings a week for their lodging and can 
 prove six months' continuous occupancy. Be- 
 sides, plural voting of the rich is allowed to 
 any extent. But even if manhood suffrage were 
 introduced to-morrow in Great Britain, there 
 would be no freedom possible there while the 
 libel laws and the law on debts and debtors are 
 what they are and while they are administered 
 
56 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 by aristocratic judges in the interests of the 
 oligarchy. The governing classes in Great 
 Britain only extend the vote in measure as they 
 see that this can be done without endangering 
 their privileges. There will never be the ghost 
 of freedom in England till there is a social rev- 
 olution. 
 
 The evil springs immediately from the aris- 
 tocratic position accorded to the judges and 
 officers of justice. Judges in the high court 
 get from $25,000 a year to $50,000. They work 
 short hours and have four months' holiday in 
 the summer. After fifteen years' work, they 
 have retiring pensions from $15,000 a year up- 
 wards. They are practically appointed for life ; 
 it is true they can be removed by the Home 
 Secretary; but this power is hardly ever exer- 
 cised. Even judges who are notoriously in- 
 sane, like the late Mr. Justice Stephen, are al- 
 lowed to officiate. Do not let me be told that 
 this is a solitary instance. It is well known 
 that the present Justice Phillimore has "very 
 peculiar" ideas on divorce. He refuses to pro- 
 nounce any such decision; "God's laws are 
 higher than man's laws," he says ; yet he is still 
 continued on the bench because of his eminent 
 services. He recently sentenced the writer of 
 a letter containing "an implied threat" (the 
 words are his own) to twenty years' imprison- 
 ment. It is a charity to regard him as irre- 
 sponsible. 
 
 If the huge emoluments given to English 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 57 
 
 judges are not sufficient to keep them in per- 
 fect sympathy with the governing oligarchy, the 
 further corruption of titles is carefully used to 
 make them properly subservient. The judge is 
 usually made a Knight, but if he shows much 
 independence, the honor can be withheld. On 
 the other hand, if he is pliable enough, he will 
 almost certainly be made a Lord and translated 
 to the House of Peers. Yet because it is prac- 
 tically impossible to buy a judge for cash he is 
 regarded as incorruptible. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it is not surpris- 
 ing that the judges in England have again and 
 again turned the law into an instrument of ty- 
 ranny. It is practically always interpreted 
 against the lower classes, who are already al- 
 most shut out from any chance of obtaining 
 justice by the costliness of the procedure. Re- 
 cently these aristocratic judges practically put 
 an end to Trade Unions by holding that the 
 Union funds couldn't be used to help candi- 
 dates in their election expenses. The judges' 
 view of the law crippled the Trade Unions com- 
 pletely, until they got a new law passed in the 
 present parliament which even English judges 
 appear unable to misread. 
 
 The cost of going to court is higher in Eng- 
 land than in any country in the world. It is 
 difficult to recover a small debt without ex- 
 pending more money than it is worth. The 
 costs in cases of debts under twenty-five dol- 
 lars are often larger than the debt; whereas 
 
58 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 in France or in Germany, such a debt does not 
 cost on the average ten per cent to recover. 
 
 The judges of the lower courts are all paid 
 extravagantly. A county Court Judge in Eng- 
 land receives seventy-five hundred dollars a 
 year ; twice as much as the judges of the high- 
 est Court of Appeal receive in France or Ger- 
 many. From one end of the system to the 
 other all care is taken to insure aristocratic 
 prejudices in the judges. It is a mere truism to 
 say that no justice can be looked for in Eng- 
 land by a poor man when any member of the 
 titled aristocracy, or indeed any rich man, is 
 opposed to him in a case. 
 
 This self-styled land of liberty is the only 
 country in Europe where that form of chattel- 
 slavery, known as imprisonment for debt, still 
 flourishes, and curiously enough, this institu- 
 tion throws the most sinister light upon the 
 whole administration of law in Great Britain. 
 In 1869 the British Parliament passed an Act 
 abolishing "Imprisonment for Debt." One pro- 
 vision, however, was retained. If the debtor 
 was a rich man, it was argued, there ought to 
 be some compulsion to force him to pay. Ac- 
 cordingly, in case "means" were proved, the 
 judges were allowed to send recalcitrant debt- 
 ors to prison for not more than six weeks, not 
 for debt but for "contempt of court." Under 
 this provision some twelve thousand persons 
 are annually sent to prison in Great Britain by 
 the be-wigged Solons and half of these crimi- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 59 
 
 nals are imprisoned for sums less than twenty- 
 five dollars ! 
 
 Evidently, an English judge's ideas of 
 "means" are peculiar. 
 
 But even this dreadful miscarriage of justice 
 would not paint English judges to the life. 
 Under the pretence of making it easier for the 
 debtor, but really in order to give him time 
 and encouragement to practice blackmail on 
 all his female relatives, who pay to avoid stain- 
 ing the name with the prison smudge; the 
 judges ordered debts of even less than £5 to 
 be paid in instalments (though "means" must 
 have been proved to their satisfaction.) The 
 next step was easy; the debtor is now sent to 
 prison for not paying an instalment and so can 
 be sent to prison a dozen times for the same 
 petty debt. Recently a Colonel in the army 
 who had fought and bled for his country, was 
 sent to prison for the third time for not paying 
 an instalment of a small debt. Though the 
 man was starving, "means" were held to have 
 been proved. 
 
 The barbarous stupidity of such judgments 
 and judges seems to strike no one in England. 
 The facts seldom get into the papers and never 
 call forth any comment ; they excite no assured 
 interest such as attaches to the announcement 
 that "Lord and Lady Snooks arrived at Clar- 
 idge's Hotel yesterday from their country seat." 
 
 It must always be remembered that nearly 
 all the cruelties perpetrated under the heading 
 
6o ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 "contempt of court" as equivalent to impris- 
 onment for debt are directed against the poor 
 alone. For debts over $250, bankruptcy pro- 
 ceedings can be instituted by either party, and 
 so the man who owes large sums is exempted 
 from any chance of being imprisoned either 
 for debt or contempt of court. The whole pro- 
 ceeding is directed against the poor and would 
 be farcical were it not tragic. 
 
 In contrast with all other civilized coun- 
 tries, English laws have in many respects be- 
 come harsher in the last forty or fifty years and 
 English judges to-day do worse than ruin men 
 for accidents beyond their control. 
 
 So far I have only been treating of the Eng- 
 lish civil law and its procedure. I must now 
 say a word or two about the criminal law, 
 which, as Alfred Russel Wallace writes, "shows 
 equal injustice." Here is the considered opin- 
 ion of the great scientist: "The dictum of the 
 law, that an Englishman should be held to be 
 innocent till he is proved to be guilty, is abso- 
 lutely reversed in the case of the poor man, 
 and he is treated as if he were guilty till, 
 against overwhelming odds, he is able to prove 
 himself innocent." 
 
 Dr. Wallace is well within the truth. If a 
 working man is arrested for stealing, let us say, 
 no attempt even is made to free him by provid- 
 ing bail (the bail would be fixed at a prepos- 
 terous figure) ; he is haled off to prison and his 
 family thrown to want. In prison he is treated 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 6i 
 
 in every respect as a criminal ; he has to clean 
 out the cells of other prisoners, is pushed and 
 ordered about as if he were lower than a dog 
 and fed v/orse than most dogs are fed. I re- 
 member once visiting a chauffeur in prison : he 
 had knocked down a man and injured him one 
 dark night. He had been in prison more than 
 a month when I saw him. His wife and child 
 had been reduced to beggary; he was nearly 
 insane with anxiety on their account ; but could 
 do nothing for them. He was very inarticulate, 
 though capable, careful, honest and well-be- 
 haved. If he had been left without a first-rate 
 barrister, he would inevitably have been con- 
 victed. As it was, the judge treated him as if 
 he ought to have been hung because a drunken 
 man stepped off the sidewalk at the last min- 
 ute in front of his car. Though innocent of all 
 offence this man not only lost his job, but was 
 confined for two months in prison and treated 
 as a criminal. His little home was sold up ; his 
 wife and child tortured by semi-starvation : did 
 the law compensate him for ruining him and 
 putting the prison stain upon him? On the 
 contrary, the judge told him it was very lucky 
 for him that the jury took so mild a view of 
 what he had done. Had the chauffeur not hap- 
 pened to enlist the sympathy of a man of means 
 he would surely have suffered at least a year's 
 imprisonment. As it was, he was merely 
 ruined and tortured for being innocent. With 
 a clean chauffeur's record for over ten years be- 
 
62 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 hind him, he could not get work even as driver 
 of a motor-cab. The prison had made his 
 chance of getting private service impossible. 
 He was ultimately compelled to take a place in 
 a garage at twenty-five shillings a week as 
 helper, though till that time he had never 
 earned less than fifty shillings. 
 
 I could give a dozen instances within my 
 own knowledge of worse injustice than this 
 worked by the ordinary operation of the Eng- 
 lish law: Dr. Wallace's condemnation must 
 be accepted as a mild statement of the truth. 
 
 And the harshness of the English law and 
 English judges towards the poor is sharpened 
 to brutality by the inhuman severity of English 
 prisons. Fortunately, here I find another un- 
 impeachable witness even better-informed than 
 Dr. Wallace himself. 
 
 In her book on English Prisons, Lady Con- 
 stance Lytton describes the nameless barbari- 
 ties practised on female prisoners. She tells 
 how she was forcibly fed by a male doctor 
 while one nurse sat on her legs and another 
 held her arms. When, in spite of this restraint, 
 or because of it, she vomited, the doctor slapped 
 her face. 
 
 She tells of how another woman prisoner 
 slipped and broke her ankle, and was told by 
 the doctors that there was nothing the matter 
 with her and was forced to walk up and down 
 the iron stairs for weeks. On account of this 
 savagery, the broken leg shrank, the woman 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 63 
 
 became a cripple, and was unable to support 
 her little children. Mr. Winston Churchill as 
 Home Secretary had for very shame's sake to 
 grant the tortured and maimed creature $2,500 
 as compensation, but at the same time he de- 
 clared that the prison doctors who had pre- 
 tended to examine her three several times, were 
 in no wise to blame. 
 
 A couple of further facts will show the in- 
 credible meanness and barbarity of the whole 
 system. 
 
 Some time ago, the "Daily Chronicle" pub- 
 lished a series of articles proving that although 
 the necessaries of life were far cheaper in Ger- 
 many than in England, the German authorities 
 expended twice as much money in feeding their 
 prisoners as the English authorities. Semi- 
 starvation is a part of the prison regime in 
 England. 
 
 Recently the whole question of the insensate 
 cruelty of the English prison has been brought 
 before the public by the fact that three-fourths 
 of all the criminals in England are "habitual 
 criminals." Investigation was called for by the 
 case of a man who had spent more than forty- 
 five of his sixty years in prison. He declared 
 that from the first sentence he had been perse- 
 cuted by the police, and had not had a chance 
 to retrieve his position. 
 
 With proofs before them that their prison 
 system is intolerably severe, what did the Eng- 
 lish authorities do? Instead of following the 
 
64 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 example of the more highly civilized countries, 
 such as France, the United States and Ger- 
 many, they passed a short law giving the right 
 to judges to confine any one whom they re- 
 garded as an "habitual offender," to prison for 
 the rest of his life. This disgraceful law is the 
 lowest depth reached by any legislature in 
 Christendom for the last century and a half, 
 and it was passed only the other day. 
 
 Every country has found that as they have 
 lightened punishment and brought about a bet- 
 ter distribution of wealth, offences against the 
 law have steadily diminished. Crimes have di- 
 minished in England, but there alone in the 
 last ten years the punishment has been made 
 harsher. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 English Justice 
 
 "... I am the nerve o*er which do creep 
 The else unfelt oppressions of mankind." 
 
 —Shelley. 
 
 A great Frenchman has said, "There can be 
 no freedom without justice." And, indeed, the 
 desire of justice is the most passionate, the 
 most far-reaching and among the highest of 
 moral impulses. 
 
 There is no justice in Nature; it is an attri- 
 bute of man alone, a reflection of the Divine in 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 65 
 
 mankind. By far the greatest field for the 
 display of justice is to be found in the distri- 
 bution of wealth. In proportion as wealth is 
 evenly distributed in a nation, you may be sure 
 that in precisely that measure the sense of jus- 
 tice among the inhabitants is acute and devel- 
 oped. Judged by this standard, France to-day 
 and Germany are the first countries in Europe, 
 and Great Britain certainly the last. Mr. Booth 
 has proved that one-third of the population of 
 Great Britain is always on the verge of starva- 
 tion ; fifteen millions of human beings living in 
 appalling destitution and misery in the richest 
 country that has ever been known in the world. 
 
 The devil's advocate would argue that in an 
 open race for wealth the weakest must come to 
 grief; but everyone to-day is beginning to see 
 that the open race is not a fair race and can 
 never be fair, least of all in Great Britain, 
 where you have an hereditary aristocracy, an 
 hereditary wealthy land-owning class, and 
 where, besides, all the powers of the State, of 
 law, of education, of the police and of custom 
 are used in contempt of justice to increase nat- 
 ural inequalities of condition and not to dimin- 
 ish them. 
 
 Do not assume that I am pressing the point 
 unduly. It would be impossible for anyone who 
 did not know Great Britain intimately even to 
 imagine how cunningly the scales of justice are 
 weighted against the poor. When writing of 
 the English laws, I have given some examples 
 
66 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 of this, but the disabilities of poverty, every- 
 where heart-breaking, are in Great Britain in- 
 finite and permeate every part of the national 
 life. Two or three examples may here be given 
 at haphazard. 
 
 It was recently shown in a London journal 
 that the poor, being forced to buy their coals in 
 small quantities, pay twice the market price, 
 and in many cases, even more, for this necessary 
 of life. The co-operative stores in northern 
 towns sell groceries at less than half the price 
 the poor of London have to pay for them. 
 
 Take the scandal of the so-called dangerous 
 trades. Six years ago there was a Home Of- 
 fice inquiry into the conditions of life in the 
 "Hollow-ware" works at Lye and Cradley 
 Heath, where large numbers of girls and young 
 women are employed. The facts elicited were 
 soul-sickening: the sufferings from lead pois- 
 oning almost incredible; the mortality as high 
 as the wage (less than $2 a week) was low. 
 The official report declared that "the process 
 used" was "dangerous to life" and should be 
 "totally discontinued." An order was issued by 
 the Home Office that after two years the pro- 
 cess should be no longer used; this order has 
 never been put in force. Nine out of ten of the 
 employers go on as usual. In Great Britain, 
 says Dr. Wallace, commenting on this almost 
 incredible fact, there is practically "no govern- 
 ment interference with conditions of labor 
 which are a disgrace to civilization." 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 67 
 
 The more one studies the disabilities of pov- 
 erty in England the more shameful are the facts 
 discovered. Adulteration has become a fine art 
 and extends to every article of consumption. 
 In spite of numberless prosecutions and fines, 
 even the milk of the poor is still habitually adul- 
 terated and the government shrinks from pun- 
 ishing this sordid crime with imprisonment. 
 Practically every article of food is adulterated 
 and the government winks at this perpetual 
 robbery of the poor by the well-to-do trades- 
 man. 
 
 One result of this dishonesty can be shown 
 in figures: In the Garden Village of Bourn- 
 ville, infant mortality stands at 65 per 1,000 
 born; in St. Mary's Ward, Birmingham, it is 
 331, or five times as much. Dr. Wallace asserts 
 that "the moral degradation" of Great Britain 
 is "increasing" ; both the deaths from drunken- 
 ness and the number of suicides are steadily 
 growing. 
 
 It is almost incredible that the people who 
 first treated dumb animals with kindness and 
 consideration, who first got up a society for 
 the prevention of cruelty to animals and first 
 founded homes for lost dogs and lost cats, 
 should be the very people to treat their poorer 
 sisters and brothers with inhuman cruelty. In- 
 stead of helping the poor to get out of the 
 Slough of Despair, instead of making roads 
 through it for their benefit, or indeed draining 
 it once for all as even enlightened self-interest 
 
68 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 would counsel, they use the police and the law 
 courts and all the powers of the State to thrust 
 the miserable deeper into the mire, and further 
 to degrade those they have already iniquitously 
 disinherited. There is no public conscience in 
 England speaking for the poor. 
 
 Even those who have been rich and have 
 lost their money for whatever reason are treat- 
 ed in England with savage brutality; the 
 wounded wolf is simply torn to pieces and eaten 
 by the savage pack. 
 
 The bankruptcy laws of Great Britain are the 
 most barbarous ever framed and are adminis- 
 tered without any care whatever for justice. 
 "Vae victis" — "woe to the vanquished" is the 
 English principle and the under-dog, though 
 tortured to death, excites no pity. 
 
 There are a thousand powers accorded to the 
 petitioning creditor by which he and his fel- 
 lows can blackmail the honest debtor who only 
 wants time in order to pay in full, but I will not 
 dwell on them or on the assistance given 
 to the leeches by the English officials in Bank- 
 ruptcy. 
 
 Let it be taken that the debtor is made bank- 
 rupt : he is examined in public by his creditors 
 as if he were bound in a pillory and re-exam- 
 ined again and again. His wife and children 
 can be and often are subjected to the same tor- 
 ture, and when all that he has got has been 
 taken from him, even to the tools he uses to 
 earn his living, his discharge may be and often 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 69 
 
 is postponed for three or five or seven years, 
 which means that for this additional period 
 every penny he can earn belongs to his credit- 
 ors. 
 
 One other provision will show the spirit 
 of the lav\^: suppose a wife claims this or that 
 nick-nack or jewel as hers, given to her by her 
 husband years before his bankruptcy when he 
 was solvent. The object in dispute is held to 
 belong to the creditors unless it was given to 
 her more than eight years before, or she is re- 
 quired to prove that her husband was solvent 
 when he made the gift. In practical life every- 
 thing she possesses that came from her bank- 
 rupt husband is ruthlessly torn from her by 
 the creditors. 
 
 Such detestable and stupid provisions are not 
 the worst features of this extraordinary pro- 
 cedure. If at any time before his discharge, 
 the bankrupt incurs a debt of £20 or more 
 without informing the lender or shop-keeper 
 of the fact that he is an undischarged bank- 
 rupt, he is held to have obtained money under 
 false pretences and is sent to prison for a year 
 or so and the burden of proof is on the debtor. 
 
 A thousand incredible instances of the sav- 
 age cruelty of these laws could be given; but 
 the mere outline is sufficient; the mere fact 
 that the bankrupt is stripped bare of all he pos- 
 sesses (if he fails to disclose any property of the 
 value even of a dollar, he is proceeded against 
 criminally for fraud) and then is regarded fpr 
 
70 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 a series of years as still "undischarged" and 
 therefore earning money merely for his credit- 
 ors; I say, the mere fact shows that the Eng- 
 lish bankruptcy laws stand alone in the world 
 as the most barbarous, the most iniquitous ever 
 framed. 
 
 They are so extravagantly inhuman that they 
 defeat their own purpose. The '^undischarged 
 bankrupt" usually conceals the fact and runs 
 the risk of prison, and when he earns money 
 necessary to keep himself and those dear to 
 him, he doesn't dream of handing it over to his 
 creditors. He thereby commits fraud, but ne- 
 cessity knows no law. Heine puts it humor- 
 ously when he says that the figure of justice in 
 London has lost her scales, but carries the 
 sword bared in her hand. He sees that Eng- 
 land is still almpst a feudal state and "if the per- 
 son and property of the people are now de- 
 pendent on the laws and not as aforetime, on 
 the whim of a lord, still these laws are only an- 
 other sort of teeth with which the privileged 
 class seizes and tears the ordinary citizen. No 
 tyrant," he adds, "was ever so barbarous as the 
 English laws." If Heine was justified, and I 
 think he was, what can be said for English free- 
 dom? 
 
 If one cares to realize how hopelessly Eng- 
 land lags behind the foremost civilized coun- 
 tries, he has only to compare the provisions of 
 the French bankruptcy laws with those of the 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 71 
 
 English. But, then, the French laws were 
 framed by Napoleon, a great man, and not by 
 greedy shopkeepers. Under the "Code Na- 
 poleon," no officer of the army or navy can be 
 made a bankrupt ; no artist or scientist or man 
 of letters ; only the trading classes whose sole 
 object it is to make money, can be subjected 
 to this degradation. The attempts of the Eng- 
 lish law to turn unfortunate men into criminals 
 by withholding their discharge for years, are 
 unknown to the humaner legislation of conti- 
 nental Europe. 
 
 It may be worth while to contrast the pro- 
 visions of the present English law with Shake- 
 speare's views in "Cymbeline." That they are 
 his own opinions is manifest, for they are in- 
 finitely more humane than any legislation 
 known to man as yet: 
 
 "I know you are more clement than vile men 
 Who of their broken debtors take a third, 
 A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again 
 On their abatement." 
 
 The creditor is vile according to the wisest 
 man of our race if he takes a third or even a 
 tenth and lets his debtor thrive on the rest; 
 but what shall be said of the English laws 
 which take all and more than all, and attempt 
 even to force the debtor to go on for years in 
 poverty and destitution, working not for his 
 wife and children but for his creditors. Such 
 
72 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 greed is insane ; and the country that can frame 
 such laws knows nothing either of liberty or of 
 justice. 
 
 It is computed that the wealth of the coun- 
 try doubles itself every twenty years and the 
 first war loan of fifteen hundred million of 
 dollars was over subscribed in London alone 
 on the first day. Compare this with the well- 
 known fact that the whole system of the Eng- 
 lish Poor Law administration with its so-called 
 workhouses has hopelessly broken down 
 through meanness and inhumanity, inhumanity 
 so devilish that, like the unimaginable gins and 
 snares of the bankruptcy laws, it defeats its 
 own object. 
 
