The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 by Roger Casement
page 21 of 128 (16%)
page 21 of 128 (16%)
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is to come back to a land of perfect peace, where everything is normal
and where it is not easy to believe we are almost within hearing distance of the cannonade on the Aisne." (Sir Alfred Sharpe, to the _Daily Chronicle_ from the Front, September 2nd, 1914.) It is this immunity from the horror of war that makes all Englishmen jingoes. They are never troubled by the consequences of belligerency. Since it is only by "an actual experience that the full realization of the horror comes." Until that horror strikes deep on English soil her statesmen, her Ministers, her Members of Parliament, her editors, will never sincerely love peace, but will plan always to ensure war abroad, whenever British need or ambition demands it. Were England herself so placed that responsibility for her acts could be enforced on her own soil, among her own people, and on the head of those who devise her policies, then we might talk of arbitration treaties with hope, and sign compacts of goodwill sure that they were indeed cordial understandings. But as long as Great Britain retains undisputed ownership of the chief factor that ensures at will peace or war on others, there can be only armaments in Europe, ill-will among men and war fever in the blood of mankind. British democracy loves freedom of the sea in precisely the same spirit as imperial Rome viewed the spectacle of Celtic freedom beyond the outposts of the Roman legions; as Agricola phrased it, something "to wear down and take possession of so that freedom may be put out of |
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