with the passions of the
hour, accept this explanation?

It is even more remarkable that immediately following the session of
the Reichstag, when he had his interview with Goschen, the German
Chancellor never suggested in his own defense or that of his country,
that he had "certain indications," which justified the action that day
taken, although he then knew that, unless he could justify it, England
would immediately join the already powerful foes of Germany.

The reader need only reread Goschen's report of that interview
(_ante_, p. 214) to know how disingenuous this belated explanation
is. With the whole world ringing with the infamous phrase, the German
Chancellor, after five months of reflection, can only make this
pitiful defense. Its acceptance subjects even the most credulous to
a severe strain. It exhausts the limit of gullibility.

The defense wholly ignores the fact that the Chancellor had previously
sought to bribe England to condone in advance the invasion of Belgium
by Germany, and that Germany had also coerced Luxemburg into a passive
acquiescence in a similar invasion, and there is as yet no pretense
that Luxemburg had failed in its obligation of neutrality.

Should the judgment of the civilized world turn from the terrible fate
of Belgium and consider the wrong that was done to Luxemburg, then the
German Chancellor may, unless better advised, frame further maladroit
excuses with reference to that country.

All these explanations, as senseless as they are false, and savoring
more of the tone of a criminal court then that of an imperial
chancellery, should shock those who admire historic Germany. They are
unworthy of so great a nation. Bismarck would never have stooped to
such pitiful and transparent deception. The blunt candor of Maximilian
Harden, which we have already quoted on page 12, is infinitely
preferable and the position of Germany at the bar of the civilized
world will improve, when its maladroit Chancellor has the courage and
the candor to say, as Harden did, that all this was done because
Germany regarded it as for its vital interests and because "we willed
it."

Unless our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of
barbarism; unless the law of the world is in fact only the ethics of
the rifle and the conscience of the cannon; unless mankind, after
uncounted centuries, has made no real advance in political morality
beyond that of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany ca