 The cost of the institution runs into millions 
 annually, but no poor man ever goes near an 
 English workhouse if he can possibly help it. 
 The great buildings and large staffs are all kept 
 up for a few orphan children and people on 
 the verge of dissolution. The stigma of the 
 poor-house is more loathed in England than 
 even that of the prison. One need not speak 
 of the degradation incurred nor of the wretched 
 food. One provision alone will show how in- 
 sanely cruel the whole system is. 
 
 If a man goes into the poor-house to get shel- 
 ter for the night, he is not allowed to leave 
 next morning at six o'clock to get work even 
 though he is strong and willing. He must first 
 stop and break so much stone — an equivalent 
 in value to the bed and food he has had. Con- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 73 
 
 sequently, he can never get out much before 
 noon when it is practically impossible to find 
 work. In this way British charity makes the 
 poor poorer, and degrades them into the bar- 
 gain. No wonder Mr. Sidney Webb, the high- 
 est authority on the matter, writes of it as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "Underneath the feet of the whole wage- 
 earning class is the abyss of the Poor Law. I 
 see before me a respectable family applying for 
 relief. What do we do to them ? We, the Gov- 
 ernment of England, break up the family. We 
 strip each individual of what makes life worth 
 living. When the man enters the workhouse 
 he is stripped of his citizenship — branded as too 
 infamous to vote for a member of Parliament. 
 Once in the workhouse, we put him to toil or 
 to loiter under conditions that are so demoral- 
 izing that we turn him into a wastrel. And we 
 strip the wife of her children. We send her to 
 the wash-tub or the sewing-room, where she 
 associates with prostitutes and imbeciles. The 
 little children, if they are under five, are taken 
 to the workhouse nursery, where they also are 
 tended by prostitutes and imbeciles. There 
 they remain, day after day, without ever going 
 down the workhouse steps until they are old 
 enough to go to the Poor Law school, or until 
 they are taken down in their coffins, owing to 
 the terrible mortality among the workhouse 
 babies." 
 
 One more fact and it shall be taken from the 
 
74 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 immediate present: The British government 
 had been trying for months past to get its vol- 
 unteer army on the cheap by stories of German 
 barbarism and German atrocities. At first the 
 authorities offered the magnificent sum of five 
 shiUings, or a dollar and a quarter, a week to 
 the poor widow whose husband had been killed 
 at the front. They have had to increase the 
 price to seven shillings and sixpence or nearly 
 two dollars a week. But then came the ques- 
 tion of how much extra money should be given 
 for each child, so orphaned. The authorities 
 fixed this in their wisdom at half the price 
 which is usually accorded for an illegitimate 
 child under a so-called "affiliation order." Af- 
 ter this achievement nothing further need be 
 said of British justice or British magnanimity. 
 
 The motto of England should be : The poor 
 are our only philanthropists; they sell all that 
 they have and give to the rich. 
 
 But the settled purpose of English law to 
 take from the Have Nots everything they may 
 get, is only the other side of the declared Eng- 
 lish desire "to give to those that have." In re- 
 cent times, Parliament, not content with allow- 
 ing greedy individuals to steal the common land 
 from the people, has freed the land from the 
 feudal service always expected from it in the 
 past. The landlords now should be compelled 
 to support the army as they did in the middle 
 ages, and so pay some rent for this exclusive 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 75 
 
 possession, but their burden has been light- 
 ened. 
 
 All the benefits which the landlords and the 
 House of Lords have given to themselves are 
 but a fleabite to the taxes which the oligarchy 
 and the new rich have exacted from the grow- 
 ing industries of the present and the immediate 
 past. The story of the founding of English 
 railways is as fantastic as an Eastern tale ; but 
 it belongs to the past, and one example from 
 the present will be more convincing. For in- 
 stance, when the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain 
 was about thirty-five years of age and the most 
 powerful citizen in Birmingham, there was a 
 slum which he resolved for the health of the 
 town to improve out of existence. When he 
 began negotiations, he found that the individ- 
 ual owners were determined to get the utter- 
 most farthing for their insanitary property. 
 But he was not a business man for nothing. 
 He sought and obtained powers from Parlia- 
 ment to expropriate the owners over a much 
 larger area than he intended to improve. He 
 thus obtained a power of bargaining. "If you 
 won't take so much for your house and ground," 
 he said to the too greedy landlords, "I'll run 
 the main street so as to leave your property in 
 a back alley untouched." He improved the 
 slum out of existence and incidentally the 
 health of Birmingham and was hailed on all 
 sides as a benefactor though condemned as 
 
76 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 one who drove a hard bargain. When I asked 
 him: was it true that he had got the land and 
 houses below their proper value, he laughed: 
 
 "Birmingham is in England," he said, "and 
 not in Utopia ; I had always to pay from two to 
 over three times as much as the property was 
 worth." The greedy individual, and especially 
 the landlord, is always favored in England. 
 
 The most poisonous development in the leg- 
 islation of the last hundred years is the growth 
 of joint-stock companies. They show all the 
 evils of state-ownership and none of its bene- 
 fits. Geothe saw that all industries should be 
 controlled by the individual or by the state; 
 the hybred was of the nature of a monopoly 
 and should be prohibited. 
 
 In France in 1791, the government passed a 
 law prohibiting all associations for the ex- 
 ploiting of industries, and ever since the French 
 have only admitted the right of such associa- 
 tions against their better judgment, so to speak, 
 and after taking many precautions. But, in 
 Great Britain joint-stock companies have been 
 permitted and even encouraged to rob the pub- 
 lic at will, without incurring any responsibility. 
 For five and twenty years neither the promoter 
 nor the directors were held responsible for the 
 misstatements published in the prospectuses 
 they issued by the million. Lies are sacred as 
 the chief stock in trade of the robbers. Even 
 now, it is possible in London for one man to 
 form a company with half a dozen of his clerks. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 77 
 
 and entice the public by plausible circulars to 
 lend him money to buy stocks and shares with. 
 He may even declare what dividends he finds 
 most likely to win more clients and finally, un- 
 der one pretext or another, he can pocket the 
 money entrusted to him, and declare the com- 
 pany bankrupt. He is then free to begin the 
 game again in the next street. "Heads, I win ; 
 tails, you lose" on a large scale is permitted by 
 the English law; but the small gambler with 
 his three-card trick or the thimble-rigger is at 
 once arrested and sent to prison. 
 
 In France and in Germany, there is careful 
 State supervision of all joint-stock companies, 
 and the attempt to swindle is made difficult and 
 dangerous. In Paris, a bank would not dare to 
 put its name on the prospectus of a company 
 which, a couple of years afterwards, might fail 
 and go into liquidation. The customers who 
 had lost their money would expect the bank to 
 recoup them, and would certainly hold the 
 bank responsible for all false statements. But 
 in London, such a swindle would be almost sure 
 to pass unnoticed. The robbers, so long as 
 they appear to have money, are given every li- 
 cense by the English law, it is only the poor 
 who are harried by it, only the unfortunate who 
 need fear it. 
 
 This chapter on the English sense of justice 
 should find its fitting climax in some pages de- 
 voted to the ^'Corruption" in England. I could 
 fill a volume with facts gathered in a quarter 
 
78 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 of a century spent in journalism in London; 
 facts which it was impossible to publish in 
 Great Britain where truth itself is held to be a 
 libel. There is nothing the English pride them- 
 selves so much upon as their honesty and free 
 speech; curiously enough their honesty can be 
 judged from the way they have made truthful 
 speech impossible. There is, in my opinion, 
 and I shall give reasons for it shortly, more 
 commercial dishonesty and more political 
 "graft" as well, to be found in England in a 
 day than in the United States in a month or in 
 France in a year. The Panama scandal could 
 never have leaked out in Great Britain and if 
 it had been published no particular attention 
 would have been paid to it. Recently a Minis- 
 ter who had been a Chancellor of the Excheq- 
 uer was kind enough to sell some of his land to 
 the British government at a price about three- 
 fold its worth; people shrugged their should- 
 ers merely and muttered "bad taste" when some 
 radical journalists exposed the disgraceful 
 "graft." 
 
 The famous purchase of the Suez Canal 
 shares was never even scrutinized, and yet it 
 would have repaid investigation. 
 
 But in spite of the "muzzling" of the press 
 in England, every now and then some swindle 
 leaks out and from its enormity any thinker 
 must draw dreadful inferences which he dare 
 not publish or even hint at in any English" pub- 
 lication. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 79 
 
 One example of such corruption must be 
 given by which the general status may be 
 judged. Some four or five years ago a dock- 
 yard inspector rejected a battle-ship built in a 
 famous private shipbuilding yard. The decis- 
 ion of the official was disputed by the private 
 firm in question and the matter came into the 
 public prints. It was proven that a rudder had 
 been supplied wi?h a flaw or fault in the cast- 
 ing and that the fault, though measured by 
 feet, had been "puttied up" and then painted 
 over. Similar faults similarly disguised, had 
 been discovered by the same exasperatingly in- 
 quisitive official in the armor plates of the bow. 
 The question as to whether putty painted over 
 was likely to resist foreign shot or shell as well 
 as hardened steel was discussed in one or two 
 papers; but nothing came of it. In a day or 
 two, the incident was forgotten. 
 
 Is it wonderful under these circumstances 
 that the German navy and especially German 
 submarines have made a great name for them- 
 selves at the expense of the British navy in 
 spite of its great size and high traditions? 
 
 An instance of the corruption prevalent in 
 English business was once brought to my no- 
 tice which I regard as typical and informative 
 in spite of its mildness. The Prince of Monaco 
 had a large steam-yacht built in London. It 
 was built and fitted regardless of expense and 
 passed Ai at Lloyd's. After delivery and ac- 
 ceptance the Prince found that it had a list to 
 
8o ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 one side, of I shrink from saying how many de- 
 grees, but certainly more than five. 
 
 The Prince declared that he had accepted the 
 yacht because he regarded Lloyd*s certificate 
 as an absolute guarantee. I thought that most 
 men would have made the same mistake. He 
 asked me would I go with him to Lloyd's to 
 find out about it. I was eager to gain a new ex- 
 perience. We went together one morning to 
 Lloyd's and after more than an hour's search 
 found a quiet person who undertook to give us 
 the required information. When the plaint 
 was formulated he said he knew nothing about 
 it ; adding that the fact of a list of five or even 
 ten degrees would not prevent a ship being 
 classed as Ai by Lloyd's. I replied that the 
 information was interesting and should be 
 widely known. "Would he kindly tell me how 
 many degrees would prevent a ship from be- 
 ing classed as Ai?" He replied curtly that he 
 could not say; it would depend on the ship. 
 Thereupon the Prince said that he had regarded 
 the Ai at Lloyd's as a proof of excellence of 
 design and workmanship. "Was he mistaken?" 
 The official shrugged broad shoulders and de- 
 clared finally that "Caveat emptor" was the 
 best rule, but he would look into the matter 
 and write. Nothing valuable came from his 
 investigation. The Times refused to print an 
 article giving a dispassionate account of this 
 transaction. "The truth would do English ship- 
 building no good," I was informed. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 8i 
 
 The other day Sir Stanley Buckmaster, the 
 English Censor, declared that he regarded it as 
 an important part of his duty to prevent un- 
 pleasant truths from coming to the knowledge 
 of the British public. "Where ignorance is 
 bliss, *tis folly to be wise" is the English con- 
 viction. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The German Nation and Its Ideal 
 
 Goethe says that the character of a nation 
 can be judged by its army and by its lav/s. In 
 the present comparison between England and 
 Germany and their respective ideals, I have 
 hardly taken their armies into account, but a 
 word or two must now be said on the subject. 
 
 Everyone knows in the main what the Ger- 
 man army has done: everyone admits its as- 
 tounding efficiency : it is not too much to say 
 that the German example in war as in business 
 has raised our conception of the possible effi- 
 ciency of work in this world. 
 
 It is more difficult to show what the English 
 army has achieved ; but now, after eight months 
 and a half of war, "Le Matin" publishes a state- 
 ment which puts the matter in a nutshell. The 
 Russian troops, the Paris paper states, are hold- 
 ^J^g 857 miles of frontier ; the Servian and Mon- 
 tenegrin armies, 219; the French troops 544 
 miles; the English troops 31^^ miles, and the 
 
82 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Belgian troops iy% miles. It would be paint- 
 ing the lily to comment on this fact. From 
 another article we learn that the British have 
 already spent more money on the war than the 
 French. In its issue of April loth, the London 
 Times attacks what it calls "the muddle in the 
 war-office" on account of "the shortness of mu- 
 nitions." The paper declares that it is not the 
 drinking habits of the working man that is at 
 fault but "the lack of foresight and organiza- 
 tion" at Headquarters, and finally points to 
 Lord Kitchener as responsible by asserting 
 that "an end must be put to the tradition that 
 soldiers should control *war manufactures' " 
 for "they have brought the country to the 
 verge" of shortage in what is most necessary. 
 And this in spite of the fact that money is no 
 object and that the British could have drawn 
 all the supplies they wanted from the United 
 States, thanks to our convenient definition of 
 neutrality. 
 
 These few facts and the strictures of The 
 Times more than justify all I have said of the 
 English governing classes and their incompe- 
 tence : they are incapable even of selecting de- 
 cently efficient instruments. 
 
 In regard to law and the administration of 
 justice, the almost incredible backwardness of 
 England has been established by a thousand 
 facts and where necessary by comparisons with 
 France. In this or that minor matter some 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 83 
 
 small errors may have crept in ; but the indict- 
 ment as a whole stands four-square. 
 
 It becomes necessary now to speak of Ger- 
 many at length and I must admit that I do not 
 know Germany nearly so well as I know Eng- 
 land. I lived in England the major part of five 
 and twenty years, and studied and wrote about 
 it day by day. In Germany I spent only five 
 years; but the years passed there, were sensi- 
 tive years of youth, when I was quick to receive 
 and record new impressions, and I hope my 
 comparative ignorance of the intimate life of 
 the German people may not vitiate my conclu- 
 sions. For in this matter, ignorance is a poor 
 guide even when winged with imagination. If 
 I had never worked and played and argued 
 with German youths and talked with German 
 girls; if I had never thrilled to German 
 thoughts, nor recited German verses in tranc- 
 ing moonlight, I might perchance, have been 
 able to persuade myself as Mr. H. G. Wells ap- 
 parently has done, that the French and English 
 are "intellectually more virile peoples." As it 
 is, I don't believe that the countrymen of 
 Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Helmholtz need fear 
 comparison with any of the sons of men in pure 
 intelligence and when it comes to virility it 
 seems to me that the nation which was cradled 
 by Bismarck and now holds Russia back with 
 one hand and France and Belgium and Eng- 
 land with the other, and after nine months of 
 
84 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 war, against odds of three to one, is still fight- 
 ing everywhere in the enemies' countries, need 
 bow to no rival in the manly virtues. Mr. Wells 
 declares that the Allies are winning and "will 
 continue to win"; but Germany, I imagine, is 
 fairly content with that sort of defeat which 
 has given her all Belgium to the sea, together 
 with one-tenth of France, and on the other 
 frontier has brought her to the gates of War- 
 saw. 
 
 Mr. Arthur Balfour, once upon a time Prime 
 Minister of Great Britain, and renowned for 
 the well-bred interest he takes in philosophy, 
 did not hesitate at the last Lord Mayor's Ban- 
 quet to talk of Germany as "the enemy of civ- 
 ilization." 
 
 Civilization is a parlous word : but if we take 
 it to mean the humanization of man in society, 
 it ought to be possible to make Mr. Balfour 
 ashamed of his ridiculous statement, even 
 though Lord Rosebery has since backed it up 
 and embellished it. At any rate, if Germany 
 had not done more in the last century or so and 
 particularly in the last half century for the 
 humanization of man than England, I should be 
 ashamed of having written this book. I believe 
 that she has done as much for the ideal as even 
 France, and France's gift to humanity in the 
 last century and a half has been out of all com- 
 parison greater than England's. Let me now 
 try to state the German case fairly : I shall cer- 
 tainly not exceed the praise which Mr. H. G. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 85 
 
 Wells lavished on her just before the war broke 
 out. 
 
 A nation, like an individual, should be 
 judged by the contradictory virtues it em- 
 braces and reconciles. A man may be very 
 brave and yet not excite our admiration more 
 than a rat or a bulldog which displays the same 
 disdain of pain or death ; but if the man is not 
 only courageous, but gentle and considerate of 
 others he at once approaches the ideal. And 
 what is true of a man is true of a nation. An 
 isolated or insular people is expected to love 
 individual liberty and the hardy virtues that 
 spring from individual self-assertion; but it 
 only becomes admirable to us if it unites this 
 love with a passion for equality and even- 
 handed justice and a most sensitive considera- 
 tion for the poor and the outcast and the disin- 
 herited. 
 
 Similarly a people devoted to the idea of the 
 nation; to the self-assertion and glorification 
 of the whole — Deutschland ueber Alles — may 
 be expected to be efficient in conflict, to dis- 
 play high military virtues of foresight, courage 
 and self-sacrifice; but it can only then become 
 entirely admirable to us when it also shows a 
 sensitive regard for the rights of the individual, 
 for the claims even of peculiarly endowed in- 
 dividuals to live their own lives and cultivate 
 their own special powers. It is because I be- 
 lieve Germany is nearer the ideal even on this 
 side than England, that I wish to persuade my 
 
86 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 American countrymen to reconsider the whole 
 subject. There is more individual liberty to- 
 day in Germany than there is in England: 
 greater freedom of speech and writing. 
 
 I do not wish to represent Germany as an 
 ideal state, or the German people as compact 
 of all the virtues. I have no desire to color or 
 to overstate the truth. Germany is a militant 
 hierarchy, an instrument that is of conflict and 
 I would wish it to be an industrial democracy. 
 But there is no doubt that this hierarchy is ac- 
 cepted and beloved by the vast majority of the 
 German people just as the hereditary oligarchy 
 is accepted and beloved by the vast majority of 
 Englishmen. 
 
 The French republic appears to me to be the 
 higher, the more modern form of government, 
 better adapted to modern industrial conditions. 
 I prefer, too, the greater equality shown in 
 French life and the deeper feeling for justice 
 which animates all the laws and institutions of 
 that noble French people. In the quarrel be- 
 tween France and Germany I lean to the side 
 of France and pray for some equitable settle- 
 ment of the two disputed provinces. But, as 
 between England and Germany, no lover of the 
 ideal can hesitate for a moment. There is much 
 the same hierarchy in England as in Germany, 
 the same hereditary nobility, but in Germany 
 it is alive and useful, v/hile in England it is 
 worse than dead and useless. In Germany, the 
 aristocracy regards itself as the steel head of 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 87 
 
 the German lance and really displays all the 
 warrior virtues in their highest form. One 
 may detest the Preussicher Leutenant; but he 
 is not to be despised. One has to admit that 
 he knows his job and does it, that he is super- 
 latively efficient, that he has all the Spartan 
 virtues with a more than Spartan power of in- 
 fecting his dependents and social inferiors 
 with his own manly and austere enthusiasm. 
 
 The prowess of the English aristocrat on 
 the other hand, is displayed chiefly in pleasures 
 and sports. He toils not, neither does he spin 
 and while he regards work as beneath him and 
 knowledge as contemptible, his example as a 
 parasite drifts downward, like water on sand, 
 infecting all the less favored millions of his 
 countrymen with a false and base ideal. 
 
 Let us now consider the German ideal and 
 see what it implies and its results. The Ger- 
 man wants a perfect state. How near does he 
 come to realizing his desire? 
 
 The idea of a perfect state is very like the 
 idea of a perfect individual. The phrase is 
 somewhat vague : one may regard Pericles, or 
 Lincoln, or Jesus as models, yet these are 
 all very dissimilar personalities. Curiously 
 enough, however, as soon as we think of "per- 
 fection" in this way we are struck at once by 
 the astonishing similarity between the Eng- 
 lish and the German ideal. The first thing 
 taught to an English boy at a public school is 
 that to be an "all-round man" he must be brave 
 
88 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 and a good fighter and always ready to take 
 his own part. In the current phrase: "his 
 hands must be able to keep his head." Noth- 
 ing is more despised than any attempt to avoid 
 fighting ; any boy who puts up with the small- 
 est slight, no matter what his motive may be, 
 is usually set down as a coward. Now this is 
 precisely the German ideal of a state : the aim 
 is "all-round" excellence; but first of all, the 
 German State must always be ready to take its 
 own part and never shirk fighting. 
 
 Some of us Celts and Latins are not in love 
 with this ideal; we may regard defence as a 
 duty and legitimate ; but we condemn aggres- 
 sion and unnecessary war as a crime against 
 humanity and we regard large well-equipped 
 armies and navies with suspicion as likely to 
 lead to needless fighting. But to hear the Eng- 
 lish condemning the German ideal when it is 
 their own makes the judicious smile. 
 
 It is in accord with the true values to com- 
 pare France and Germany and point the moral 
 with an occasional glance at England, for 
 France, thanks to her glorious revolution and 
 to the genius of Napoleon is one of the most 
 perfectly organized of modern states. First of 
 all in efficiency, as a power of offense and de- 
 fense, there can be no comparison after the 
 teaching of this war. But admitting that Ger- 
 many as a hierarchy is naturally more efficient 
 as a military organism than a democracy, let 
 us come to the converse test. Which state is 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 89 
 
 the freer? In which is the individual more 
 considered ? 
 
