Evening star., 1914-10-11

against Napoleon. but this is a bigger
thing than that, because the people are
travel. they read the papers. They see
that liberty is threatened, and they will
fight forever to save that
THAT is what you believer"
THAT is why" he said. this war will
last until the Germans are beaten to
their knees or the English are exter-
minated. 1 hope America will under
stand that. l know my people well. II
is my business to know them. And ]
am English of the English myself. de-
scendant of yeoman family which was
in Somerset before the Normans came.
I have worked at history all my life,
and find that the English as a people
have only fought spontaneously and
whole-heartedly for freedom. Free
dom of person, freedom of thought,
dom of speech. We have always been
excessively intolerant of restraint. Any
Englishman you choose to pick out will
spend the last ounce of himself to be
free, or to help others to be free. We
killed a king to get free parliaments:
we vert burnt at the stake to get a
free church. Freedom is our craze. it
is in our proverbs-an Englishman's
house is his castle, 1t Is almost our ma
tional anthem; 'Britons never. never,
never . For freedoms sake we
are the byword of unfree Europe. They
come over here to find their suspects
in Sono. Outcast Jews Of theirs, all
their anarchists, nihilists, all their pro-
scribed revolutionaries come here. The
police bureaux of Europe know that.
+ 4
Don't you believe me? All. but you
must, II you want to understand this
war. I won't take you too far back
into history. but Just remember this.
In your great war Of independence half
of England was on the side of the
Americans. I say nothing of the fact
that you yourselves Of that day were.
in fact, of English blood. and were
showing in a supreme degree the Eng
lish passion for freedom, but over here,
not only half of England but by far
the better half of England was on the
American side. Put Lord Chatham
against Lord George German. Put
Horace Walpole and Charles Fox
against Lord North and George III
(who was German. by the way). and
judge which was the better half.
But" he went on. "there is even a
stronger case. Even Napoleon. who
waged bitter war with us the whole Of
his career, had his party in England.
Shelley was for him, Byron was for
him, Napier was for him, Lord Holland
was for him. And why? Because it
was believed that he stood for the
French revolution. which in turn stood
for liberty. A liberal newspaper-it
was Leigh Hunts Examiner-was al
most hagrantly partisan against Eng
land-and. I may add. against sense
and the truth.
well, England was the only coun-
try that stood out against Napoleon to
the last, and beat him. For no other
reason, believe me, than that he was
a tyrant and a bully. and SO 1T may be
now. If 1t must be.
1.-The government was well inspired
when it declared war. The breach of
Belgian neutrality-that fragrant act
of brute force-was the last straw. Or
change the figure. Call 1t the arrow
which showed the set of the wind. The
wind from Germany, set dead for
tyranny. for military despotism. the
worst of all forms of government, be-
cause it is irrational, because 1t relies
upon force, because its plea 10 necep-
sity. And whose necessity. in Gods