(From the _Neutral Press_, 1914.)
To love peace with all one’s heart. To feel that war is a black stain on
the humanity and fame of man. To hate militarism. To go any length to
avoid war for material interests, war that involves no great principle,
distrusting profoundly the common meaning of the phrase “national
honour”—all this is my belief.
But there is a national honour charged with the future happiness of man;
loyalty is due from those living to those that will come after;
civilization can only wax and flourish in a world where faith is kept;
for nations, as for individuals, there are laws of duty, whose violation
harms the whole human race; in sum, stars of conduct shine for peoples,
as for private men.
And so I hold that without tarnishing true honour, endangering
civilization present and to come, and ruining all hope of future
tranquillity, my Country could not have refused to take up arms for the
defence of her little neighbour Belgium’s outraged neutrality, which she
had solemnly guaranteed.
I claim from the trend of events, and of national character, during the
last century that in democracy alone lies any coherent hope of
progressive civilization or any chance of lasting peace in Europe, or
the world.
I believe that this democratic principle, however imperfectly developed,
has so worked in France, in Britain, in the United States, that these
countries are already nearly safe from inclination to aggress, or to
subdue other nationalities that have reached approximately their stage
of development.
And I believe that while there remain autocratic Governments basing
themselves on militarism, hostile at heart to the democratic principle,
Europe will never be free of the surcharge of swollen armaments, the
nightmare menace of wars like this—the paralysis that creeps on
civilizations which adore the god of force.
And so I hold that without betrayal of trusteeship, without shirking the
elementary defence of beliefs coiled within its fibre, or beliefs vital
to the future welfare of all men, my Country could not stand by and see
the ruin of France, that very cradle of democracy.
I believe that democratic culture spreads from West to East, that only
by maintenance of consolidate democracy in Western Europe can democracy
ever hope to push on and prevail till the Eastern Powers have also that
ideal under which alone humanity can flourish.
And so I hold that my Country is justified at this juncture in its
alliance with the autocratic power of Russia, whose people will never
know freedom till her borders are joined to the borders of a true
democracy in Central Europe.
I do not believe that jealous, frightened jingoism has been more than
the dirty fringe of Britain’s peace-loving temper, and I profess my
sacred faith that my Country has gone to war, against her will, because
she must—for honour, for democracy, and for the future of mankind.