[Illustration: CHRISTENDOM AFTER TWENTY CENTURIES]
Were I privileged to have a hand at the Peace Conference, my
co-operation would take the part of deeds and I should only ask to
hang the walls of the council chamber with life-size reproductions
of Raemaekers in blood-red frames. For human memory is weak, and as
mind of man cannot grasp the meaning of a million, so may it well fail
to keep steadily before itself the measure of Belgium--the rape and
murder, the pillage and plunder, the pretences under which perished
women and priests and children, the brutal tyranny--the left hand that
beckoned in friendly fashion, the right hand, hidden with the steel.
We can very safely leave France to remember Northern France and Russia
not to forget Poland; but let Belgium and Serbia be at the front of the
British mind and conscience; let her lift her eyes to these scorching
pictures when Germany fights with all her cunning for a peace that
shall leave Prussia scotched, not killed.
Already one reads despondent articles, that the English tradition,
to forgive and forget, is going to wreck the peace; and students of
psychology fear that within us lie ineradicable qualities that will
save the situation for Germany at the end.
To suspect such a national weakness is surely to arm against it and see
that our contribution to the Peace Conference shall not stultify our
contribution to the War.
The Germans have been kite-flying for six months, to see which way the
wind blows; and when the steady hurricane broke the strings and flung
the kites headlong to earth, those who sent them up were sufficiently
proclaimed by their haste to disclaim.
But when the actual conditions are created and the new “Scrap of
Paper” comes to light, since German honour is dead and her oath in her
own sight worthless, let it be worthless in our sight also, and let
the terms of peace preclude her power to perjure herself again. Make
her honest by depriving her of the strength to be dishonest. There
is only one thing on earth the German will ever respect, and that is
superior force. May Berlin, therefore, see an army of occupation; and
may “peace” be a word banished from every Allied tongue until that
preliminary condition of peace is accomplished, and Germany sees other
armies than her own.
Reason has been denied speech in this war; but if she is similarly
banished from the company of the peace-makers, then woe betide the
constitution of the thing they will create, for a “stable peace” must
be the very last desire of those now doomed to defeat.