 In order that the body politic may be per- 
 fect, each individual cell composing it must be 
 perfect too. Every cell must be fed and func- 
 tioning properly in order that the whole organ- 
 ism may be at its best. If the utmost individ- 
 ual freedom be indeed an ideal (which is not 
 by any means proved, though usually taken 
 for granted in America), then the perfect state 
 must accord to each individual the largest pos- 
 sible measure of freedom. 
 
 In 1888 Bismarck declared that in time the 
 Germans would overcome the hostility of the 
 inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine. "We Ger- 
 mans," he said, "govern more benevolently and 
 humanely than the French." And he went on 
 in words which Mr. Balfour ought to learn by 
 heart: "we are, besides, able to grant the in- 
 habitants (of Alsace-Lorraine) a far greater 
 degree of communal and individual freedom 
 than the French institutions and traditions per- 
 mit or indeed ever have permitted." 
 
 It looks to-day as if Bismarck were justified 
 in this remarkable forecast for all the repre- 
 sentatives of Alsace-Lorraine in the Reichstag 
 voted with the other Germans in favor of the 
 war-supplies. Germany has won over a hos- 
 tile population in forty years, and it has suc- 
 ceeded in part by stimulating and satisfying 
 the desire of growth which is inherent in every 
 people, and in part by according to the inhabi- 
 
go ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 tants of Alsace-Lorraine perhaps as large a 
 measure of communal and individual freedom 
 as they were accustomed to as Frenchmen. 
 Now, as Mr. Balfour was not ashamed of gov- 
 erning Ireland after more than a century of so- 
 called British freedom by throwing his politi- 
 cal opponents into prison without trial and 
 tyrannizing over the whole country with a des- 
 potic Crimes Act, he will no doubt be glad to 
 learn how "the enemy of civilization," as he 
 loves to call Germany, succeeded where the 
 pink of civilization and propriety, when en- 
 gaged in a similar task, failed lamentably. 
 
 First of all, Alsace-Lorraine under German 
 rule participated in the extraordinary growth 
 of population and trade which has changed the 
 face of Germany in the last twenty years; the 
 two provinces have grown in population and 
 prosperity as much as Ireland has shrunk in 
 the same time, and prosperity is a potent fac- 
 tor always making for content. Then, too, 
 German rule has not diminished freedom in 
 Alsace-Lorraine. 
 
 Both France and Germany are self-governed 
 in the largest sense of the word; both enjoy 
 manhood suffrage and are thus far in advance 
 of Great Britain with her suffrage restricted 
 by property qualifications as well as by the 
 plural voting of the rich. But in France au- 
 thority has always been more centralized than 
 it is in Germany. Since the time of Tacitus, 
 the Germans have always had a large meas- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 91 
 
 ure of communal freedom and communal pow- 
 er. The saying, "L'etat c'est moi" of Louis 
 XIV was never true of Germany. In Germany 
 each commune has some power in determin- 
 ing its own taxes and in spending them accord- 
 ing to its desires ; whereas in France the orders 
 come from Paris and thus democratic France, 
 strange to say, has hardly a larger measure of 
 communal self-government and individual free- 
 dom than "the military despotism" of Messrs. 
 Balfour, Wells and Bennett. In military effi- 
 ciency, in discipline, forethought and devotion, 
 Germany stands easily first among the nations 
 and in the opposite hardy virtues which flour- 
 ish in individual and communal liberty, it is 
 not inferior even to France. 
 
 France possesses several marked advantages : 
 first of all its land was fairly partitioned out 
 amongst its inhabitants by the revolution. It 
 would have been better had it been kept as a 
 possession by the State and rented out for 
 terms of years. Private property in what is a 
 monopoly by nature is a mistake; it ensures 
 thrift, but it brings out sordid meanness ; it is 
 mainly responsible for the limiting of the birth- 
 rate in France ; it hinders growth without pro- 
 ducing an equivalent measure of happiness. 
 But in contrast with the legalized robbery of 
 British landlords, the comparatively equal di- 
 vision of the land in France is almost ideal. It 
 ensures wide-spread well-being and happiness. 
 It is on the whole preferable to the greater in- 
 
92 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 equality seen in Germany. It satisfies more 
 completely the desire for justice, while being 
 hardly less favorable to growth. 
 
 When I study the codified laws of Germany, 
 the result of twenty years of labor, I find them 
 inferior in nearly every respect to the Code 
 Napoleon. The bankruptcy laws are nothing 
 like so generous as those of France, though far 
 more humane than those of England. The de- 
 sire of all German Courts of justice is evidently 
 to arrive at a compromise or reasonable com- 
 position of every dispute as quickly and as 
 cheaply as possible. The lower courts espec- 
 ially, the Amtsgerichte and Landesgerichte and 
 their judges appear to be inspired with this in- 
 tention, and in consequence, business disputes 
 are settled with wonderful expedition and at a 
 ridiculously small cost. 
 
 I regard both the German and French judges 
 as superior to English judges. The French 
 judges are less pedantic, and much fairer- 
 minded than the English while the Germans 
 are better informed. The judges of both the 
 continental nations strike one as modern and 
 cosmopolitan, whereas the English judges even 
 of the Court of Appeal are apt to be pedantic 
 or whimsical; insular, in fact; they usually 
 know at most the rudiments of one modern 
 language, but certainly not two or more; and 
 have no knowledge of any other social con- 
 ditions, save those of England. 
 
 The laws and the judges of these countries 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 93 
 
 may be tested by their attitude toward women. 
 
 If we take the position of married women 
 and the laws relating to divorce, we are at once 
 brought face to face with startling and almost 
 inexplicable differences. Divorce is very much 
 cheaper and more easily obtained in Germany 
 or in France than in England. Only in Eng- 
 land is the desire for divorce on the part of 
 both husband and wife, a reason for not grant- 
 ing it. When both parties to the contract are 
 eager to withdraw from it, then the English 
 law with whimsical unreason refuses to set 
 either of them free. 
 
 In both the continental countries the adul- 
 tery of the husband is sufficient ground not 
 only for divorce and large alimony, but also to 
 ensure that the guardianship of the children is 
 given to the wife and mother. In England, 
 cruelty must be proven against the husband as 
 well as unfaith ; the allowances for alimony are 
 notoriously smaller in proportion to wealth and 
 there is evidence of a constant desire to prefer 
 the guardianship of the father though guilty of 
 adultery to that of the faithful wife. 
 
 The status of educated women is compara- 
 tively high in both France and Germany and 
 low in England. There are many practising 
 women-lawyers and barristers in France and 
 not one in Great Britain or in Germany. There 
 are many more women doctors in France and 
 in Germany than there are in Great Britain. 
 In fine, everyone who has studied the matter 
 
94 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 knows that while education is esteemed in 
 France and honored in Germany, it is rather 
 disdained in England and especially is this true 
 in regard to women. 
 
 There are other and even higher tests by 
 which the health of a national organism can be 
 judged. In our industrial civilization, with our 
 mastery of natural forces and consequent enor- 
 mous and unprecedented increase of wealth, it 
 was only to be expected that nine men out of 
 ten would rush to get rich and would crowd all 
 the avenues leading to wealth. In the mad rush, 
 which country has taken most care of the poor 
 and the weak and the wastrel, and which coun- 
 try has best provided for growth by encour- 
 aging every rare variety of intellect, talent and 
 character? Which nation has cultivated both 
 the weakest and the finest, the most sensitive 
 flowers — the poor on one hand and on the other 
 those who steer humanity, so to speak, the 
 brain-workers who do not desire riches mainly, 
 the Sacred Band of the Intellectuals, the lovers 
 of science and thought, the artists and men of 
 letters? 
 
 The question needs only to be stated to be 
 answered. In both respects, Germany has done 
 much more than any other country. Unem- 
 ployment and poverty meant waste and ineffi- 
 ciency and consequently, Germany with its ideal 
 of an efficient organism tackled the difficulty at 
 once and from many sides, as a duty, and prac- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 95 
 
 tically put some sort of end to it by a thousand 
 agencies, by labor bureaus in town and country 
 on the one hand, and by state-aided insurances 
 against accident and unemployment on the 
 other. The cost of guarding against the dam- 
 age to life and health of the dangerous trades 
 was made a tax on the industries themselves 
 by Germany, while in England, greedy employ- 
 ers are allowed to disregard even the orders of 
 the Home Office and murder the weak almost 
 at will. 
 
 The yearly bill of the German State for the 
 care of its sick, injured and aged, amounts to 
 thirty-four millions sterling; whereas in Eng- 
 land under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 
 while less than three millions sterling is paid 
 in compensation, four millions a year go in 
 expenses. Germany spends on social services 
 50 per cent more than on her army and navy. 
 
 In 1 88 1, Bismarck told the world the ideal 
 of Germany in regard to poverty. "A State is 
 responsible," he said, "for the things it does 
 not do. Our laws," he went on, "already shield 
 the laborer from starvation. But that is not 
 enough. The workman should look forward 
 without fear to the future and old age. The 
 present bill intends to keep alive in the poorest, 
 the sense of human dignity which even the 
 worst-off German shall enjoy if I have my way. 
 The laborer should feel that he is not going to 
 be a mere almstaker when he is sick or old, but 
 
96 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 that he possesses a fund which is his own." 
 And then he went on to talk of a ^'Christian 
 State" with its wider responsibilities. 
 
 For years now, there has been less unem- 
 ployment in Germany than in any other State 
 in Christendom, less than in the United States 
 or even France and the large immigration into 
 Germany alone of European countries, proves 
 the superior status of the wage-earner. 
 
 The problems of poverty and unemployment 
 have been practically solved in Germany, 
 whereas in England nearly one-half of the pop- 
 ulation always live below the line of normal 
 health and strength, while the unemployed and 
 starving constitute, as Carlyle puts it, "a 
 sloughing sore, eating away and enfeebling the 
 healthy part of the body politic." When I 
 think of the two countries and of the way "rich" 
 England has shuffled out of her responsibilities 
 and has not only neglected her poor but does 
 more than any other State to degrade and in- 
 jure them by law, I am constrained to regard 
 England and not Germany as "the enemy of 
 civilization." 
 
 But it is in the treatment of the "intellec- 
 tuals" that Germany ranks above all modern 
 States, while in this particular England stands 
 somewhat on the level of Spain. It is here 
 that we shall find the true explanation of Ger- 
 man progress and German patriotism and Ger- 
 man pride. First of all, the Universities are 
 freer of access in Germany than they are in 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 97 
 
 France and of course^, still freer than in Eng- 
 land. The chemical and physical laboratories 
 supported by the State in Germany, are more 
 numerous than in France and ten fold more nu- 
 merous than in Great Britain. There have been 
 forty-six Nobel winners of prizes in science: 
 fourteen of them have been Germans, seven 
 have been Frenchmen and only five have been 
 Englishmen: the mere fact speaks loudly 
 enough. 
 
 The highly educated class is thrice as large 
 in Germany in proportion to population as it 
 is in France and at least ten times more numer- 
 ous than it is in Great Britain. I could mass 
 figures to prove this and to show the wonderful 
 effect of it ; but a few bare facts must suffice : 
 there are 100,000 University and Polytechnic 
 students of the first class in Germany and 
 hardly more than 10,000 in Great Britain and 
 of these 10,000, barely half are to be compared 
 with the German student. Since the founding 
 of the Empire, the population has increased 
 from 40,000,000 to 70,000,000 and the number 
 of students from 22,000 to 100,000. And finally, 
 while the population of Germany increased 1.4 
 in 191 3, the number of students increased 4.6, 
 and of the total number 4.4 are women. 
 
 One result of the widely diffused and better 
 education in Germany is that artists and men 
 of science and of letters of the best class have 
 a far larger public in Germany to appeal to than 
 anywhere else in Europe. I have already 
 
98 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 shown how infinitely higher the position of a 
 great writer or thinker is in France than in 
 England, and the position of such a man in Ger- 
 many is as good as it is in France. Take the 
 highest class of all, the prophets and lovers of 
 the deeper truths, who usually are disliked by 
 their contemporaries for they live "on the fore- 
 head of the time to come" as Keats puts it, and 
 consider their status. Friedrich Nietzsche who 
 loved strength and believed in the superman 
 and hated the household German virtues and 
 the homely German life, nevertheless found 
 readers and passionate support in Germany. A 
 generation or two earlier, Heine mocked and 
 made fun of Germany from one end of his life 
 to the other, but yet he, too, was read and 
 loved by thousands of Germ.ans. But what 
 prophet has ever been honored in England dur- 
 ing his own lifetime? What lover of men and 
 of the humane ideal has ever found a hearing 
 in those sordid ears? It is mediocrity that is 
 loved and honored and rewarded in England, 
 mediocrity and those who defend the oligarchy 
 and the present condition of things by praising 
 England and all things English without dis- 
 crimination or understanding, like Kipling, 
 Wells, Balfour & Co.; but the true artists and 
 teachers and lovers of the ideal, the Brownings, 
 the Whistlers, the Wallaces, the Davidsons and 
 the Middletons find there a bitter, cold recep- 
 tion. Whenever I have thought of England in 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 99 
 
 the last fifteen years, of her neglect of the poor 
 and of her contempt of her real teachers and 
 prophets on the one hand, and on the other of 
 her great place in the world and her oligarchy 
 and its arrogance and power, I have always 
 felt that England is the real enemy of civili- 
 zation, for more than a hundred years now the 
 chief obstacle to the humanization of man. 
 
 I have asserted that life in Germany is freer 
 than life in England or even in France ; but it is 
 extremely difficult to prove this : freedom is too 
 impalpable to be measured by figures; one is 
 of necessity thrown back on the statements of 
 authorities. The Reichstag Deputy and con- 
 vinced Socialist, Herr Sudekum, the other day 
 defending the German Socialists' vote for the 
 war-credits, said: "What good would any 
 change do us? In reality no country is so free 
 as Germany. France and England together 
 don't possess as much freedom as our German 
 Empire/' Let us take the best American 
 opinion on the subject, that of Mr. Price Col- 
 lier, with the understanding that Mr. Collier is 
 more English even than the English in his dis- 
 like of governmental interference with the in- 
 dividual ; yet he says : 
 
 "It is a strange contradiction in German life 
 that while they are as a people governed mi- 
 nutely and in detail, forbidden personal free- 
 dom along certain lines to which we should find 
 it hard to submit, they are freer morally, freer 
 
100 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 in their literature, their art, their music, their 
 social life, and in their unself-conscious express- 
 ion of them than other people." 
 
 Without fear of contradiction I assert that 
 this so-called "military despotism" has not 
 only a larger measure of individual freedom 
 than England, but it is also more socialistic 
 than England is likely to become for many a 
 day. The waste lands belonging to the State 
 have been developed by a magnificent Forestry 
 Department where young Englishmen are now 
 sent to learn their work before being dispatched 
 to India as forest officials. The German rail- 
 ways belong to the State and are managed 
 more successfully than they were managed as 
 private concerns. And this socialistic institu- 
 tion is cunningly used to increase the efficiency 
 of the army. It is well known that the real su- 
 periority of the German army over all other 
 armies is to be found in its splendid non-com- 
 missioned officers. These men are picked from 
 the ranks and spend fifteen years with the col- 
 ors. But they are kept at the highest pitch of 
 efficiency by the certainty and importance of 
 their reward. If they do well, they are all sure 
 of places after their term of military service, 
 either on the state railways or in the police. 
 And wherever they are used they prove them- 
 selves superbly efficient, energetic and hon- 
 est. In England, an attempt has been made, 
 too, to ensure employment to old soldiers, who 
 liave served twelve years with the colors. They 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? loi 
 
 are enrolled as Commissionaires and employed 
 at the doors of restaurants and clubs to play 
 polite and pouch tips. 
 
 In almost every respect, German life is saner 
 and healthier than life in England. 
 
 In the great majority of German cities pub- 
 lic-utility services, gas, water, electricity, 
 street-railways, slaughter-houses, and even ca- 
 nals, docks, and pawnshops are owned and con- 
 trolled by the cities themselves. There is no 
 loop-hole for private plunder, but a desire on 
 the part of all citizens to enforce the strictest 
 economy and the most expert efficiency. 
 
 Or take a test not of wisdom in material 
 things ; but of character, and of morals in the 
 highest sense. I remember in Germany, thirty 
 years ago, there were many Brod-Studenten, 
 students who had to gain a living from the 
 knowledge acquired in the University ; but they 
 were conscientious. At that time, there were 
 several thousand places as Christian pastors 
 unfilled in Protestant Germany. Thousands of 
 students wanted a decent living but would not 
 preach or practise a religion they no longer be- 
 lieved in, for what Emerson calls "the ignoble 
 pleasures of bed and board." But all the vicar 
 and curate places in England are filled by men 
 only too eager to compromise with conscience 
 if by so compromising they can obtain an ease- 
 ful life and good position without much work ; 
 a vicar's post to-day in England is called a "liv- 
 ing/' 
 
102 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Many years ago, the late Cecil Rhodes told 
 me of his intention to bring University stu- 
 dents from all the colonies and from America 
 and Germany to Oxford. I could not help 
 laughing, the scheme seemed to me fantasti- 
 cally absurd. Fancy bringing real University 
 students down to a high-school like Oxford, 
 where men are treated like boys and con- 
 strained to go to Chapel in the morning whether 
 they wish to or not and to be in their college 
 at night by nine or ten o'clock. 
 
 "No, no, Rhodes," I cried, "if you want to do 
 good, send hundreds of English students from 
 Oxford and Cambridge each year to some 
 German University, and come to think of it, you 
 might send a hundred members of Parliament, 
 too, and half a dozen Ministers. Then, indeed, 
 you might in time help to achieve the impossi- 
 ble and make of England a modern State." 
 
 Let me once again quote Mr. Price Collier. 
 In the chapter on "The Land of Damned Pro- 
 fessors" he sums it all up thus : "It remains to 
 be said that Germany has trained her whole 
 population into the best working team in the 
 world. Without the natural advantages of 
 either England or America she has become the 
 rival of both. Her superior mental training 
 has enabled her to wrest wealth from by-prod- 
 ucts." . . . And "the best schools in Germany 
 he assures us, "are the Army and the Navy." 
 
 Parliament has passed over ten thousand 
 laws in England in the last fifty years and not 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 103 
 
 one has ever served as model or example or 
 been copied or adopted in any other European 
 country. But Mr. Lloyd George has attempted 
 lately to introduce into England the whole Ger- 
 man system of insurance against accident and 
 sickness and Mr. Winston Churchill has tried 
 tardily to imitate the German Labor Exchanges 
 which give information about employment, but 
 here as always what Heine calls "der Fluch der 
 Halbheit," or "the curse of the half-way meas- 
 ure" is over everything in England and must 
 necessarily be till the land is retaken by the 
 people and the rule of the oligarchy is ended. 
 
 The whole position of Germany — ^her 
 strength and her necessities — was admirably 
 defined by Bismarck as early as 1888. The 
 speech is known by the great word, "We Ger- 
 mans fear God and naught else in the world." 
 It is, I think, the greatest speech of the last 
 hundred years. It may well be compared with 
 Lincoln's noble speech at Gettysburg. Here is 
 one most significant passage : 
 
 "The Franco-Russian press within which we 
 are squeezed, compels us to hold together, and 
 by this pressure our cohesive force is greatly 
 increased." And afterwards this : 
 
 "God has placed us where we are prevented, 
 thanks to our neighbors, from growing lazy 
 and dull." 
 
 And this brings me naturally to the central 
 and highest truth of all : every handicap in life 
 is an advantage to the strong. It was the stut- 
 
104 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 tering speech of Demosthenes that made him 
 the best of orators; it was the low birth and 
 poverty and scanty education of Shakespeare 
 that made him our chief of men. It is Ger- 
 many's position ringed round by watchful, 
 greedy foes that has made Germany great. She 
 had to solve the problems of life honestly and 
 sincerely or go under, and conscious of her 
 strength and believing in knowledge, she solved 
 them one after the other, each conquest giving 
 her assurance of the next. 
 
 Was she weak? Effort and training would 
 make her strong. Was she ignorant? Cheap 
 schools and universities would bring knowl- 
 edge. Had the old apprentice system broken 
 down? Technical schools would better the old 
 training. Was she poor? Work and knowl- 
 edge would give her wealth. Was her strength 
 being drained by the unemployed on the one 
 hand and emigration on the other? Well, she 
 did her best to provide employment for all and 
 as she took care of the poor, emigration ceased 
 and the population grew and with growth 
 everywhere and success came the result of 
 growth, the pride of accomplishment. Her 
 envious critics say that Germans are conceited 
 and self-assertive, but no nation has ever made 
 such progress as Germany has made in the last 
 twenty years and are not all strong, successful 
 men apt to be conceited? 
 
 One story which I read recently in a New 
 York paper gives me the true spirit of modern 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 105 
 
 Germany. An American correspondent in Ber- 
 lin wrote saying that what surprised him most 
 of all was the high cheerfulness of the people : 
 the mother and sisters seeing the son and 
 brother off to the war, go smiling and with 
 only one word on their lips — gratuliere; the 
 girl going to meet her lover who was return- 
 ing from the war without his right arm ; "gra- 
 tuliere," she cries bravely, " 'twas lost for the 
 Fatherland." On every side, no sorrow, no 
 tears allowed ; nothing but gratuliere ! 
 
 No wonder Germany stands victorious as 
 the first of modern states. It is not her army 
 or her schools, or her growth in population or 
 in wealth, still less her constitution or her 
 methods admirable though many of them are, 
 which gives her the laurel-wreath of the world's 
 reluctant admiration ; it is the spirit informing 
 and inspiring the whole organism, the resolve 
 to live greatly or die greatly but not to live 
 ignobly or on sufferance as parasite or subject ; 
 it is the understanding that this life is our great 
 opportunity, that here and now if we men will, 
 we can conquer all difficulties and overcome all 
 enemies and turn all stumbling-blocks into 
 stepping-stones. It is the new-born faith in 
 man — the consciousness of man's power and 
 the glory of man's achievement — that has made 
 Germany great and in spite of all odds and all 
 alliances, will continue her in victory ! 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 Paris in the First Weeks of War 
 
 Life in Paris, even in mid-summer, is often 
 prolific of tense, dramatic moments, but July, 
 1 914, might be called in French fashion — The 
 Month of Sensations. 
 
