TO SOME among us there has been present for years past a
haunting fear of a great war that would engage all the nations of
Europe and perhaps bring down upon the Western World hordes of
Orientals. It is useless, now that the clash of arms has begun to
be heard, to lament the lack of foresight in those who persistently
ridiculed any such idea. We are involved in a conflict of
unexampled greatness, a conflict that is none of our causing, and
in which, strange to say, our sympathies are divided. The murder of
the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a crime that richly deserved
punishment, and in her demand for expiation Austria-Hungary was
amply justified. But she should not expect to enforce her demand to
the extent of wiping off the map the name of Servia as an
independent State without arousing Russian intervention. She made
her demand in full, and from that moment it appeared that the
Archduke's murder was the mere pretext for a war of conquest and
annexation. In consequence English feeling turned to Russia, and,
with her, to her ally, France, though to neither country were we
bound by treaty, nor by any stronger tie than an entente
cordiale. But the friendly understanding none the less created
obligations. If the French navy relieved us in the Mediterranean,
it became our business to pro-tect France's northern shores. A
further complication, however, involves us in treaty obligations.
The protection of Belgium as a neutral country is a matter to which
we are pledged, and, as we write, we hear that the German troops,
in violation of her neutrality, are marching on France through
Belgian territory. England's honour is engaged. Is it thinkable
that we should stand aside, and leave France without help? If there
are those who think it desirable, what will they have to say when,
if France is defeated, it becomes our turn to defend ourselves, and
to fight for our national existence?
As we write, the die has been cast, and we are at war. It is
horrible, abominable, but it is inevitable. We are engaged not in a
scheme of aggrandisement at the expense of other nations, but in a
supreme effort to check the designs of a Power that would bring us
into subjection. A free people struggling to remain free has a
right to defend itself; the quarrel is a just one on the side of
the attacked. The spectacle of great armies devastating whole
countries and wasting human lives belongs to the category of
barbarism, to which it seems that men, even Christian men, revert
at times. Upon those who have been the first to take the sword
rests the blame for putting us and our allies to the dire necessity
of resorting to arms. This page of international history that is
being written in letters of blood is written not by our hand but by
the hand of an enemy, a man of our own race and the kinsman of King
George. Hating war and all its accompaniments as we do, we
unhesitatingly support the Government in the measures it has
thought fit to adopt, and it will be our endeavour to help those we
can influence to meet with a good heart the adversities that are
sure to come. God save the King, the nation and the Empire, and
defend the right!
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