f our best and dearest--our hardy
loved ones--are scattered over the ends of the earth, and the little
wars are answerable for all. England, in her blundering, half-articulate
fashion, answers, "Yes, they had to die; their mother asked for their
blood, and they gave it." So then from scores of punctures the
life-blood of the mother of nations drops, and each new bloodshed leads
to yet further bloodshed, until the deadly series looks endless. We sent
Burnes to Cabul, and we betrayed him in the most dastardly way by the
mouth of a Minister. England, the great mother, was not answerable for
that most unholy of crimes; it was the talking men, the glib Parliament
cowards. Burnes was cut to pieces and an army lost. Crime brings forth
crime, and thus we had to butcher more Afghans. Every inch of India has
been bought in the same way; one war wins territory which must be
secured by another war, and thus the inexorable game is played on. In
Africa we have fared in the same way, and thus from many veins the red
stream is drained, and yet the proud heart of the mother continues to
beat strongly. It is so hard for men to die; it is as hard for the Zulu
and the Afghan and the Ghoorka as it is for the civilized man, and that
is why I wish it were Britain's fortune to be allowed to cease from the
shedding of blood. If the corpses of the barbarians whom we have
destroyed within the past ten years could only be laid out in any open
space and shown to our populace, there would be a shudder of horror felt
through the country; yet, while the sweet bells chime to us about peace
and goodwill, we go on sending myriads of men out of life, and the
nation pays no more heed to that steady ruthless killing than it does to
the slaughter of oxen. Alas!

Then, if we think of the lot of those who fight for us and slaughter our
hapless enemies by deputy as it were, their luck seems very hard. When
the steady lines moved up the Alma slope and the men were dropping so
fast, the soldiers knew that they were performing their parts as in a
vast theatre; their country would learn the story of their deed, and the
feats of individuals would be amply recorded. But, when a man spends
months in a far-off rocky country, fighting day after day, watching
night after night, and knowing that at any moment the bullet of a
prowling Ghilzai or Afridi may strike him, he has very little
consolation indeed. When one comes to think of the matter from the
humorous point of vi