 First of all, the Caillaux trial, ending in the 
 acquittal of Madame Caillaux amid demonstra- 
 tions of discontent on the Boulevards. 
 
 Then the news that Juarez, the great socialist 
 orator and leader had been shot dead when din- 
 ing quietly in a little restaurant on the corner 
 next his newspaper office: a dreadful crime, 
 inexplicable, stupid, making us realize the ap- 
 palling savageries that must have gone on in 
 the dim backward and abyssm of time and are 
 fated to return sporadically in senseless lust of 
 slaughter, in murder and assassination! Shall 
 we never outgrow the cave-man? 
 
 All the summer through, beneath the surface 
 there had been a certain tension: "money was 
 tight" bankers said, and no sufficient reason for 
 the stringency of the market. 
 
 In those lazy, hot days we had read of the 
 murder of the Grand Duke and his wife, as of 
 something far off and comparatively unimport- 
 ant; then, afterwards, of the Austrian note to 
 Servia. 
 
 X06 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 107 
 
 Suddenly, one morning at the Foreign Of- 
 fice, I heard that Russia was mobilizing and 
 the authorities were evidently anxious. I be- 
 gan to grow uneasy, apprehensive; then came 
 the German ultimatum to Russia, and then 
 crash — war; war, the incredible; war involv- 
 ing France? — the mobilization orders pub- 
 lished ; the die cast ! Hell let loose ! 
 
 On Sunday, the 2nd of August, Paris was 
 declared in a state of siege, put under martial 
 law and a military governor, and placarded 
 with notices that all foreigners must show their 
 passports to the nearest Commissioner of Po- 
 lice and obtain his written permission to reside 
 in the city or to leave it. Forty-eight hours' 
 were given as time-limit and yet we could not 
 grasp the appalling fact of a world-war. 
 
 That same evening all Parisians flocked to 
 the grand boulevards, from the Pare Monceau 
 and the fortifications, from the Latin quarter 
 and the aristocratic Boulevard St. Germain: — 
 a broad river of people flowing all over the 
 street and pavements, men for the most part, 
 with set faces and eager eyes, wondering what 
 the morrow would bring forth. Practically no 
 taxis or carriages ; bands of foreigners marching 
 through the crowd proclaiming their allegiance 
 to France and their love of the French. First, 
 two hundred Roumanians four deep with flags, 
 crying at intervals Vive la France!; then a 
 band of Italians followed by Spaniards and 
 Greeks, a giant leader in national costume. 
 
io8 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 white petticoat and all — a Berlin, hoo, hoo ! and 
 then a small English contingent crying at in- 
 tervals — vive la France ! to be answered by the 
 Marseillaise taken up by ten thousand voices — 
 a certain solemnity in the great chant rising 
 and falling in vast waves of sound. 
 
 As we went home by the Place de la Con- 
 corde, we debated whether the English would 
 cast in their lot with the French. It seemed to 
 me almost certain they would ; the trade-rivalry 
 was so strong. As we came into the great 
 square, we saw all the foreign demonstrators 
 massed round the statue of Strassburg, and 
 heard the voice of some orator — "France has 
 not forgotten her lost children . . . France will 
 win them back after forty years — Alsace Lor- 
 raine — quand meme." 
 
 We passed by Cleopatra's Needle where the 
 guillotine stood during the Terror. Were we 
 to see such dreadful days again? The search- 
 light from the roof of the Automobile Club 
 swept over the great square and lighted up the 
 golden dome of the Invalides; what would he 
 who sleeps there so quietly say of it all, the 
 great Captain and condottiere who has some re- 
 sponsibility for these events also, for he made 
 it impossible for Frenchmen to believe in de- 
 feat. It is ten o'clock when we pass between 
 the ramping horses of Marly : — 
 
 Up the long dim road where thundered 
 
 The Army of Italy onward 
 
 By the great pale Arch of the Star. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 109 
 
 Another army came down that same road in 
 '70, an army in Pickel-Hauben — Hammer or 
 anvil — which will France be? I was full of 
 fear. Modern war, like modern business, has 
 become immense, depends now not on indi- 
 vidual courage and initiative but on organiza- 
 tion, and the Germans are as good organizers 
 as the French are bad: anything might hap- 
 pen, but ... I was anxious, apprehensive, shak- 
 en with vague doubts I didn't want to face in 
 definite words. 
 
 On Monday morning I awoke with a curious 
 feeling of expectancy. I had to see my secre- 
 tary, an English girl, off by the train. We 
 drove to the Gare du Nord, found it blocked 
 by an immense crowd of people hastening to 
 leave the capital: sergents-de-ville every- 
 where. The only way to leave was through 
 Lille and Dunkirk, all the other lines were 
 taken up by the mobilization and the two trains 
 for Lille already crammed. No more passengers 
 to-day : not possible to buy a ticket ; no admit- 
 tance even to the station. What was to be 
 done? I saw a keen faced employe and spoke 
 to him : could he get a young lady on the train 
 even without her luggage? I showed him a 
 louis. Light came into his eyes : ''Follow me," 
 he whispered. We sped round to the back of 
 the station to the yard where we could see the 
 rails and trains. A man stepped in front of us 
 ordering curtly ''Demi-tour" (right about). 
 
 Our guide flourished a yellow piece of paper 
 
no ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 and said mysteriously, "Un laissez-passer du 
 Prefet" (an order to pass — from the Prefect). 
 The curt guardian drew back bowing, and we 
 hurried across the lines of rails and the girl 
 climbed into the overcrowded train and waved 
 "good-bye." 
 
 Coming outside the station there was a knot 
 in the crowd, and a heated argument : a big fair 
 man disputing, pushed his adversary back 
 rudely. Suddenly his enemy struck him in the 
 face, and in a moment to a cry of "Sale AUe- 
 mand," the big man was hurled on his back, 
 and the crowd swirled round him, wild figures, 
 striking, kicking. In a moment the sergents- 
 de-ville rushed in and thrust the crowd back — 
 only just in time. The big man was plucked 
 to his feet, all limp and bleeding, and half car- 
 ried, half pushed down the street with the po- 
 licemen all about him, while here and there an 
 excited onlooker rushed out and struggled 
 through the police to strike at the pale face — 
 a grim foretaste. 
 
 Possessing no passport I went to the Ameri- 
 can Consulate and got a signed declaration of 
 American citizenship which I took to the Com- 
 missaire de Police of my quarter. There was 
 an immense crowd before the door and a long 
 queue to boot of all classes. Automobiles 
 ranged on one side of the street, and on the 
 other a patient throng. I returned again at 
 nightfall when in the semi-darkness a five franc 
 piece to the sergent-de-ville gave me priority 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? iii 
 
 of admittance and the required permits, to stay 
 in the besieged city. 
 
 The next day was eventful. There were 
 hardly any taxi-autos in the street, and the few 
 were difficult to get and dear. The Avenue of 
 the Champs Elysees was empty: detachments 
 of soldiers marching briskly, laughing ; passers 
 by on the sidewalks cheering them and now 
 and again singing snatches of the Marseillaise. 
 Everything gay until we got to the Bank. 
 There I was told that I could not draw even 
 the money I had deposited a few days before. 
 I could have two hundred and fifty francs and 
 five per cent of my money, but no more. 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 The banker shrugged his shoulders: "For 
 our protection against a possible run; haven't 
 you seen the proclamation?" 
 
 The democratic French Government coming 
 to the rescue of the richest corporations of the 
 city! An astounding fact! We were soon to 
 learn that a similar "moratorium" had been de- 
 clared in England, more drastic even, for a 
 week the banks could close and give nothing. 
 All the powers of organized society to help the 
 richest and protect them ! 
 
 It took a Caesar, we said to ourselves, to 
 strike in on behalf of the debtors, and remit 
 one-third of their debts. Modern Governments 
 protect the rich even in democratic France ! 
 
 No more curious, no more significant fact 
 will be recorded of this time, and more extra- 
 
112 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 ordinary still, no one revolted, no one mur- 
 mured even; the fiat was accepted universally 
 in patient quiet. Think of it, the man you had 
 given a thousand pounds to keep for you, whom 
 you paid for keeping it, now by law refused to 
 give you back your own money, and still men 
 talk of justice? No other business protected, 
 but money is protected, money that to-day is 
 all powerful, a god! , 
 
 We lunched at the Ritz Hotel, but before 
 sitting down we were warned by the Manager 
 courteously that we must pay cash for the 
 lunch, credit having ceased. 
 
 "But the Banks," we say, "won't give us our 
 money." Mr. Ellis' eyebrows go up, his hands 
 shoot out in deprecation . . . 
 
 "We must pay cash for everything we buy," 
 he says. 
 
 "Que voulez vous?" Everyone must pay cash 
 except the banker. How delightfully demo- 
 cratic ! 
 
 That afternoon I heard that a Maggi shop 
 had been wrecked. I knew, of course, that the 
 Maggi milk establishments were founded and 
 run by Germans, but all German shops were 
 not wrecked. I remembered vaguely that a 
 couple of years before there had been a scan- 
 dal about one of these Maggi shops: a baby 
 was said to have died of drinking the milk 
 they supplied, milk which had been preserved, 
 poisoned if you will, by boracic acid. 
 
 We saw a crowd in the distance, our chauf- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 113 
 
 feur told us it was a Maggi shop. We rushed 
 there to see the fun : as we came up, the crowd 
 threw themselves on the windows and door, in 
 a trice the flood burst in, the shop was gutted 
 and the furniture thrown into the street. Look- 
 ing at the wild angry faces of the men and 
 women, we caught a glimpse of what has been. 
 French nature has not altered much in the hun- 
 dred years since the Revolution . . . there may 
 be mad work yet. 
 
 On Wednesday at about eight o'clock in the 
 morning my servant came to tell me that food 
 had gone up in price, ham three times as dear 
 as it had been the day before and no credit, 
 everybody had to pay cash, everybody except 
 the Banks! What was to be done? Vague 
 memories of the former siege of Paris came to 
 me, when dogs were sold dearer than hares, and 
 rats even had a price. I sallied forth imme- 
 diately to lay in a stock of rice, but I was met 
 here, there and everywhere with the fact that I 
 could only buy small quantities, even for cash, 
 other people being still more prescient than I 
 had been. Would Felix Potin the great grocer 
 be as miserly? I hurried in a taxi to his head- 
 quarters to find that Potin would only sell me 
 two pounds of rice though I was a well-known 
 and regular customer. The thrill of expectancy 
 became tinged with vague anxiety. 
 
 I wished to return by the underground rail- 
 way, the "metro" : "No trains for civilians, all 
 taken for troops." 
 
114 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Finding I had to walk, I thought I'd see what 
 effect this holding up of food supplies would 
 have on the poorer classes, so I went down to 
 the Place des Vosges and afterwards to the 
 Quartier de St. Antoine. In the poorer quar- 
 ters the men and women were in the streets 
 in knots and groups, talking and gesticulating 
 in the eager vivid French way. Suddenly ahead 
 of us a woman came out in the street crying 
 and shaking her fist at the shop door she had 
 just left. At once the crowd rushed towards 
 her, and in another moment they had sacked the 
 shop and were hurrying away, this one with 
 his arms laden with parcels of sugar, that one 
 with something else, a woman with a child 
 shrieking over a package she had got hold of. 
 Was it another German shop? No! It was a 
 French shop, this time, the shop of a French 
 grocer, who had asked thirty sous for some su- 
 gar priced fifteen sous the day before. 
 
 "Bien fait," was the cry, and there was the 
 woman who had begun the revolt, a notable fig- 
 ure with her grey hair and strong face set off 
 by hard grey eyes and tense mouth. "II a voulu 
 voler, lui." — **He wanted to rob, he did," she 
 cried. *'Why should he ask more for his sugar 
 to-day than he did yesterday, why twice as 
 much?" 
 
 I could not help smiling to myself. How long 
 would the vaunted "law of the market" stand 
 as law in these times? Clearly liberty to ask 
 what price you liked for your goods was not 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 115 
 
 going to survive long in France. If the state 
 protected the Banker, and held up the money, 
 the poor would not allow themselves to be 
 robbed to boot barefacedly. 
 
 An hour or two later we learned that an edict 
 had been issued by the Military Governor, that 
 all eatables were to be sold at the ordinary 
 price, which simply meant that from that time 
 on we got worse quality. The York ham sud- 
 denly became uneatable unless we were willing 
 to pay two prices for it. Evidently it is easier 
 to help the rich with "moratoria" than the poor 
 to food! 
 
 There is a keen sense of justice, however, 
 among these fine French people : "EUe a bien 
 fait'* was the verdict of the crowd on the wo- 
 man who would not be overcharged : — "she did 
 quite right !" 
 
 That evening I heard from a high official at 
 the Foreign Office that English co-operation 
 was certain — the world at war! 
 
 Next morning my barber became interesting. 
 He declared that the victory would be imme- 
 diate. It appeared there was a M. Turpin, the 
 inventor of Melinite, the most famous of explo- 
 sive powders. Now M. Turpin, according to 
 my barber, had invented an explosive still 
 more deadly, when a shell burst which con- 
 tained it, its fumes killed everyone within a 
 quarter of a mile. "If the Germans get that," 
 he said, "they will soon pelt back to Germany." 
 
 When I pressed him with questions, I found 
 
ii6 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 he knew little or nothing about the famous in- 
 ventor; but hoped the more . . . 
 
 Day after day, we heard of hotels closing and 
 restaurants shutting up, and theatres stopping, 
 though the Theatre Francais went on for about 
 a week. Paris was very dull throughout the 
 ten days of active mobilization; in a state of 
 suspended animation, so to speak, but excited 
 and suspicious as one little incident showed. 
 
 I met the postman at the lodge of the Con- 
 cierge about seven o'clock one evening. He 
 was telling eagerly how the German Manager 
 of the Astoria Hotel had been found sending 
 wireless telegrams to the Germans at Berlin, 
 and how he had been hanged outside his hotel. 
 The Hotel Astoria being only a few hundred 
 yards away, I hurried there to see if the news 
 were true. No sign of hanging, but after some 
 time I was told that the Manager had been ar- 
 rested, and had been taken away, but no one 
 knew what had become of him. 
 
 The first news that came to us from the out- 
 side was the invasion of Luxemburg, then the 
 Germans' attack on Liege and England's rea- 
 sons for joining the Allies. Sir Edward Grey 
 put his case excellently. England was com- 
 pelled to defend the neutrality of Belgium, an 
 engagement of honor, he said. And when Italy 
 refused to strike in with Germany on the 
 ground that Germany- Austria were the aggres- 
 sors, the case seemed complete. Germany was 
 to blame. Yet I knew of the envy underlying 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 117 
 
 the English action. Germany had become 
 great too quickly, a formidable rival to English 
 industry and commerce, and had provided her- 
 self with a fleet to boot, that was the real rea- 
 son why England drew the sword. 
 
 At first the censored war news was incredi- 
 bly good. The Belgians had thrown back the 
 Germans. The Germans were pouring through 
 Luxemburg; but had been checked at Liege. 
 Les braves Beiges had done wonders and there 
 was Namur behind, stronger still. Strangers 
 shook hands in the street, everyone was confi- 
 dent. 
 
 Day after day, news of French successes. 
 The French were pushing into Alsace; they 
 had taken Mulhouse; a few days later they 
 had won the mountain passes, had even reached 
 Mount Donon, and were ready to descend into 
 the plain before Strassburg. In Lorraine, too, 
 they were advancing victoriously: astounding 
 news! Were the French then exceptionally 
 brave or what could be the explanation of 
 their easy success! 
 
 Then less favorable news — the Germans at- 
 tacking Liege had entered the town. 
 
 The German Emperor was furious with Eng- 
 land it appeared, the German Chancellor too, 
 all raging against the hypocrisy of the English, 
 the people who had promised solemnly to give 
 up Egypt and to leave the Boer republics alone, 
 pretending to fight for a promise, for "a scrap 
 of paper." Mr. F. E. Smith, lawyer-like, paint- 
 
ii8 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 ed the lily by declaring that the "one thing 
 England stands for in the world is the sanc- 
 tity of a promise — England's word, her bond." 
 
 Then blow on blow,— the true truth! The 
 Germans had captured Liege, and flung the 
 Belgians aside. The Germans had entered 
 Brussels, and levied a war fine of ten millions, 
 sterling. Even more startling news followed. 
 
 The Belgian Army had fled to Antwerp ; four 
 German Armies were pushing through Belgium 
 toward the French frontier. 
 
 Then grimmer news still. The French ad- 
 vance in Alsace-Lorraine has been stopped, the 
 15th Army Corps having run away. It was 
 explained that they were made up of recruits 
 from the South — from Marseilles, Nice and 
 Toulon: — "Those wretched Southerners!" 
 
 Then came the French Censor's untimely 
 boast that the enemy was not on French soil, 
 and on top of that the news of the fighting at 
 Charleroi, and the retirement of the French 
 within their border. Then the English were 
 flung back from Mons. How many of them 
 nobody could say. Some said only two Army 
 Corps, others even less. The majority of well- 
 informed people seemed inclined to blame the 
 English for the reverse, declaring that there 
 ought to have been 250,000 English soldiers in 
 the line of battle, that the French had told the 
 English before the war that less than that num- 
 ber would be no good. It was plain that both 
 the French and English had been taken by 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? iig 
 
 surprise, outwitted and outnumbered and flung 
 back. The Allies are retreating. 
 
 Of course, the Censor told us that all this 
 "retiring" was "strategical," but the retiring 
 kept on from day to day at great speed. Opti- 
 mism vanished, one began to see that the Ger- 
 mans were doing great things, sweeping in like 
 a tidal wave, carrying everything before them. 
 To-day they were at Peronne, next day at St. 
 Quentin, the day after south of Compiegne. 
 Every day the beaten Allied Army came nearer 
 Paris at an extraordinary rate. Usually, 
 armies, when unopposed, move at about ten 
 miles a day. This army "retiring for strategi- 
 cal purposes," was hurrying at the rate of 
 twelve or fifteen miles a day. 
 
 Then came knots of English fugitives and 
 everybody began to rage against the paucity of 
 the news and the foolish verbal euphemisms of 
 the English press — all our retirings "strategi- 
 cal," practically "victories." We began to 
 doubt everything told us. 
 
 The stories of German atrocities grew with 
 the German successes and soon became wholly 
 incredible : German soldiers putting women in 
 front of them when marching to the attack — 
 worse than absurd. Lies, we told ourselves, in 
 war time become as plentiful as bullets, the 
 same English papers that had vilified the Boers, 
 declaring that a thousand of them would run 
 away from one English company, now called 
 the Germans "Huns" and "Savages." 
 
120 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 I recalled the universal verdict on the con- 
 duct of the Germans in the war of '70 ; no vic- 
 torious soldiers had ever conducted themselves 
 better. How could they have suddenly become 
 savages? All armies commit outrages occa- 
 sionally ; the English ought to know that better 
 than most nations. 
 
 How often is a prize fight fought perfectly 
 fairly? Yet there are always watchful eyes to 
 condemn unfairness and a referee to disqualify 
 for a foul. Like the English the Germans are 
 pedants and observe rules better than most 
 other races, even the rules of warfare. 
 
 The truth is that ordinary men want to be- 
 lieve evil about their enemies, and this credu- 
 lity produces atrocities as it once produced 
 miracles. The great German people distin- 
 guished from the time of Tacitus for their re- 
 spect for women, cannot suddenly, have 
 changed character. 
 
 News came of the destruction of Louvain. 
 There must have been good reason for it, we 
 said, just as we found there was a good reason 
 fot the running away of the 15th French Army 
 Corps. It appeared they had been led to a pla- 
 teau and a German airplane had swung over 
 and signaled their position. The plateau 
 turned out to be a glacis commanded by the 
 forts of New Brisach. In a moment there was 
 a terrific cross fire sweeping the plateau, a dev- 
 ilish hail of shrapnel. The 15th Army Corps 
 withered ; no soldiers could have sustained the 
 
ENCtLAND or GERMANY—? 121 
 
 shock. But their nerve even was not gone, for 
 a couple of days later, they fought as bravely 
 as ever, under a new Commander. 
 
 All this while Paris was becoming terribly 
 depressed. "It has gone badly with us," the 
 Parisians said, "and the Censor is afraid to tell 
 us the whole truth." This modern policy of 
 abolishing war correspondents is the worst pos- 
 sible policy. After all, when the war corre- 
 spondents were sending messages, war had its 
 compensations. We had dramatic stories that 
 fired the blood, stories of individual hardihood 
 or magnanimity or kindness, now nothing to 
 lift the spirit and reconcile one to the horrors 
 of the insane butchery. 
 
 All through those dreadful days, the conduct 
 and spirit of the Parisians held superbly ; they 
 even disciplined themselves to accept whatever 
 order was issued. The authorities were fright- 
 ened of a popular rising; they had not forgot- 
 ten the commune of '70. They ordered the res- 
 taurants to be closed at eight. All restaurants 
 were closed immediately. They warned against 
 crowds coming together in the streets, partic- 
 ularly at night. Parisians kept to their houses. 
 The French to-day are able to bear the worst. 
 "If the Germans can beat us," they said prac- 
 tically, "why they must, but we'll fight to the 
 end." 
 
