_In a cablegram to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES, _dated July 17, 1915, it is
reported that an article by George Bernard Shaw in The New Statesman
begins with a review of Professor Gilbert Murray's book, "The Foreign
Policy of Sir Edward Grey," and ends with the following characteristic
reference to himself:_
"Like other Socialists, I have been too much preoccupied with the
atrocities of peace and the problems they raise to pay due attention
to the atrocities of war, but I have not been unconscious of the
European question and I have made a few shots at solutions from time
to time. None of these have been received with the smallest approval,
but at least I may be permitted to point out that they have all come
out right.
"I steadily ridiculed anti-armament agitation, and urged that our
armaments should be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as they might have
been without costing the country one farthing that we were not wasting
in the most mischievous manner.
"I said that the only policy which would secure the peace of Europe
was a policy of using powerful armament to guarantee France against
Germany and Germany against Russia, aiming finally at a great peace
insurance league of the whole northwest of Europe with the United
States of America in defense of Western democratic civilization
against the menace of the East and possible crusades from primitive
black Christians in Africa.
"When the war broke out I said some more things which were frantically
contradicted and which have all turned out to be precisely true. I set
the example of sharp criticism of the Government and the War Office,
which was denounced as treasonable and which now proves to be the only
way of saving our army from annihilation, the Government having
meanwhile collapsed and vanished, as every ordinarily self-possessed
person foresaw that it must.
"One fact seems established by this beyond doubt; to wit, that I am
the gravest public danger that confronts England, because I have the
strange power of turning the nation passionately away from the truth
by the simple act of uttering it. The necessity for contradicting me,
for charging heroically in the opposite direction to that pointed out
by me, is part of the delirium of war fever.
"Sir Edward Grey, on the other hand, is spoken well of by all men, but
he, too, is the victim of a mysterious fate. He is, as Professor
Murray has repeatedly testified, the most truthful of men, yet he
never opens his mouth without deceiving us. He is the most loyal of
simple, manly souls, yet he is accused of betraying every country and
every diplomatist who trusted him. He is the kindest of men, and yet
he has implicated us in the tortures of Denshawai and brought upon us
the slaughters of Armageddon.
"Clearly, there are two men in England who must be sent into permanent
retirement. Depend on it, there is something fundamentally wrong with
them. It is a pity, for they are stuffed with the rarest of
virtues--though I say it, who should not. One of them is Sir Edward
Grey and the other is G.B.S."