, who merely idolised him for
chastising the clergy. Well, after our discussion, I asked myself this
question: 'Why do we not as a great Empire-making people,
ruling the world for its good, assassinate the men who oppose us?'
We do not; the idea revolts us. But why does it revolt us?

"We send our armies to fight, with the certainty (if we think at all) that
we are sending a percentage to be killed. We recently sent out two
hundred thousand with the sure and certain knowledge that some thousands
must die; and these (we say) were men agonising for a righteous cause.
Why did it not afflict us to send them?--whereas it would have afflicted
us inexpressibly to send a man to end the difficulty by putting a bullet
or a knife into Mr. Kruger, who _ex hypothesi_ represented an unrighteous
cause, and who certainly was but one man.

"Why? Because a law above any that regulates the expansion of Great
Britain says, 'That shalt do no murder.' And that law, that Universal,
takes the knife or the pistol quietly, firmly, out of your hand. You
send a battalion, with Tom Smith in it, to fight Mr. Kruger's troops; you
know that some of them must in all likelihood perish; but, thank your
stars, you do not know their names. Tom Smith, as it happens, is killed;
but had you known with absolute certainty that Tom Smith would be killed,
you could not have sent him. You must have withdrawn him, and substituted
some other fellow concerning whom your prophetic vision was less
uncomfortably definite. You can kill Tom Smith if he has happened to kill
Bob Jones: you are safe enough then, being able to excuse yourself--how?
By Divine law again (as you understand it). Divine law says that whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed--that is to say, by
you: so you can run under cover and hang Tom Smith. But when Divine law
does not protect you, you are powerless. At the most you can send him off
to take his ten-to-one chance in a battalion, and when you read his name
in the returns, come mincing up to God and say: 'So poor old Tom's gone!
How the deuce was _I_ to know?'

"I say nothing of the cowardice of this, though it smells to Heaven. I
merely point out that this law 'Thou shalt do no murder'--this Universal--
must be a tremendous one, since even you, my fine swashbuckling,
Empire-making hero, are so much afraid of it that you cannot send even a
Reservist to death without throwing the responsibility on luck--_nos te,
n