 One instance of their cool self-control. It 
 became known that the great searchlight that 
 played over the Place de la Concorde every 
 
122 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 night was directed by Germans, the Parisians 
 smiled: "They are some good then." In '70 
 they would have cried, "Traitors," and gone 
 mad. 
 
 Suddenly came the news that the Premier, 
 Viviani, had resigned, the other ministers fol- 
 lowed suit, a new Ministry of the best of all 
 parties was being formed. Delcasse came back 
 to power and Ribot; Millerand as Minister of 
 War, and two Socialists, one of them de Guesde. 
 Clearly the authorities must be scared. The 
 new rulers brought out a new proclamation : — 
 they wished to unite all French parties in face 
 of the enemy ; this was to be a fight to a finish. 
 Everyone felt that the idea was a good one, but 
 thought that Clemenceau should have been in 
 the Ministry. Viviani had offered him a post, 
 it appeared, but not sufficient influence, per- 
 haps, and his vigorous criticism went on day 
 after day. 
 
 Then came a strange and characteristic story. 
 Long before this all the motor cars of rich peo- 
 ple had been commandeered for the Army. 
 Now the story went about that Messimy, the 
 late Minister of War, had lent out motor-cars 
 to his friends and that pretty girls, actresses 
 and music-hall celebrities had been figuring 
 about in grand cars commandeered'for the serv- 
 ice of the State. The Parisians laughed. The 
 story was characteristically French and . held 
 more than a kernel of truth. The most practi- 
 cal of the commandeered cars were put to use, 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 123 
 
 but all could not be used and a few were doubt- 
 less misused in the manner rumored. 
 
 The fact held a prodigous moral for me for I 
 knew how the Germans had provided them- 
 selves years before with the sort of motor-car 
 which they considered most useful. In 1909, I 
 think it was, motor-cabs were about to be 
 placed for hire on the streets in Berlin and other 
 German cities. There was some talk about the 
 matter in motoring circles at the time. The 
 German police, it appeared, had instituted very 
 precise regulations: in order to be licensed to 
 ply for hire the motor-cab had to fulfil certain 
 conditions : it had to be able to turn almost in 
 its own length ; the axles had to be of a certain 
 strength; the steering very simple; the con- 
 sumption of essence very small. Motorists 
 were astonished at some of the conditions. 
 The thought never entered our heads that these 
 conditions were instituted by the German Gen- 
 eral Staff in order to have at any given moment 
 an ample supply of cars suitable for military re- 
 quirements. At the outbreak of the war the 
 German Staff commandeered all these motor- 
 cabs and of some 80,000 found 50,000 in good 
 condition. These they used in Belgium for the 
 quicker transportation of men, food and muni- 
 tions of war. No wonder the German forces 
 are always more mobile than the French or 
 English or Russian forces. Success in war is 
 now as in business, a question of foresight and 
 organization. 
 
124 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Towards the end of the month, the first Ger- 
 man airplane sailed over Paris and dropped 
 two bombs. It did nothing but wound a wo- 
 man ; later ones killed women and children ; the 
 brutality called out the finest French spirit. 
 The practice seemed to me a mistake in judg- 
 ment even from the German point of view. 
 Why kill non-combatants needlessly? But the 
 French accepted it perfectly. "It is free to us 
 to do them the same injury," was all they said. 
 
 A few days later, I saw a German Taube 
 coming over and heard the dull report of a 
 bomb. A crowd of men and women in the 
 streets near the Gare St. Lazare all ran towards 
 the airplane out of sheer excitement to see 
 what would happen, though on all sides was 
 heard the crackling of rifles and apparently of 
 mitrailleuses from the Eiffel Tower trying to 
 bring down the German bird. These bombs 
 told us how near the Germans were to Paris, 
 and another fact enforced the lesson. 
 
 Next day we ran into an immense crowd of 
 people near St. Sulplice. 
 
 "Who are they," we asked. Country people 
 coming into Paris with their household goods 
 in their hands, fleeing before the Germans. 
 That evening there were thousands more of 
 them. The various mairies we learned were 
 snowed under. But the authorities were en- 
 couraged by the press and people to pass these 
 poor houseless folk on towards the South ; pas 
 de bouches inutiles (no useless mouths) was 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 125 
 
 the order of the day. Belated foreigners made 
 ready to leave Paris. 
 
 Then came the news that the Germans had 
 cut the line from Paris to Boulogne ; they were 
 in Amiens; no more trains that way. Then 
 the line from Paris to Dieppe was threatened. 
 Soldiers were parked in the Avenue du Bois; 
 barricades thrown up on the outer boulevards ; 
 all lights even street lamps put out at night. I 
 went to see Monsieur Deschanel, President of 
 the Chamber of Deputies and Academician as 
 well, and had an hour's talk with him and 
 learned the true state of affairs. 
 
 Monsieur Deschanel received me in his Pres- 
 ident's house just behind the War Office, a 
 charming dwelling set back with a great square 
 in front and a homely avenue of trees, an abode 
 one would have said of ancient peace. M. Des- 
 chanel is of middle height, an alert man of about 
 forty-five, with a fine head, bright eyes, keen 
 expression — a handsome man and a courteous. 
 He reminded me at the beginning that for 
 twenty years past he had labored constantly to 
 form the Triple Entente. I knew his writings 
 and admitted his foresight. Though we have 
 got war, he argued, and it seems to be going 
 against us, we have it under the most favora- 
 ble conditions possible. Germany and Austria 
 alone against us, and with us England and Rus- 
 sia, Belgium too, and the good will of Italy and 
 indeed of all civilized peoples. It is those 
 dreadful Krupp guns that have made the issue 
 
126 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 doubtful for the moment; but "only for the 
 moment," he was careful to add. 
 
 "Tell me about them," I entreated. 
 
 "We found out about them," he said, "at Na- 
 mur. Liege defended itself successfully at first 
 against the German attack, but as soon as the 
 Germans brought up their heavy guns, the po- 
 sition was carried. They are tremendous 
 weapons. One instance. Two forts at Namur 
 commanded the railway. We all felt sure that 
 it would take the Germans a month to reduce 
 them and capture Namur. That was the opin- 
 ion of our experts. But they got them in one 
 afternoon. The fire of the great Krupp guns 
 was terrific. The big shells went five or six 
 yards into the ground and blew the forts to 
 atoms; we have nothing round Paris to stop 
 them. 
 
 Altogether, M. Deschanel was depressing. 
 He saw, however, the brighter side as well. 
 
 "The decisive factors- are all in our favor," 
 he argued. "As we retreat the German line of 
 communication gets longer; their power 
 shrinks, while ours grows. The English are 
 doing all they can; the Russians, too; more 
 than we had even hoped. They are more suc- 
 cessful than we dreamed they would be so soon. 
 We must win finally, but we shall have to 
 abandon Paris." 
 
 "Abandon Paris," I cried; "what do you 
 mean?" 
 
 "The Government must go to Bordeaux. It 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 127 
 
 is going to-morrow or the next day. All ar- 
 rangements have been made." 
 
 "But surely," I said, "Paris will be able to 
 defend itself for some weeks or days?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not," he replied. "Those Krupp 
 guns have made all forts worthless. The Ger- 
 mans will be in Paris in a day or so. Paris is 
 lost. Who would have thought it? Who could 
 have imagined it?" And he moved about the 
 room restlessly. 
 
 "By going to Bordeaux, we want to tell our 
 people that we mean to fight to the last: the 
 taking of Paris even shall be only an incident 
 in the struggle." 
 
 "That is the proper spirit," I could not help 
 saying; "the spirit that the French troops 
 showed at Malplaquet, the determination never 
 to be beaten." 
 
 That same afternoon I saw regiment after 
 regiment of French soldiers marching down the 
 Champs Elysees. Everywhere sturdy figures 
 and cheerful faces; they made even the crowd 
 smile with their merry greetings, and in mind 
 one could not help contrasting them with that 
 army of 181 4 which Napoleon used to such pur- 
 pose against the invaders. In 1814 the French 
 army was made up almost exclusively of boys 
 from fifteen to eighteen and of men from fifty- 
 five to seventy. A noticeable fact, too — all 
 these conscript lads were already married. 
 France had given so many hundreds of tho'US- 
 ands of her best to Napoleon that she had only 
 
128 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 boys and old men left : but the dauntless French 
 spirit was there and its habit of blague: its 
 power of laughing at itself held in 1814 as in 
 1 914. Those conscript boys were called *'Marie 
 Louises" in contemptuous reference to the 
 Austrian queen. Yet at Montereau a month 
 later they swept through the German cavalry, 
 and won victory after victory over all their 
 foes. Would these stalwart cheery fellows do 
 as well ? "They have no Napoleon," I thought, 
 "but it is a warlike race." 
 
 Next morning at six o'clock amid a host of 
 fugitive French people fleeing for safety to 
 England, I saw my women folk off by the last 
 train that went through to Dieppe. With 
 passes they could not get seats even, but had 
 to stand in crowded third class carriages; but 
 still they got away, though they were not al- 
 lowed to take their trunks, but only hand lug- 
 gage. 
 
 I was rejoiced to see them off in safety. The 
 train, I learned, would take the whole day to 
 get to the coast ; they might be inconvenienced 
 and bored; but they would reach peace and 
 comfort on the morrow. 
 
 I intended to stay and see the Germans en- 
 ter Paris: that would be an historic event of 
 fateful significance. It occurred to me that it 
 might decide the issue of the war and practi- 
 cally end it. For the Germans could then bar- 
 gain with the French almost irresistibly: 
 "We'll give you back Paris and the north of 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 129 
 
 France," they might say, "even the French- 
 speaking communes of Alsace-Lorraine, if 
 you'll make a durable peace." How could the 
 French resist the bait? Their authorities said 
 they would, but I thought it too much to ex- 
 pect of human nature. 
 
 The very next day, I think, came the news 
 that the Allies had agreed not to make peace 
 separately: England beginning to realize her 
 danger. 
 
 I wanted to get to the front to see some of 
 the actual fighting ; but it was more advisable, 
 I decided, for the moment to stay in Paris and 
 watch events. 
 
 The next day I ran out to Chantilly in a mo- 
 tor-car and had numberless interesting exper- 
 iences. The road was crowded with country 
 people fleeing as from a fire, laden down with 
 their household belongings; all sorts of vehi- 
 cles, too, crowded the pave, from children's 
 go-carts piled high with odds and ends to hay- 
 wagons packed as for emigration. Here and 
 there in the crowd knots of English and French 
 soldiers who had got separated from their regi- 
 ments ; many of the English in especial, fagged 
 out by rapid marching and not enough rest — 
 one and all complaining of want of sleep — no 
 time to sleep. 
 
 Frenchmen of the middle-class related how 
 they had buried their silver and abandoned 
 their houses. One told us of receiving the even- 
 ing before a band of French soldiers among 
 
130 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 whom were a couple of English Tommies ; none 
 of them had washed for a week, or had had any 
 sleep. He took them into his barn and shook 
 down hay for them. Before he had finished 
 they were all asleep and this morning they 
 washed. "You should have seen the dirt- 
 poor devils — war is hell!" 
 
 Everyone I asked had the same answer. 
 "The Germans outnumbered us, outflanked us ; 
 we had to get back as hard as we could." 
 What would be the next move? 
 
 I felt certain Paris would be taken; but I 
 couldn't understand the Germans giving the 
 beaten enemy even one day to rest and recup- 
 erate. But all that day Von Kluck appeared 
 to be resting on his laurels. Next morning in 
 Paris I heard that Von Kluck was sweeping 
 round to the South and East. What on earth 
 for? Everyone, who knew anything, was 
 amazed. Some spoke of Paris being too strong 
 to take, too big to occupy. Then we heard all 
 sorts of wild explanations, none of which would 
 have satisfied a child. 
 
 Next day or the day after, we heard that 
 Von Kluck with his staff was at Sezanne many 
 miles to the East and South of Paris. His 
 whole army of over 250,000 men had swept 
 around Paris, leaving the city untouched, un- 
 masked, unwatched! What did it all mean? 
 
 Again I got out in a friend's motor-car and 
 ran down towards Coulommiers where we were 
 headed off by French troops and sent back. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 131 
 
 One thing was certain : Paris was not going to 
 be taken. The Germans had given up the 
 greatest prize in the war! What was the ex- 
 planation ? I had to wait weeks before I heard 
 the true story, which I shall tell later. 
 
 The moral of events, so far, seems clear. The 
 German organization for war was enormously 
 superior to the French as everyone should have 
 guessed it would be. Anyone who knows the 
 French post office, knows how inferior it is in 
 organization to the German post office. 
 
 The French organization of industry is in- 
 ferior even to the English. The French people 
 are greater individualists, less disciplined than 
 the English people, therefore, the State organi- 
 zations are not so efficient. 
 
 M. Barres, the Deputy and Academician, 
 writing in the "Echo de Paris" the other day, 
 admitted that their weakness in organization 
 was the French "sin against the Spirit" which 
 would have to be altered in the future. 
 
 And the English post office is not so efficient 
 as the German post office, is indeed a mere copy 
 of the German as organized by Herr Stepan. 
 Accordingly, German mobilization was far 
 more efficient than French mobilization; the 
 French, too, were hypnotized by the idea of 
 Alsace-Lorraine and the war of '70, and sent 
 all their best troops to that frontier. They did 
 not foresee the attack through Belgium, and 
 even when Liege was taken they were slow to 
 wheel about and face the real invasion by Char- 
 
132 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 leroi and Maubeuge and Longwy. They were 
 manifestly not prepared to resist properly the 
 attack through Belgium. They had been out- 
 manoeuvered. 
 
 Never before has such a feat of arms been 
 accomplished. In a month the Germans tossed 
 the Belgians aside, drove back the English 
 and French, and with unparalleled speed rushed 
 right to the gates of Paris ! Why they did not 
 take Paris remains to be explained. One thing 
 seems pretty sure: had the Russians not acted 
 with at least equal promptitude, it seems prob- 
 able that the tidal wave of German invasion 
 would have swept over Paris and taken all the 
 strong places on the Eastern frontier as well. 
 But how came the Russians to be so ready? 
 Their mobilization must have begun months 
 before we heard of it. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Censorship and Its Effects 
 
 For the first time in history hostile forces 
 have been opposed over a battle front of some 
 three hundred miles and neither side has gained 
 any definite advantage in seven months of con- 
 tinual fighting. There must be some explana- 
 tion of this extraordinary occurrence. 
 
 It is true that outflanking is impossible, for 
 one end of the far flung line rests on Switzer- 
 land, a neutral country, and the other on the 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 133 
 
 sea. It is the fact, too, that the numbers of 
 men engaged on each side are greater than ever 
 before ; but such a deadlock has never presented 
 itself in the past even on a small scale and it 
 is therefore certain that some new factor or 
 factors must have entered into the usual war 
 problem and altered its very nature. 
 
 The battle of Waterloo, like that of Grave- 
 lotte, lasted a day; some encounters in the 
 Russo-Japanese war were not decided for sev- 
 eral days ; but it is unheard of to get no result 
 in seven months' struggling. 
 
 What is the explanation of the deadlock? 
 
 The only new factors so far as I can see are 
 the action of airplanes and the fact that the 
 war news now is being censored. 
 
 The first of these, the action of air-planes, 
 may be summarily dismissed. In ordinary 
 weather these aerial scouts inform Generals of 
 any new massing of troops or any concentra- 
 tion of force on a large scale, and so tend to 
 simplify strategy and tactics. But the simpli- 
 fication of war must tend rather to increase 
 than diminish boldness in attack. It is the un- 
 known that paralyzes action, and so the knowl- 
 edge brought by air-planes would be apt to has- 
 ten rather than retard the final issue. 
 
 At first blush the censorship would seem to 
 have still less than air-planes to do with the 
 fighting ; how can the censor be made responsi- 
 ble for the perpetual stalemate of drawn bat- 
 tles? 
 
134 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 First let us recall how the censor came into 
 being and what his true function is. It hap- 
 pened, I believe, once in the Franco-German 
 war of 1870 that news had been telegraphed by 
 a correspondent with the German army to Lon- 
 don and from there rewired to Paris and the 
 front in time to convey valuable information to 
 the French commander in the field. Clearly 
 such an occurrence is very exceptional and 
 could easily be guarded against and rendered 
 impossible. 
 
 In the South African war, where no similar 
 occurrences were to be feared, the censorship 
 was made rigorous and the war correspondent 
 practically muzzled for the first time. The co- 
 lonial correspondents complained bitterly of 
 the want of reason in the restrictions put upon 
 them ; some of the London papers followed suit. 
 The worst blunders were ascribed to the fact 
 that the censor was Lord Stanley, a man of 
 quick temper and an overweening sense of his 
 own importance ; and it was hoped that a new 
 censor would be more reasonable. But after 
 Lord Kitchener had taken the place of Lord 
 Roberts and the Boer army had been dispersed, 
 when there was no longer any excuse whatever 
 for censoring the news, every message was cen- 
 sored more rigorously than ever. 
 
 What was the reason of this new departure? 
 The newspapers grumbled ; the correspondents 
 threw up their places and returned home in in- 
 dignation. Lord Kitchener, however, stuck to 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 135 
 
 his methods; and it seems to me that there is 
 only one possible explanation of his resolve; 
 he didn't intend to have his Paardebergs de- 
 scribed or his policy of ''block houses" and 
 "concentration camps" freely criticised, and 
 from his point of view he was justified. 
 
 To the muzzling of the British press must be 
 ascribed the fact that he returned from the war 
 with reputation hardly diminished, though he 
 had been beaten to a standstill in the only bat- 
 tle he had fought, and beaten in spite of an 
 overwhelming superiority in numbers. Be- 
 sides, he had utterly failed with 400,000 men at 
 his command to round up or drive out the hand- 
 ful of Boers, with amateur commanders, who 
 kept the field against him for over a year. 
 
 The full significance of this experience will 
 be seen later. It is enough now to state that 
 the English were the first people who, without 
 any reason whatever, established a censorship 
 so complete that only such news was allowed 
 to be published as suited the commander in 
 chief at the front. 
 
 The dislike of free speech is one of the most 
 curious and most characteristic facts in later 
 English history; it is found all through their 
 home policy. By a series of the most astonish- 
 ing libel laws ever framed they have muzzled 
 their whole press and have driven truth out of 
 public life. They have choked all valuable crit- 
 icism to silence ; their newspapers can do noth- 
 ing but praise. There is now no such thing 33 
 
136 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 free speech possible in Great Britain. The 
 American war-correspondent, Mr. Emerson, 
 recently informed me that of 87 cablegrams 
 sent by him from Berlin in the early months of 
 the war, to New York papers, 83 were sup- 
 pressed altogether by the English censor, and 
 of the four allowed to go through, one was so 
 altered that the meaning of it was entirely 
 changed. Manifestly, the English regard the 
 truth as likely to injure even Americans. The 
 rigorous censoring of war correspondence has 
 come from England and is a peculiarly English 
 trait. 
 
 In the war waged between Turkey and 
 Greece war correspondents were reinstated to 
 a certain extent and they did excellent service 
 in restraining Turkish vindictiveness and bet- 
 ter work still when they exposed the atrocities 
 practised by the Japanese in their war with 
 China. 
 
 Probably for this reason in the Russo-Japan- 
 ese war the Japanese took a leaf out of the 
 English book and turned all the war corre- 
 spondents into humble eulogists of the general 
 officers and commanders in the field. Criticism 
 ceased, fair statement was taboo, hymns of 
 praise and paeans of eulogy were alone granted 
 the privilege of transmission. We learned that 
 the Japs were braver than any Europeans, more 
 learned than Germans, more considerate than 
 Sisters of Mercy. In fact, if it had not been for 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 137 
 
 the Japanese themselves their soldiers might 
 have been thought worthy of beatification. 
 
 As it is they have told us with what unholy 
 glee they torpedoed unsuspecting Russian war- 
 ships in the harbor of Port Arthur before it 
 was possible for their foes to have heard of the 
 declaration of war and by this exultant treach- 
 ery, they confirmed the opinion formed of them 
 when in the first siege of Port Arthur they 
 were proved to have ripped open pregnant wo- 
 men and skewered babies on their bayonets. 
 It was the European war correspondents, and 
 notably the English, who first exposed and so 
 put an end to such devilish cruelties. 
 
 At present, thanks to the English hatred of 
 citicism, humanity has no such efficient pro- 
 tection. It is one of the strange anomalies 
 of our life that the individual Englishman may 
 be trusted to tell the truth more exactly than 
 most other men if he is allowed to, whereas his 
 Government hates truth more than any other 
 Government and has by law turned the speak- 
 ing of truth into a crime. This is one of the 
 consequences of government by oligarchy in 
 these democratic days. 
 
 The dislike of criticism and the hatred of 
 truth embodied in the modern censorship of 
 war correspondents have the most serious re- 
 sults on the efficiency of armies in the field. 
 Let me now try to prove this. 
 
 First of all, war is not a difficult or profound 
 
138 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 science and in times of peace the vast majority 
 of Generals are men of the most mediocre abil- 
 ity. Both these propositions must be proved 
 and must be regarded as axioms before the ef- 
 fect of modern censorship can be understood. 
 
 All other professions and trades are better 
 officered than the fighting services. Men often 
 poke fun at the pret-nsions of surgeons ; but no 
 one without long study would dream of trying 
 to cut out stone in the bladder or cataract in 
 the eye, for example. Even a man of the high- 
 est and most extraordinary genius would ad- 
 mit that an ordinary surgeon would beat him 
 at such a feat. But again and again civilians 
 have gone into the field, taken over the com- 
 mand of armies and beaten experienced and 
 war-worn Generals at their own game. 
 
