England to realize the condition of
Northern France at the present time. Although the papers are full of
accounts of desolation and destruction caused by the German invasion,
it is only by an actual experience that a full realization of the
horror comes. To return to England after visiting the French war zone
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
sight."

The names change but the spirit of imperial exploitation, whether it
call itself an empire or a democracy, does not change.

Just as the Athenian Empire, in the name of a democracy, sought to
impose servitude at sea on the Greek world, so the British Empire, in
the name of a democracy, seeks to encompass mankind within the long
walls of London.

The modern Sparta may be vanquished by the imperial democrats
assailing her from East and West. But let the world be under no
illusions.

If Germany go down to-day, vanquished by a combination of Asiatic,
African, American, Canadian and European e