 Cromwell had never been trained to arms; 
 yet he beat Gen. Leslie and Prince Rupert, who 
 had European reputations; Clive and Charles 
 XII had scarcely seen a blow struck in anger, 
 yet they proved themselves commanders of the 
 first class, as did Frederick the Great after a 
 single battle. In no other profession could an 
 unlearned outsider beat the masters of the 
 craft. 
 
 This is the most astounding fact in the his- 
 tory of all war. Five hundred years ago Swiss 
 levies led by untrained civilians beat the best 
 troops in Europe commanded by renowned 
 Generals; in our own times De Wet, Delarey 
 and Botha with untrained Boer farmers took 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 139 
 
 the field against trained British arxnies and beat 
 them again and again at odds of three to one ; 
 the farmers at New Orleans in 1814 found no 
 difficulty in defeating veteran English soldiers 
 who had won fame by driving Napoleon's arm- 
 ies out of the Peninsula. 
 
 These facts can only be understood when we 
 realize that war, as Tolstoy tried to show, is 
 not a science at all, but a very simple business, 
 and that most Generals are utter mediocrities, 
 without insight or initiative. 
 
 How does a man become a General in times 
 of peace? By obeying rules unhesitatingly, 
 whether good or bad, and by an amiable "sub- 
 servience," shall we call it, or servility? to his 
 superiors in rank. 
 
 But these are the attributes of mediocrity. 
 In any ordinary business these lickspittling 
 qualities help a man on, but he is always being 
 judged by results as well. The head of a de- 
 partment store knows by the results whether 
 his assistant is a good salesman and organizer 
 or not, but the Captain or Colonel in times of 
 peace is subjected to no test whatever. 
 
 Another point to be borne in mind. Genius 
 is notoriously undisciplined and indocile. The 
 man of commanding ability in any walk of life 
 always revolts and breaks out a new way for 
 himself. He has no chance with the mediocrity 
 in climbing slowly grade by grade where he 
 cannot prove himself. Genius therefore leaves 
 the army. War is the simplest of games, and in 
 
140 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 times of peace and, indeed, in spite of such ex- 
 perience as is afforded by short wars the vast 
 majority of Generals are almost inevitably men 
 of most mediocre ability. 
 
 That is the simple reason why commanding 
 officers usually detest criticism and are de- 
 lighted to guard themselves against it by rig- 
 orous censorship. Now consider how this af- 
 fects the conduct of war. Put yourself in the 
 place of the mediocrity who has become com- 
 mander-in-chief of an army in the ordinary 
 way. 
 
 First of all your General French or Joffre is 
 usually far past his best ; he may indeed be 70, 
 like General Pau; he is almost certain to be 
 well over 60, like General Joffre and French; 
 age-worn and cautious. Besides, being a me- 
 diocrity he wants first of all to keep his job; 
 he is conscious at bottom of his own weakness 
 and shortcomings and accordingly he risks 
 nothing and adventures as little as possible. 
 With such cautious leaders you have the result 
 now before you in France, a complete dead- 
 lock. 
 
 But rigorous censorship has even worse ef- 
 fects than this. There is nothing mediocrity 
 and age dislike so much as genius and bold ini- 
 tiative. The pompous, footling old General se- 
 lects his most mediocre assistants for praise. 
 He thus protects his own weakness from dis- 
 covery by making his successors even feebler 
 than himself. And so you have French prais- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 141 
 
 ing Smith-Dorrien and Joffre lauding Pau — 
 shallow echoing shallow. 
 
 But after all it will be said the German army 
 is suffering from the same disease. They, too, 
 have established a censor, but no one who 
 compares can doubt the fact that the German 
 news is infinitely fuller and fairer than English 
 or French news. The German papers have 
 published detailed accounts of German defeats 
 or checks. In consequence of frank criticism 
 Generals have been retired. Even the great 
 name of Von Moltke has not protected him 
 from condemnation. 
 
 The Germans have allowed even American 
 correspondents, like James Bennett and Irvin 
 Cobb, to go everywhere they liked in "devas- 
 tated Belgium" and tell the truth as they saw 
 it unconstrained. Consequently we have Mr. 
 Bennett proving that Sir A. Conan Doyle's ac- 
 count of German "atrocities" and German 
 "murders'* are mostly foul imaginings. Mr. 
 Bennett has seen whatever he wanted to see 
 without let or hindrance, and he shows that the 
 stories of the wrecking of Louvain, for exam- 
 ple, are wild exaggerations; more than three- 
 quarters of the town standing to-day uninjured. 
 
 Think of the ineptitude which made the Eng- 
 lish censor, F. E. Smith, famous. The message 
 came from a correspondent with the English 
 force early in August. It ran : 
 
 "We landed at (name of place cen- 
 sored) and were taken seventy miles up the 
 
142 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 River (name of river censored) to — 
 
 (name of place censored)." 
 
 Evidently F. E. Smith knew nothing about 
 the Seine. He made his tenure of office memo- 
 rable by blocking out the names of the towns 
 on picture postcards. 
 
 The German censor is not so ignorant or 
 so anxious to avoid the truth. Moreover, the 
 Germans have constant criticism from above — 
 the Kaiser is worth a good many war corre- 
 spondents to them, and so is the Crown Prince. 
 The princes, too, of Bavaria and Saxony, Baden 
 and Wurtemburg are not mere onlookers. The 
 criticism of Vv^ar correspondents is not so nec- 
 essary to the Germans as it is to the Allies; 
 yet one finds frank criticism of German Gen- 
 erals in German papers and frank exposure of 
 blunders and reverses such as would not be 
 tolerated for a moment in any English or even 
 French paper. 
 
 From the beginning the German leaders have 
 shown some initiative and attack. They have 
 been trained in the school of Moltke ; they have 
 inherited his spirit and precepts. Besides, in 
 every department of German life, even in the 
 German army, there is a desire for efficiency, 
 a longing not only to keep your job, but to do 
 it. The German captains have proved them- 
 selves the superiors of the French and Eng- 
 lish captains. Now having won more than they 
 want or even desire to keep, it is the cue of the 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 143 
 
 German Generals to stand on the defensive and 
 let the Allies break themselves in attack. 
 
 All through these last six months Joffre and 
 French should have been attacking night and 
 day resolutely ; bad weather is their friend and 
 ally; they are fighting at home; behind them 
 millions of French homes, French love, French 
 tendance. Behind the Germans a hostile peo- 
 ple and the coldest of cold comfort. Still the 
 French and English do nothing; they are as 
 plainly outgeneralled now as they were at the 
 beginning of the war. Joffre and French would 
 long ago have been detected and exposed and 
 relieved of their positions if they had been sub- 
 jected to the criticism of young and independ- 
 ent war correspondents. 
 
 The French came too late to Charleroi, the 
 English too late to Mons, and both with ludi- 
 crously insufficient forces; they were both 
 whipped immediately and beaten back; they 
 couldn't even put up a decent fight or hold the 
 Germans for a day anywhere. They were 
 driven like sheep back and back to Paris. 
 
 Then, it is true, came a German check, which 
 hasn't yet been explained, or rather, which has 
 been explained, thanks to the censorship, alto- 
 gether wrongly, and turned to praise of Joffre, 
 French and company, who certainly never de- 
 served the honor. If you doubt that, consider 
 what they have done in the last six months. 
 What has become of Joffre-French's celebrated 
 
144 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 offensive movement which was to take place 
 early in December? 
 
 Now Kitchener talks of the war as about to 
 begin in May? That is, he hopes that in May 
 the Russians will take the offensive in over- 
 whelming numbers. But he is doomed to dis- 
 appointment in May as in December. 
 
 The first Russian armies are far the best, the 
 hordes that can be brought up next May will 
 be incredibly stupid and only half trained, 
 whereas the Germans will maintain their high 
 standard of efficiency. The Germans will prob- 
 ably beat the Russians next summer more eas- 
 ily than they have beaten them hitherto; they 
 will certainly hold them with a carefully 
 chosen line of intrenchments, as they now hold 
 the French and English. 
 
 What then is to be done ? The best hope for 
 the Allies is to get rid at once of the censor- 
 ship which is needed to protect English com- 
 mercial "graft" and the English oligarchy who 
 only want to live without work on other men's 
 labors. 
 
 With the advent of real war correspondents 
 a breath of fresh air would come into the whole 
 conduct of the war. 
 
 Genius welcomes criticism; the more the 
 merrier, the higher the better. "Come look 
 what I'm doing," it cries fearlessly, knowing 
 that truth must help it and that in an open 
 struggle between truth and falsehood, truth has 
 nothing to fear. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 145 
 
 Efficiency longs for criticism ; the more com- 
 petent the better; it is only inefficiency that 
 dreads and avoids it; dishonesty that seeks to 
 stifle it. 
 
 The English, as is their modern wont, are 
 playing ostrich; with their heads in the bush 
 they hope everything from time and the chap- 
 ter of accidents. Meanwhile their much be- 
 praised organizer, Lord Kitchener, has come to 
 grief as I predicted he would. In spite of their 
 ;vealth the English are so scantily supplied with 
 munitions of war that "The Times" talks of the 
 "scandal," and attributes the shortage to the 
 "muddling" and want of "ordinary foresight" in 
 the "professional soldiers" in charge of the war- 
 office. However, as the war is not being waged 
 in England, they can regard the sufferings of 
 the French and Belgians with that comparative 
 equanimity which La Rochefoucauld describes. 
 
 But France should tear off the blinkers ; war 
 is no game of blind man's buff ; one-twelfth of 
 their country is in the hands of the invaders, 
 and a very rich twelfth. Already it is calcu- 
 lated that the devastation of these northern 
 departments has cost France fifty milliards of 
 francs, or ten times as much as the war indem- 
 nity levied by the Germans in 1871. Ten bil- 
 lions of dollars they have already had to pay 
 for their want of efficient organization and their 
 credulous trust in the promised help of England 
 and the silly censorship. If they follow the evil 
 example of England and keep out the frank 
 
146 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 criticism of war correspondents their weak 
 generals may yet cost them Paris, and perhaps 
 even more. 
 
 How long will this brave and quick-witted 
 people trust to darkness and blind guides when 
 their one hope is in their quick, clear vision of 
 the actual. Let them leave England to official 
 lies, and the official belief "we shall muddle 
 through as usual somehow or other"; they 
 must face the light and truth ; their one chance, 
 I will not say of victory, but of freeing French 
 soil from the invader, is to know the facts and 
 face the facts fairly, relying on themselves 
 alone. 
 
 Why should the French democracy imitate 
 the corrupt methods by which the English and 
 Russian oligarchies maintain themselves as 
 perpetual pensioners of the State, parasites on 
 the body politic? 
 
 I am delighted to see that Clemenceau, one 
 of the ablest heads in France, is now leading 
 the newspaper revolt against the idiotic cen- 
 sorship so beloved by the Generals. Clemen- 
 ceau is beginning to realize that Joffre, French 
 and company are not likely to do much if left 
 to their own devices. But it will be very diffi- 
 cult, indeed, for the French to win truth to their 
 side and use it while their allies, the English, 
 are determined to cover all their sins of omis- 
 sion and commission with silence. 
 
 The reign of the mediocrities has been estab- 
 lished, and as there are a thousand mediocri- 
 
. ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 147 
 
 ties for every man of genius or lover of effi- 
 ciency, the reign of stupidity is likely to con- 
 tinue. 
 
 Poor Clemenceau has already found out how 
 strong it is: he is a patriot to the backbone, 
 who loves France with all his heart and mind 
 and soul; but alas! he is a man of real talent 
 and unselfishness; he would not accept a post 
 in the French Ministry though it was pressed 
 upon him and accordingly the Vivianis and 
 Millerands suppressed his paper "L'Homme 
 Libre" (The Freeman) in the second month of 
 the war because they couldn't stand frank crit- 
 icism. It is true Clemenceau immediately 
 brought out "L'Homme Enchaine" (The Muz- 
 zled Man) and went on boldly ; but England is 
 behind the Vivianis and the Frenches and the 
 Joffres and England is resolved that no breath 
 of truth shall dissipate the heavy mists that 
 now shroud the battle line from view. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Who Will Win in the War? 
 Why Von Kluck Did Not Take Paris. 
 
 Nearly all Americans are prepossessed in fa- 
 vor of the Allies; but in spite of this, in the 
 back of their minds, so to speak, there is a cer- 
 tain fairness and a desire to know the truth. 
 
 On certain matters they are already begin- 
 ning to be at sharp variance with the English. 
 
148 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Thanks to American correspondents who have 
 been allowed by the Germans comjlete free- 
 dom to see and state the facts ; correspondents 
 of ability and character like James Bennett and 
 Irvin Cobb, Americans no longer believe in the 
 baser stories of German atrocities and German 
 vandalism. Mr. Bennett in particular does not 
 hesitate to characterize the wild imaginings of 
 Conan Doyle as "slanderous inventions," false- 
 hoods bred of credulity. 
 
 When we all believe with Messrs. Bennett, 
 Thompson, McCutcheon and Cobb that the 
 Germans have waged war like civilized human 
 beings, that their soldiers have been "severe 
 but not ruthless" in Belgium even when dealing 
 with francs-tireurs, and have shown the ordi- 
 nary inhabitants almost invariably kindness 
 and courtesy "and have taken all care not to de- 
 stroy cathedrals or works of art," we are com- 
 ing near the frame of mind which will allow us 
 to see facts fairly and to weigh scrupulously 
 the various factors which make for failure and 
 success in this war. Up to the present Ameri- 
 cans have believed that the Germans "wiped 
 out" Louvain and maliciously or callously de- 
 stroyed the Cathedral of Rheims. When they 
 understand that they have been misled in these 
 matters they will be more ready to reconsider 
 their belief that the issue of the war is certain 
 and that "the Allies must win." For belief 
 comes from the heart rather than from the 
 head; our feelings of sympathy and repulsion 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 149 
 
 color our thoughts and lend a bias to what 
 should be purely intellectual deductions. 
 
 Roughly speaking, Americans have decided 
 that the Allies must win because they outnum- 
 ber the Germans and Austrians by three to one 
 and because their material resources are 
 greater in much the same ratio. The Germans, 
 they say, gained an advantage in the beginning 
 by virtue of superior organization, but their 
 first drive failed to reach Paris and ended in 
 the defeat of the Marne and in time they must 
 be worn down and forced to give in. 
 
 I shall consider these reasons in due order, 
 but there is one new factor in this war which 
 tends to justify the ordinary American belief 
 and I shall therefore take it first. 
 
 Veteran soldiers are not thinkable in modern 
 war. When armies fought in summer time and 
 in winter rested and recuperated in snug quar- 
 ters, soldiers gradually became seasoned veter- 
 ans ; but now that fighting is continuous winter 
 and summer alike, and even by night as well as 
 by day, man*s nerves soon get frayed out. 
 Flesh and blood cannot support the strain of 
 the perpetual struggle and hardships, to say 
 nothing of the mad excitement, the unexpected 
 attacks of airplanes, the nerve shattering noise 
 of shells containing 800 pounds of high explo- 
 sives and all the terrible sights, sounds and 
 smells of modern war. 
 
 A German staff officer who had been through 
 the siege of Paris in 1870 confessed to me once 
 
150 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 that the German army round Paris had grown 
 stale before the capital surrendered. Fresh 
 regiments had to be brought up to "stiffen," as 
 he expressed it, the fighting line. This stiffen- 
 ing process is now more than ever necessary. 
 
 The limit of human endurance is soon 
 reached, fresh troops are continually needed on 
 both sides to strengthen the attack, and as the 
 Allies, it is thought, can more easily find new 
 forces it seems reasonable to expect that they 
 must ultimately be victorious. 
 
 This reasoning, it seems to me, is founded 
 on a misconception. The chief advantage which 
 the Germans possessed over their adversaries, 
 according to the Kaiser, was speed of mobili- 
 zation. Their main desire was, of course, to 
 wage war in the enemies' countries and thus 
 inflict the chief loss and damage on their foes. 
 The German plan, therefore, was in the first 
 weeks of war to overrun Belgium and invade 
 France and Russian Poland in such a way as 
 to be able to hold portions of both countries 
 almost indefinitely, and this project was car- 
 ried out with more or less success. 
 
 The common American belief that Generals 
 Joffre and French put their heads together and 
 stopped the German drive at the gates of Paris 
 and threw the invader back defeated is mani- 
 festly mistaken. The fact is that the German 
 drive did not stop at Paris, but turned aside 
 from it and continued on down to the south 
 and east. Von Kluck reached Coulommiers 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 151 
 
 and Sezanne before halting and the question 
 imposes itself, why did he turn aside from 
 Paris ? 
 
 I was in Paris during those early days of 
 September and followed the movements of the 
 armies as closely as possible. The first thing 
 that put me on the right scent was a talk I had 
 with M. Deschanel, who told me the Govern- 
 ment was on the point of leaving Paris and go- 
 ing to Bordeaux. 
 
 Clearly, the French Government wouldn't 
 have gone to Bordeaux had they not believed 
 that Paris would be taken or was in imminent 
 danger of being taken. Why then did Von 
 Kluck spare the capital and rush past to the 
 south and east? 
 
 As no satisfactory explanation of the fact has 
 yet been offered I must give the one which I 
 pieced together for myself from a multitude of 
 data derived from German papers as well as 
 from French and believe to be true. 
 
 Five German armies of over 150,000 men each 
 and supported by as many more, were devoted 
 to the invasion of France; four were to come 
 through Belgium, and the fifth, commanded by 
 the Crown Prince in person, was to enter by 
 the corner near Luxemburg or through the 
 Duchy. The Crown Prince decided to skirt 
 Luxemburg and found in his path the frontier 
 village of Longwy and its antiquated defences. 
 But the commander of Longwy was a French- 
 man of the heroic sort; at the outset he re- 
 
152 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 solved to defend Longwy as if the outcome of 
 the whole war depended on its holding out to 
 the last hour. 
 
 Accordingly, he worked day and night min- 
 ing the ground for miles in front of the fort 
 where he ensconced himself like an old spider 
 waiting for the flies. When the Crown Prince's 
 men entered the field to the northeast of the 
 village he blew up some thousands of them and 
 the rest bolted back in confusion; when they 
 attacked from the southeast the same thing 
 happened ; in fine, Longwy held up the Crown 
 Prince and his army of 150,000 men for ten 
 days ; ten days during which he heard of noth- 
 ing but German successes: how Liege was 
 taken and Namur and Brussels put to ransom. 
 But though he raged at being stopped he could 
 not help congratulating the French commander 
 of Longwy on his magnificent defence. 
 
 Meanwhile Gen. Pau in command of the 
 main French army in Alsace-Lorraine had at 
 length become aware that Longwy was doing 
 wonders and deserved support; he detached a 
 couple of army corps to help in its defence. 
 They came too late to save the village; but 
 curiously enough they did more and better 
 than if they had arrived in time. 
 
 When the Crown Prince was preparing to 
 advance after the surrender of Longwy he 
 was told of this new French force; here was 
 the opportunity he desired; he threw himself 
 on the two French corps, overwhelmed them 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 153 
 
 and drove them from the field. Naturally, they 
 retreated along the road to the south by which 
 they had come and the impetuous Prince fol- 
 lowed hotfoot, striking, striking, hoping to an- 
 nihilate, and at length got down to the south 
 of the Argonne forest between Verdun and 
 Toul to St. Mihiel. 
 
 There Pau with the flood of reinforcements 
 coming from the south stopped and held him 
 and fortified the forest in his flank and rear. 
 The fifth German army was caught as in a 
 trap. By this time Von Kluck and the first 
 three armies had got within striking distance 
 of Paris ; but the fourth German army had been 
 delayed at Maubeuge and the fifth German 
 army was enmeshed at St. Mihiel. 
 
 A German Sedan was not to be thought of; 
 Von Kluck was ordered by the Emperor to ex- 
 tricate the Crown Prince ; that was why he left 
 Paris on his right and drove down to the south- 
 east to Coulommiers and Sezanne. By this 
 movement Pau's enveloping army was endan- 
 gered and had to retreat. The Crown Prince 
 was free. At once Von Kluck retreated to the 
 line just north of Soissons-Rheims, which had 
 already been chosen and partially entrenched. 
 
 The so-called victory of the Allies on the 
 Marne, of which so much has been made, was 
 no victory in any real sense of the word; the 
 Germans had to retire to a defensible line and 
 had begun to retire before the French and Eng- 
 lish attacked. In fact the French and English 
 
154 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 had to rest before they could think of attacking. 
 
 For the last six months the Germans have 
 held without much difficulty all Belgium, one- 
 twelfth of France and a great slice of Russian 
 Poland; everywhere they are in a position of 
 vantage, for though the English hold the seas 
 they have not been able so far to blockade Ger- 
 many or to cripple her for want of necessary 
 war material, such as copper, nitrate or rubber. 
 German finances, too, are in a far better posi- 
 tion than any one would have predicted they 
 would be nine months ago. German 3 per cents 
 which stood at 80 at the beginning of the war, 
 are now about 68, while English Consols which 
 stood above 70 then are now about 62. For 
 various reasons this is not as valuable an in- 
 dex as it would be if the stock exchanges had 
 been left free. 
 
 Is there any reason for thinking that the next 
 six months, or twelve months, or forty months, 
 for that matter, will bring about a reversal of 
 the verdict? 
 
 The truth is the Germans have succeeded so 
 far because their organization was and is far 
 superior to that of any or of all the Allies. And 
 most people overlook the fact that this superi- 
 ority remains constant, or indeed, increases by 
 comparison as time goes on. 
 
 The German war machine is so perfect that 
 the next six or eight millions of soldiers will 
 be just as efficient as the four or five millions 
 who have borne the brunt up to now. As the 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 155 
 
 Belgian and Servian forces have practically 
 been used up, the superiority of the Germans 
 in the field is likely to be maintained. The 
 truth is the French and Germans are the only 
 forces in the field whose efficiency may increase 
 rather than diminish. 
 
 But other factors may be brought into the 
 account, which will alter everything. 
 
 The advent of Turkey into the field has al- 
 ready affected the conditions of the war and is 
 at once a tribute to the splendid fighting power 
 of the Germans and the cleverness of German 
 diplomacy. The Turks believed that the Ger- 
 mans were going to win or they would never 
 have imperilled their very existence by begin- 
 ning hostilities. Of course it was clear to them 
 that if the Allies won they would sooner or 
 later be at the mercy of Russia, and a dozen 
 wars have taught them what they would have 
 to expect from the Slav. 
 
 The support of Turkey brought some imme- 
 diate relief to Germany ; Turkey is threatening 
 Russia in the Black Sea and in Asia Minor and 
 the English in Egypt, and both countries have 
 had to defend themselves against this new foe. 
 
 Moreover, if Germany has been able to de- 
 tach Turkey from her secular allegiance to 
 Great Britain, why should she not also win the 
 active support of Italy? The value of Italy has 
 gone up enormously in the last three months; 
 Italy can put a million of men in the field at 
 once and support that million with another mil- 
 
156 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 lion of reservists, and her fleet, too, is worth 
 considering. 
 
 Her participation in the war on the side of 
 Germany would equalize the struggle. The 
 question for Italy is. Which of the combatants 
 will give the higher price? Italy wants Trieste 
 and the Trentino from Austria, and Savoy and 
 Nice from France. Austria is unwilling to part 
 with the great port of Trieste and France can- 
 not bear to give up Savoy and Nice, which are 
 now French to the heart. Hence the neutrality 
 of Italy. 
 
 But how long will Italy sit on the fence? All 
 the factors here are in favor of the Allies: 
 Italy hates Austria and would much prefer 
 Trieste and the Trentino and ports in Albania 
 to Savoy and Nice; Italy has more to fear too 
 from the fleets of the Allies bombarding her 
 coast towns than from an invasion by Austria. 
 To judge by the outbursts of popular feeling 
 in Italy, it is probable that Italy will take the 
 field against her former allies; but even this 
 stab would not be necessarily decisive. 
 
 Whatever Italy does or refrains from doing 
 the price of the remaining neutral States is go- 
 ing up steadily. On which side of the fence 
 will Bulgaria come down? And Rumania and 
 Greece? It is already probable that all these 
 States will be drawn into the maelstrom. The 
 sympathy of the Slav States should be pro- 
 Russian, just as the feeling of the Greeks is no- 
 toriously on the side of Great Britain, but sym- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 157 
 
 pathy in this extremity may yield to self-inter- 
 est. On which side then will Bulgaria and Ru- 
 mania and Greece enter the conflict? 
 
 It is probable, I think, that Bulgaria will 
 fight on the side of Austria and Rumania on 
 the side of Russia, while Greece will oppose 
 Turkey in order to get part of Macedonia and 
 the Ionian Islands from the Triple Entente. 
 
 And when these States are drawn into the 
 quarrel, the value of Holland will have in- 
 creased to such an extent that her neutrality 
 will become almost impossible. Germany and 
 Great Britain will bid against each other for 
 her support, and no one can say how she will 
 decide; or rather everything will depend on 
 what course the war takes in 191 5. 
 
 Nine months ago no American would have 
 given a fig for the hope of ultimate success 
 cherished by the Germans; their forethought 
 and capacity have been steadily improving their 
 position, till now it is beginning to be seen 
 that they have more than a chance of drawing. 
 If Italy remains neutral, a German defeat is 
 most improbable. 
 
 It is admitted now that the German fleet may 
 manage to injure British commerce and send 
 up the price of food in Great Britain to famine 
 prices, and if that were done the Germans might 
 well be absolute victors in the colossal strug- 
 gle, for no one denies now that Britain is Ger- 
 many's chief enemy. 
 
 There are many other factors in the problem ; 
 
158 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 but in comparison with those I have been 
 weighing they are not immediately important. 
 
 The weightiest factor in the whole problem 
 is the incredible supine weakness of Great Brit- 
 ain. No one can doubt that if she had put her 
 hand in her pocket she could at least have in- 
 sured the neutrality of Turkey. It is admitted 
 now that if she had offered sufficient monetary 
 inducements to her own population she could 
 by this time have thrown a million of men into 
 France or, better still, into Ostend. 
 
 Even now, mid-April, 1915, the English 
 forces are only defending less than 40 miles of 
 the 540 miles of battle-line flung across France. 
 
 The conditions England has offered to her 
 volunteers and especially to the widows and or- 
 phans of the men who may be killed in fighting 
 for her are disgracefully mean and paltry. 
 What man will feel inclined to fight when he 
 knows that if he is killed his widow will only 
 get $2 a week or so to live upon? And it is only 
 lately that as much as this has been offered. 
 Under the circumstances it says a great deal for 
 the fighting spirit of the Briton that over two 
 millions of men have offered their services. 
 
 But what must be thought of the British 
 Government, which at the last push of fate sac- 
 rifices victory to pick-thank meanness? Eng- 
 lish Ministers are still intent on waging war 
 "on the cheap" when, had they shown the spirit 
 and resolution of Cromwell or even of Chat- 
 ham, they might have already decided the con- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 159 
 
 flict. Chatham had given them the lead, but 
 they seem incapable o£ even profiting by his 
 example. 
 
 They began the war with all the chances in 
 their favor, all the powers. Already their lack 
 of insight and will has made the issue of the 
 struggle doubtful. A few months more of their 
 characteristic waiting upon fortune and it will 
 be too late. Will they "wake up" in time? 
 
 The triumvirate of Asquith, Winston 
 Churchill and Kitchener is on trial ; so far they 
 have done about as little as men could do and 
 have brought the world to wonder at their pov- 
 erty of invention. They deserve the bitter gibe 
 I heard from an American the other day : "The 
 Germans will fight to the last German, the Bel- 
 gians to the last Belgian, and the Britons to the 
 last — Frenchman." 
 
 Sir Edward Grey, on the other hand, has 
 shown himself the cleverest diplomatist in Eu- 
 rope; at the beginning of the war he won the 
 sympathy of all neutral peoples by the horror 
 he expressed at the violation of Belgian neu- 
 trality by the Germans; he almost persuaded 
 America that Britain was fighting for little Bel- 
 gium, outraged and overwhelmed by German 
 hordes. Now Americans are beginning to real- 
 ize that England wanted Germany's trade and 
 was jealous of her astounding growth in indus- 
 try, commerce and naval power. Sir Edward 
 Grey has done splendidly for his country all 
 through, and if the contest were to be decided 
 
i6o ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 by diplomatic cunning and verbal skill, it 
 wouldn't be difficult to select the winner. 
 
 Even now if England proposed to Italy to 
 defray all the money cost of her participation in 
 the war with the additional bribe of the Tren- 
 tino and Trieste in case of success it is as cer- 
 tain as anything can be that Italy would take 
 the bait, and at once the position of Germany 
 and Austria would be greatly worsened. By 
 spending two or three hundred millions of 
 pounds in this way England would be saving 
 money in the long run; but she still hesitates 
 and fumbles. 
 
 Nobody who knows them expects much from 
 Asquith, Winston Churchill or Kitchener. As- 
 quith is a mild and well meaning lawyer person 
 v/ith a superb scholar's memory and excellent 
 work-a-day intelligence, absolutely unoriginal, 
 though endowed with a very notable gift of 
 sonorous phrases. He loves a good dinner and 
 a good bottle of wine and follows the French 
 proverb which says that after forty one ought 
 to keep the cellar door open. 
 
 Winston Churchill is an arriviste, as the 
 French would say, of great energy and quick- 
 ness of mind and of quite extraordinary cour- 
 age, but he knows no language save his own, is 
 without reading or genius, and cannot be ex- 
 pected to inaugurate a new policy. Kitch- 
 ener is far past his best and has always, in my 
 opinion, found it easier to look wise than to 
 act or talk wisely. Still Grey is there, and he 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? i6i 
 
 is a considerable person, with remarkable force 
 and elevation of character and some power of 
 independent thought. 
 
 He has the head of a Roman General, cut as 
 sharply as a cameo, and is singularly free of 
 weakness. A courteous, reserved gentleman, 
 half athlete, half thinker, he is very good in- 
 deed at whatever he undertakes. He has been 
 a champion at tennis and keeps himself always 
 in the pink of condition. As a young man he 
 was very prudent, cautious even; as he grows 
 older he grows bolder, and that's an excellent 
 sign. If England does anything remarkable in 
 this crisis, the initiative will probably come 
 from Sir Edward Grey. 
 
 But while admitting that the British have 
 seemingly the better cards and should win if 
 they knew how to play them, I am far from 
 sure that they will win, or rather I am con- 
 vinced that the Germans will make an advan- 
 tageous draw of it, if indeed they do not win 
 outright. 
 
 For their superiority in organization and in 
 fighting power is only a symbol of their supe- 
 riority in morale and national enthusiasm. 
 
 Toward the middle of September there was 
 an impassioned call for volunteers put forth by 
 the War Office in Great Britain; about one 
 hundred thousand men responded to the appeal 
 in two weeks, then the enlisting fell off, as it 
 came to be understood how poor the conditions 
 were. When the news of this volunteering 
 
i62 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 reached Germany over a million men offered 
 themselves as volunteers within three days, 
 though their services were not asked for by the 
 Government and indeed had to be refused. 
 
 It would be impossible to exaggerate the na- 
 tional spirit and enthusiasm of the Germans in 
 this crisis. That docile and disciplined people 
 showed itself capable of extraordinary and pas- 
 sionate devotion in 1814, but in 191 4 their pa- 
 triotism has become a religious fervor and the 
 world in arms would not shock them. It is ri- 
 diculous to talk of militarism in this connec- 
 tion. The whole German people are with the 
 Kaiser in this war and solemnly resolved to 
 bring it to a great issue. 
 
 If there is not enough flour, then they will 
 cut down their consumption of bread; if there 
 is not enough copper or nitrate or rubber, their 
 chemists go to work and produce satisfactory 
 substitutes: no one thinks of surrender, or of 
 any outcome but an honorable peace. All Ger- 
 mans regard this as a defensive war and are 
 prepared to prove their contention. 
 
 If France wants peace, they say, France can 
 have it; we will give them back the French 
 land we hold; in the same way, if Russia sees 
 there is no hope of winning and desires peace, 
 we will hand back to them that part of Russian 
 Poland which we occupy at present. Some- 
 thing we must have for our successes and im- 
 mense self-sacrifice — Antwerp if Herr Ballin or 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 163 
 
 Dr. Dernberg is to be trusted, — Antwerp or a 
 certain right of way through Belgium, and, 
 above all, the neutrality of the seas. 
 
 The question is : Will the Allies fight to the 
 last rather than accept some such solution of 
 the problem? Of course, they all declare they 
 will, and they will probably stick to their re- 
 solve till they see they cannot hope to succeed. 
 Then they will quickly become reasonable and 
 accept the inevitable. 
 
 For already the weakness inherent in all al- 
 lied forces has shown itself distinctly. No one 
 now doubts the recent statement of the "Koel- 
 nische Zeitung" that France would have been 
 willing to make peace early in September on 
 the basis of the status quo ante. England, it is 
 said, prevented this by declaring that in that 
 case she would treat France as an enemy, and 
 thus forcecj her to accept the agreement that 
 none of the Allies would make peace sepa- 
 rately. 
 
 But such agreements are hardly more than 
 "scraps of paper." As soon as Russia sees that 
 it is her cue to make peace she'll make it with- 
 out caring greatly whether it suits France or 
 England. England, of course, wants a fight to 
 a finish, for so alone can she hope to gain Ger- 
 many's trade and commerce, but, compara- 
 tively speaking, England is not suffering ; it is 
 her allies who are bearing the burden of the 
 war. It may be assumed that if Germany can 
 
i64 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 keep her hold of France and Russian Poland, 
 peace will be welcomed by one or both of these 
 countries before 191 5 is done with. 
 
 If on the other hand, Russia overruns Hun- 
 gary, or the Italians join in the attack and force 
 Austria to make peace, still Germany will have 
 to be reckoned with and once within her own 
 frontiers she would be, I believe, unbeatable. 
 
 If Germany had a diplomatist like Sir Ed- 
 ward Grey she would try to finish off the war in 
 a month by offering Russia certain advantages 
 in the Balkans. After all why should Germany 
 or even Austria object to the Russian bear get- 
 ting Constantinople? All that dog-in-the-man- 
 ger business is unworthy of a great people. 
 Why should German lives be sacrificed to pre- 
 vent Russia getting a good port? 
 
 Now is the opportunity for the Kaiser to 
 prove himself a master of diplomacy. The Ger- 
 man jealousy of the Slav and the Slav hatred of 
 the German are alike pitiable ; why not make an 
 end of these tribal disputes? And if Germany 
 got Russia to agree to peace conditions France 
 could easily be pacified. France feels that she 
 has burned her paws badly getting the chest- 
 nuts out of the fire for Great Britain. She had 
 no conception of the strength of Germany and 
 would be willing to make peace at once on con- 
 dition of getting her own territory back and 
 perhaps the distinctively French communes in 
 Alsace-Lorraine for the sake of vainglory, and 
 Germany can afford to be generous in this mat- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY-^? 165 
 
 ter if she gets trade-free routes through Bel- 
 gium, and the neutrality of the seas is guar- 
 anteed, and who would deny her this solatium? 
 No one but England, and England without 
 allies would be powerless. 
 
 At any rate there are the cards. Either side 
 may win and end the devilish deadlock; who 
 willbe wise first? Germany or England ? Ger- 
 many by offering peace to Russia and France? 
 Or England by uniting them and Italy as well 
 in a new gigantic effort to smash and ruin 
 Germany, her great commercial rival? 
 
 Some say that if Germany seems likely to 
 triumph the United States will take a hand in 
 the game; but that to me is simply incredible. 
 It would not only be against her plain self-in- 
 terest but also against the interests of hu- 
 manity. Even now America is mainly respon- 
 sible for the continuance of the war. If the 
 United States refused to supply any of the com- 
 batants with the munitions of war, the war 
 would come to an end in a month. President 
 Wilson thought it his duty to forbid the export 
 of arms and munitions to Mexico, a similar or- 
 der now applied to all the warring peoples, 
 would bring about peace in double quick time. 
 The Pope seems to expect such an order from 
 him ; but American public opinion is so wedded 
 to the Allies that it would almost need a super- 
 man to brave it. 
 
 One result is most probable — a draw. When 
 near exhaustion the warring powers may con- 
 
i66 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 sent to lay down their arms on a return to the 
 status quo ante. This outcome would be dread- 
 fully unsatisfactory to every one ; but anything 
 is better than to continue the useless butchery 
 and waste of such a war. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 The "Soul of Goodness in Things Evil" 
 
 With that sweet-thoughted wisdom which 
 distinguished his mature work Shakespeare 
 recognized that there is always "some soul of 
 goodness in things evil"; but if it is exceed- 
 ingly difficult to foretell who will win in this 
 world struggle, it is almost impossible to fore- 
 cast the spiritual outcome of it. One can speak 
 perhaps with a little confidence in generalities ; 
 but as soon as one tries to be concrete and 
 definite, doubts swarm and thought is dis- 
 tracted. Still, one thing is certain : world shak- 
 ing events always embody moral lessons ; war 
 is a great exposer of shams and revealer of vir- 
 tues. A desperate struggle is sure to set real 
 values in high relief. 
 
 What then are the chief values already dis- 
 covered and what the pretences? The first 
 value which has hitherto been underrated is the 
 value of the British command of the sea. We 
 all esteemed it highly when we thought about 
 it at all, but it wasn't sufficiently present to our 
 minds as a unique force, a singular advantage. 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 167 
 
 There is much more sea than land on this earth 
 of ours, and England, not content with pos- 
 sessing more than half the temperate zone, pos- 
 sesses also, or at least rules, all the seas. 
 Sooner or later that condition of things must 
 cease ; sooner or later the seas and oceans like 
 the fields of air must be neutralized in the in- 
 terests of all nations and policed by all peo- 
 ples in some rough proportion to population 
 and power. This, it seems to me, should be the 
 first ethical result of the present contest. 
 
 It may take years or even decades to bring 
 the ideal to fulfilment ; but this war has shown 
 that when one Power holds the hegemony of 
 the seas the rights of all neutrals are injured 
 and neutral trade placed at the most serious 
 disadvantage. It is the old story of the strong 
 despot dethroned by the combination of the 
 many weak. 
 
 All virtues, all powers, one sees, will be set 
 in higher relief. Before the war no one imag- 
 ined that Germany would not only gain an 
 enormous initial advantage, but would hold it 
 month after month, and when more than eight 
 months had passed would still be warring in 
 the enemies' countries. 
 
 The reputation of Germany has already 
 grown out of all calculation. For a century or 
 more to come it will probably be regarded as 
 the model State and its institutions will be imi- 
 tated, its institutions copied, all the forms of it 
 aped and assimilated while the informing spirit 
 
i68 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 of it may pass almost unappreciated. The suc- 
 cess of Germany is calculated to stereotype and 
 fossilize German institutions and to relax rather 
 than to quicken the inspiring genius. When 
 we prove ourselves superior to our neighbors 
 it is only natural that we should rest on accom- 
 plishment and seek to enjoy the fruits of our 
 labors. Besides, German success in war is sure 
 to be followed by an extraordinary growth of 
 German industry and commerce. This fact is 
 not sufficiently appreciated even in America. 
 Suppose peace were concluded to-morrow, in- 
 ternational and especially American capital 
 would flow to Germany where it would be sure 
 of highest returns rather than to Great Britain 
 where the returns have for long been small. 
 German wealth would grow in the night, and 
 nothing weakens moral fibre and mental effort 
 so much as material prosperity. Let us con- 
 sider then how Germany is likely to suffer 
 from this slackening of "the will to surpass.". 
 Germany is a curious amalgam of a hierar- 
 chy framed and fitted for war grafted on demo- 
 cratic institutions and inspired in civil life by 
 an intensely democratic spirit of equality and 
 willingness to work — a sort of despotism with 
 strong socialistic tendencies. There can be no 
 doubt that it is the despotic side which has 
 been strengthened by the war so far, just as the 
 nominal socialism has been weakened. And 
 this process is certain to continue and increase 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 169 
 
 even if Germany holds but her own in the war 
 and makes a draw of it. 
 
 National vanity will come into play and the 
 German Kiplings and Newbolts will all declare 
 that no nation ever faced so formidable a com- 
 bination of enemies without flinching. German 
 valor and German virtue will be lauded to the 
 skies ; in fact, everything German will have an 
 added value and take on a new lustre. The 
 first consequences are already showing them- 
 selves ; the authority of the Hohenzollerns will 
 be affirmed ; the power of the military caste in- 
 ordinately strengthened; German socialism 
 will become critical rather than revolutionary ; 
 the reforming elements will all be weakened; 
 German pride will appear to be a merit, and 
 for some time the fighting strength of Ger- 
 many will be increased. 
 
 If Germany in the result holds a right of way 
 through Belgium and all seas are neutralized, 
 her oversea commerce and trade will increase 
 by leaps and bounds. At once her rivalry with 
 England will become the central fact of the new 
 time, and a contest with England for trade 
 supremacy or even ultimately for South Africa 
 as a field of colonization is as certain as any- 
 thing can be. 
 
 Who will win in the desperate duel depends 
 on the effect of the war on Great Britain, for it 
 is surely obvious now to every one that Ger- 
 many and England are the real rivals and foes. 
 
170 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 What Germany ought to do at once is to 
 conclude peace with Russia and with France 
 and address herself to the real conflict with 
 England. She would have done that already 
 if her diplomacy had been at all equal to her 
 fighting power. Clearly it is now her most 
 pressing need. But is it possible? one will ask. 
 England has been very clever in binding both 
 Russia and France in a treaty not to conclude 
 peace separately. What can Germany do to 
 untie the allied bond? 
 
 Bismarck would tell her to begin with Rus- 
 sia. The Czar admires the Kaiser ; the Roman- 
 offs are still more despotic than the Hohenzol- 
 lerns; in many respects too the needs of Rus- 
 sia and the ambitions of Russia resemble those 
 of Germany. Russia wants to get to Constan- 
 tinople above all things, as Germany wants to 
 keep Antwerp. Germany can give financial aid 
 to Russia almost as freely as France has done, 
 and if Russia demands territorial aggrandize- 
 ment it would pay Germany to give her Galicia 
 for the sake of an immediate peace. 
 
 With Russia pacified Germany could deal 
 with France at once. She could offer to with- 
 draw from French soil and even concede some 
 French communes in Lorraine. France could 
 not hesitate. She would conclude peace, and 
 so Germany would at length come face to face 
 with her real enemy. 
 
 Everything will depend then on which Power 
 is the stronger. Great Britain or Germany. In 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 171 
 
 my opinion, Germany would win in the strug- 
 gle, for England in one respect is woefully 
 weak. Thanks to the greed of her land own- 
 ing oligarchy, she does not produce one-quar- 
 ter enough food to supply her own wants ; this 
 is the Achilles heel of England 
 
 Face to face with England alone Germany 
 could quickly build a navy or at least subma- 
 rines and airships enough to lame English com- 
 merce and send up the price of food in Great 
 Britain to famine prices. But why do I assume 
 that Germany will show more initiative and 
 forethought than England? Simply because 
 she is showing more now. 
 
 Already, had there been any prevision or or- 
 dinary foresight in Great Britain, her statesmen 
 would have had at least three submarines 
 and airships too for every one owned by Ger- 
 mans ; but the Briton is proud to owe as little 
 as possible to his brains. Germany has al- 
 ready taken measures to protect her food sup- 
 plies and Germany's need in this respect is not 
 a tenth so pressing as England's need. But 
 nothing will ever teach the English oligarchy 
 or dissipate their pleasure sodden dream of 
 perpetual parasitical enjoyment except defeat 
 in war. They have always ^'muddled through" 
 somehow or other, and it is easier to go on from 
 day to day and from hand to mouth than to 
 think and by thinking avoid catastrophe and 
 prepare triumph. 
 
 The great trinity of Asquith, Churchill and 
 
172 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Kitchener may be trusted to muddle sleepily 
 along till they are awakened by a sudden ter- 
 rifying rise in the price of bread and by the 
 growl of revolt from the East End, hunger sup- 
 plying courage One-third of England's popu- 
 lation is always on the verge of starvation, as 
 Booth proved; this is England's desperate 
 weakness. Half a dozen wheat-ships captured 
 by the Germans or sunk by their submarines 
 and England would have to pay at once for the 
 callous selfishness of her rich, the corruption of 
 her judiciary, the inhuman shortsightedness of 
 her politicians. There would either be a social 
 revolution in England or she would accept de- 
 feat, hand Germany her sea sceptre and sink 
 to the level of another Holland. Her noble 
 masters might in their hearts prefer this latter 
 alternative ; but the English people are a proud 
 and struggle loving people ; once "up against it" 
 they may be trusted to get rid of their snob- 
 bishness, make short work of their parasite 
 governors and get down to business. 
 
 The one hope of progress in England is sharp 
 defeat in war: "Prosperity," says the French 
 thinker, "prosperity reveals vices; adversity, 
 virtues." Every one who loves England should 
 pray for a bitter lesson. More than a hundred 
 years ago now Tom Paine declared that noth- 
 ing would civilize England till the blood of her 
 children had been shed on their own hearth- 
 stones. It needs a defeat in war to wrest the 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 173 
 
 land of England from the lords who stole it and 
 give it back to the people. 
 
 And this first reform would pave the way for 
 a thousand others, for the democratization of 
 the judiciary and inauguration of free speech 
 and free criticism, for a national system of edu- 
 cation, for modern universities and technical 
 schools, for the endowment of chemical and 
 physical laboratories, for the satisfaction of 
 spiritual even more than material needs. De- 
 feat might turn England into a modern state 
 and give her a chance of union with her colo- 
 nies on a democratic basis and a new lease of 
 life as a Confederation of sister states. 
 
 But will this be the outcome, will England 
 be defeated? Or will she not get Italy to strike 
 in with her and Rumania and Greece and 
 slowly hem in and finally crush her great Ger- 
 man rival? Even in that case her day of trial 
 can only be deferred ; there is no abiding place 
 in this world for such an oligarchy as that of 
 England. I regard German virtue, that is, Ger- 
 man efficiency and German valor, as the high- 
 est in the European world to-day ; I do not be- 
 lieve that Germany can be beaten by the Allies ; 
 but if she be defeated and forced to accept con- 
 ditions of peace, she will spring again to power 
 quicker than before and will then be unable to 
 make any mistake as to her real foe : sooner or 
 later Germany and England must fight their 
 quarrel out or reach a settlement by agreement. 
 
174 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 A permanent settlement could easily be 
 reached at once by a little common sense. All 
 countries, especially England and Germany, 
 should consent to at least partial disarmament 
 on condition that the seas and fields of air were 
 neutralized and excluded from war forever. 
 Smaller details present no difficulty ; the French 
 communes of Alsace-Lorraine should be given 
 back to France and my opinion of German 
 idealism is so high that I don't think this would 
 be denied if all German colonies were restored. 
 
 It should be easy for England to put her 
 house in order without the sharp compulsion of 
 defeat and necessity ; but I am convinced there 
 is small hope of it. Those who think so don't 
 know England, and the many warnings she has 
 had. Prophets have been sent to her, such as 
 Carlyle and Ruskin ; but England does not even 
 listen to their Jeremiads; again and again, as 
 in the South African war, she has only man- 
 aged to escape defeat at an overwhelming cost ; 
 but still she won't stop even to think. She 
 alienated the world by her unpropvoked attack 
 on the Boers, and France, in order to grab 
 Egypt, and Egypt is plainly a source of weak- 
 ness to her to-day and not of strength, and 
 South Africa she had to restore to the Boers, 
 though the silly war had cost her a thousand 
 millions of pounds. At length she has a real 
 enemy and will either have to fight for her 
 lordship of the seas or make a reasonable peace. 
 
 Let us suppose, however, that the Allies ulti- 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 175 
 
 mately win, either through the defection of 
 Austria, which seems the most likely cause, or 
 through a gradual process of wearing down or 
 because of the entrance of fresh Powers into 
 the field, such as Italy and Rumania. Let us 
 admit the worst — that Germany may have to 
 consent to partial dismemberment. Every one 
 knows how the English governing classes at 
 the beginning of the war talked of giving Al- 
 sace and Lorraine back to France; Galicia, it 
 was hinted, would be a suitable reward for 
 Russia; then monetary compensation would 
 have to be provided for Belgium; Heligoland 
 would have to go back to Great Britain, with 
 most of the German colonies in East Africa, 
 and the Kiel Canal would be destroyed or 
 handed over to Holland. 
 
 What in such an extravagant case as this 
 would be the spiritual outcome of the war? 
 What soul of goodness would come to light? 
 
 France would have to be more on the alert 
 and better armed than in the past; Belgium 
 would have to ally herself closely with France 
 for protection ; Russia and England would pal- 
 ter on in the old way ; the autocracy in the one 
 and the oligarchy in the other would alone be 
 satisfied. England would probably adopt con- 
 scription, might even take some half measures 
 toward increasing her home production of food- 
 stuffs, but in the main everything would go on 
 as before, and — Germany? What would be- 
 come of Germany? 
 
176 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Slowly but surely Germany would win up 
 again; international capital is very acute and 
 international capital would flow to her. In ten 
 years or in twenty, according to the conditions 
 imposed, she would again come to the front 
 and challenge her rival. The next time Eng- 
 land will not be helped by Russia, France and 
 Japan; and by herself she has hardly any 
 chance of succeeding, for this reason ; her ablest 
 sons all go to India, or in England devote them- 
 selves to upholding the oligarchy because of 
 the rewards. There is no middle class educa- 
 tion in England; hardly any high education of 
 any sort ; the mental product is woefully insuf- 
 ficient. I always come back to the same re- 
 frain : only through defeat or by some miracle 
 will England be brought to her senses or 
 turned into a modern State. 
 
 There is still another alternative. England 
 is now buttressed by her democratic colonies, 
 by Canada and Australia and New Zealand, 
 who do not realize that their support in war 
 prevents the internal forces of reform from 
 compelling vital and life giving changes. In 
 another twenty or thirty years these colonies 
 will be so powerful that Germany may hesitate 
 to attack Great Britain; it is possible that the 
 daughter States by protecting England may 
 preserve her in her present decadent state for 
 another century or so — a dishonored and dis- 
 honorable old age. 
 
 If they do, so much the worse for her; her 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 177 
 
 gift to humanity has then been given. Nothing 
 more can be hoped from her. The pages of her 
 history are all written. Sooner or later the 
 great Powers, headed by Germany or the 
 United States, will take the sceptre of the seas 
 from her nerveless hands and neutralize the 
 waters as they must soon neutralize the air. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Some Effects of the War Upon America 
 
 My friends tell me that I ought to end this 
 book with a chapter setting forth the lessons 
 that the war holds for Americans, and with 
 some attempt at least to calculate what effects 
 the war will have on our civilization. It is im- 
 possible to play prophet in specific details. 
 The prophet should confine himself to general, 
 broad results ; but certain results of the war on 
 the United States can already be traced, and 
 it is safe to infer what will be from that which 
 has already taken place. 
 
 The first effect of the war on America was to 
 throw thousands of men and women out of 
 employment, especially in New York; roughly 
 speaking, the percentage of unemployed v/as 
 doubled ; yet neither the government at Wash- 
 ington nor the State legislature nor the munici- 
 pality did anything to remedy this dreadful in- 
 justice. A thousand years hence such negli- 
 gence will be regarded as criminally stupid. 
 
178 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 The State that permits it is much like the man 
 who allows his hand or foot to be frost-bitten. 
 
 The next result of the war here is the pres- 
 ent agitation for a large increase of our army 
 and navy. Armament makers and dealers in 
 munitions of war are pretty sure to press their 
 case as strongly as possible, and while the 
 thinker realizes that the result of the war 
 should be to induce America to seek peace and 
 ensue it more resolutely than ever, the trades 
 and professions interested in producing the 
 materials of war, are determined to make 
 America pacific by providing her with many 
 new and sharp teeth. They refuse to believe 
 with Shakespeare that "the power to do ill 
 deeds, often makes ill deeds done." 
 
 In both respects, in the perfect contempt we 
 show for the unemployed and the determina- 
 tion to increase our armaments, we seem in- 
 tent on imitating the worst faults of Europe. 
 
 Instead of increasing our army and navy and 
 so copying Germany in the militarism which 
 most Americans dislike, it would be well for us 
 to imitate Germany in those departments of 
 life in which she has set the world a great ex- 
 ample and been most successful. Germany has 
 brought into life the ideal of the perfect State, 
 the State as an organic whole in which the rich 
 and powerful are forced to fulfil all sorts of 
 obligations towards the weak and the poor on 
 the one hand, and towards the intellectuals on 
 the other. The body-politic cannot be healthy, 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 179 
 
 Bismarck saw, unless every individual cell of 
 it, is fed and functioning properly. We should 
 provide work for our laborers and proper food 
 for our poor school children, food being even 
 more necessary than teaching. Germany has 
 spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year in 
 this way, much more than she has spent on her 
 army and navy together; and a great part of 
 her strength comes from the fact that she has 
 taken special care of her weaker citizens. 
 
 On the other side of the social scale, too, 
 there are valuable lessons to be learned from 
 the older civilization of Germany and France. 
 There is scarcely any State or municipal en- 
 dowment of science or of art in America. We 
 owe most of our growth, according to Darwin- 
 ism, to the intellectuals or "sports" of genius. 
 It would be to our self-interest, therefore, to 
 take care of our intellectuals by founding chem- 
 ical and physical laboratories in every city and 
 by providing in every large town opera houses 
 for music-lovers, theatres for the lovers of 
 drama, and art galleries for the lovers of plastic 
 art. America to-day is starving the souls as 
 well as the bodies of her children. 
 
 It might be advisable in other respects to 
 follow the example of Germany. We Ameri- 
 cans have been tinkering with the regulation 
 of railways ever since Mr. Roosevelt's famous 
 dictum that "the highways of the nation must 
 be kept open to all upon equal terms." For 
 the last fifteen years or so, ever since the Sher- 
 
i8o ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 man Law of 1890, our politicians have been 
 trying to regulate railway rates and competi- 
 tion and get rid of the grosser injustices and 
 evils of this great monopoly. It is surely plain 
 now that all such attempts are absurd. The 
 only way to get rid of the evils of privately 
 owned railroads is for the State to take over 
 the railroads, just as the State or county or 
 municipality has already taken over the roads. 
 The health of the whole organism depends on 
 the motor-nerves being healthy, and the idea 
 that the nerves should favor one part of the 
 body in preference to another is ludicrously 
 absurd. 
 
 One influence has shown itself all over Eu- 
 rope in the last twenty years unmistakably. 
 With the growth of national consciousness, 
 with the quickened sense of our responsibility 
 towards our weaker brethren in the State, has 
 come an astonishing increase in the religious 
 spirit. Everywhere the scepticism of twenty 
 years ago is dying out. Even in France there 
 is a marked growth in Christian faith and feel- 
 ing, a wave of emotion which will certainly 
 grow fuller and may at length lead to a revival 
 in religion, as there is already apparent on 
 every side a second and greater renaissance of 
 art. The effect of this second Reformation will 
 be in turn an enormous quickening of our sense 
 of responsibility to others, and of our concep- 
 tion of the need and value of ideal aims. 
 
 On the material side, the war is likely to 
 
ENGLAND OR GERM.-.v ? igi 
 
 ^N X 
 
 bring about changes in America which are eas- 
 ily calculated. Before the war the United 
 States owed England alone something like four 
 thousand millions of dollars. By the end of 
 the war she will have paid a good deal of that 
 enormous sum in munitions of war and pro- 
 visions, in corn and in cotton, all sold at a very 
 high price. In other words, the United States 
 is clearing herself of debt with great rapidity, 
 and is certainly not paying much more than 
 sixty cents for every dollar borrowed. This 
 must lead to an increase of wealth in America ; 
 but those who think that American trade will 
 therefore experience a vast increase of pros- 
 perity after the war, are reckoning without 
 their host. The war has inflated prices in many 
 departments of industry in America, and this 
 inflation of prices is contagious. Prices in 
 America after the war will rule high. On the 
 other hand, European countries having lost 
 half or more than half of their savings, will feel 
 poor and be poor; consequently, prices there 
 will rule very low. European countries will 
 export goods heavily to the only market open 
 to them which will have gold to give — namely 
 America. Accordingly, the trade of America 
 after the war will have to meet the severe com- 
 petition of cheap European products. 
 
 Now that I am come to the end of this book 
 I am full of apprehension. I can scarcely lay 
 down the pen for anxious searching of soul. 
 Controversy is seldom literature: war is the 
 
i82 EN01.AND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 worst subject for the artist. It provides shad- 
 ows only — sadness, misery and desolation — 
 pathos enough for anything, but few high 
 lights which are just as necessary to make a 
 living picture. There is not love enough or 
 joy enough or laughter enough in war to bal- 
 ance the gloom. 
 
 Truth, however, has its own appeal, but it is 
 exceedingly difficult to find an expression 
 worthy of that austere divinity. The words 
 we use are like little pieces of colored glass: 
 it is almost impossible to arrange them so as 
 to render the white light of truth in its perfect 
 purity. At the worst, however, one can follow 
 Othello's counsel : "Nothing extenuate nor set 
 down ought in malice." This is not a very high 
 standard. The artist should do more than this ; 
 he should find a way of expressing Othello's 
 soul, the flame of courage and impersonal de- 
 votion in him who was "great of heart." 
 
 Now have I done this? Have I shown the 
 souls of Germany and England? As regards 
 Germany, I have certainly done my best, but I 
 am conscious of not having done full justice to 
 England. What then is the soul of England 
 to-day? What is she really doing? What is 
 her gift to the world in this last half century? 
 
 The richest men in the world are constantly 
 drifting to London. The Astors and Vander- 
 bilts, the Beits and Wernhers and Speyers all 
 flock thither. The fact is, life is more pleasant 
 to the rich in England than anywhere else on 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 183 
 
 earth. A German of high rank told me the 
 other day that he regarded life in an English 
 country house as nearer perfection than any 
 other life. Now what truth is there in this 
 praise? 
 
 Englishmen of the best class, it is admitted, 
 dress better than other men and among them- 
 selves show the most charming manners, un- 
 affected, simple, familiar. The food and drink, 
 too, are better in England than they are any- 
 where else. It is often said that the cooking 
 in England is bad. That is true. The cooks 
 are generally bad when they are not French; 
 but the English have the highest ideal of cook- 
 ing in the world. They have the aristocratic 
 ideal which is that every article of food should 
 preserve its own distinctive flavor. If you 
 would taste a potato properly, you must have 
 it simply boiled in its skin. Game should be 
 lightly roasted before a fire if you would enjoy 
 its full savour. A French cook will serve you 
 potatoes in fifty different ways : a plain boiled 
 potato is the only sort which he will not set on 
 your table. Or he will give you a "perdreau 
 aux choux" where the delicate flavor of the 
 partridge is utterly lost in the coarse, strong 
 flavor of the cabbage. The French idea of 
 cooking is to obliterate all distinctions with a 
 democratic sauce, so that you don't know what 
 you are eating — fish or flesh or red herring. 
 In England, when you have the English ideal 
 of cooking carried out by French cooks, you 
 
i84 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 get as near perfection as is possible in UAs 
 faulty world. 
 
 Englishmen, too, are justified in boasting 
 that since they began to drink champagne, they 
 have taught Frenchmen what the best cham- 
 pagne is. Their taste has. selected the natural 
 champagne, the champagne not sweetened 
 with added sugar nor loaded with added spirit, 
 but left entirely natural or pure — brut, as it is 
 labelled. They have also discovered certain 
 years in which this or that or the other brand 
 of Champagne is at its best. They establish 
 the price of the best champagne and practically 
 drink all of it. 
 
 They have exercised much the same influence 
 on cigars and tobacco. It was the English 
 who selected Turkish and Egyptian tobacco 
 for cigarettes and the best Cuban tobacco for 
 cigars. America, too, takes a great many ci- 
 gars from Havana, but Americans seldom study 
 the best years for tobacco as the English study 
 it. In the best years, the finest growths of to- 
 bacco are nearly all taken by England. 
 
 It is the simple truth to say that the upper 
 classes have made life in England the most 
 agreeable in the world. Moreover, the Eng- 
 lish love physical beauty more than other na- 
 tions : they love it in dogs and cattle and horses, 
 as well as in men and women — everywhere; 
 but they are not so concerned with the beauty 
 of the spirit. 
 
 In fine, the average sensual man who is rich 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 185 
 
 finds England a sort of paradise. All the con- 
 ditions of life are more pleasant there than 
 elsewhere and the service is easily the best on 
 earth. But when one has said this one has 
 said nearly all that can be said in favor of 
 modern England. 
 
 The perfection of physical comfort prevents 
 the ordinary person from feeling how starved 
 is the soul. An English country house set in 
 an English park on a summer day would be 
 almost another Eden were it not for the dire 
 poverty in the village just beyond the park 
 gates and the servility and degradation of the 
 laboring-class. There is a story of how a man 
 once lived without a shadow and became ab- 
 solutely miserable because of his peculiarity. 
 For many a year now England has lived with- 
 out a soul, and no one except here and there a 
 Carlyle, has even noticed the loss. There are 
 no ideals in England, no enthusiasm, no high 
 appreciation of art or literature, no impersonal 
 striving. There is absolute veneration for the 
 material standard of value and whoever would 
 lower it, is anathema; but on the other hand, 
 there is nothing but contempt for the spiritual 
 standard of value and it is debased on all sides 
 without protest ; yet this degradation of values 
 was once known as the sin that would never 
 be forgiven. The Alfred Austins and Bridges 
 are preferred in England before the Brownings 
 and Swinburnes and Yeatses. The Johns and 
 Simes and Prides are almost ignored ; while the 
 
i86 ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 
 
 Astors and Norfolks are honored beyond all 
 measure. The Davidsons and Middletons are 
 fain to kill themselves. There is no life of 
 the spirit, no national opera, no national thea- 
 tre : no passionate intellectual striving ; no pro- 
 vision for those who steer humanity; and the 
 soul shrinks into itself and dwines and dies, 
 and neither rich viands nor vintage wines nor 
 scented cigars can call it back to life. 
 
 Will this war force England to mend her 
 ways and free the spirit? Who shall say? 
 Will she get rid of her oligarchy and her aris- 
 tocratic judges ? Will she nationalize her land 
 and her railways and free herself of the disease 
 of poverty that is sapping her strength? Will 
 she extend and heighten her intellectual life; 
 or will she continue to be as Wordsworth said : 
 "a fen of stagnant waters" ? If so, why should 
 she hold the sceptre or presume to steer hu- 
 manity? 
 
 For myself I can only say that I feel towards 
 her in this strife as an American. It is more 
 than thirty years now since I abjured my alle- 
 giance to her and her monarch, and was admit- 
 ted to the American Bar in Lawrence, Kansas. 
 I owe Germany and France more of my intel- 
 lectual life than I owe England ; but because I 
 have lived a good deal in England without fall- 
 ing over head and ears in love with her, Lord 
 Northcliffe and his henchmen in the press talk 
 of me as a "traitor." Ever since the iniquitous 
 South African war I have felt that England's 
 
ENGLAND OR GERMANY—? 187 
 
 success and England's material prosperity tak- 
 en together with her low spiritual ideal consti- 
 tute the gravest danger to the cause of civili- 
 zation in the world! lago is the patron saint 
 of England, and his motto : "Put money in your 
 purse," the one commandment generally 
 obeyed. 
 
 The other day I came across a statement of 
 the American author, David Graham Phillips, 
 with which I find myself in entire agreement. 
 He wrote : 
 
 "We inherited a little (of our civilization) 
 from France; but unfortunately, more from 
 England. I think the strongest desire I have 
 is to see my country shake off the English in- 
 fluence — the self-righteousness, the snobbish- 
 ness. . . . They put snobbishness into their 
 church service and create a snob-god who calls 
 some Englishmen to be lords, and others to be 
 servants. ... In New York, in one class with 
 which my business compels me to have much 
 to do, the craze for imitating England is ram- 
 pant. It is absurd how they try to erect snob- 
 bishness into a virtue." 
 
 The End 
 
BY 
 FRANK HARRIS 
 
 Elder Conklin and Other Stories 
 
 MONTES THE MaTADOR 
 
 Unpath'd Waters 
 The Veils of Isis 
 
 The Bomb 
 Great Days 
 
 The Man Shakespeare 
 The Women of Shakespeare 
 Shakespeare and His Love (Play) 
 
 Contemporary Portraits 
 
 Love in Youth (in Press) 
 
 Oscar Wilde : His Life and Confessions 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Daventry (Drama) 
 
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