The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-10-05

l We killed a king to get free Parlia- ments; we were burnt at the stake to get a free church. Freedom is our craze it Is in our proverbs-an Eng lishman's house Is his castle; 1t is all most our national anthem: Britons never never, never [" For freedoms sake We are the byword of unfree Eu- rope. They come over here to find their suspects--in Soho. Outcast Jews of theirs, all their anarchists, nihilists
 all their prescribed revolutionaries come here. The police bureaux of Flu rope know that.
 Don't you believe me? Ah, but you must, if 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 degre the Eng fish passion for freedom; but over herN, not only half of England but by far the better half of England was on the American side. Put Lord Chatham against Lord George Germain. Put Horace Walpole and Charles Fox against Lord North and George III (who was a 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 Eng land. Shelley was for him, Byron was for him; Napier was for him, Lord Holland was for him. And why2 Be- cause 1t was believed that he stood for the French revolution, which. in turn stood for liberty. A liberal newspaper | 1t was Leigh Hunts 'Examiner'-was almost flagrantly partisan against England--and, l 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 req son, believe me. than that he was a tyrant and bully; and so it may be now, if it must be.
 "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 despotsm, the worst of all forms of government. be- cause 1t is irrational; because if relies upon force; because it's plea is necessity And whose necessity, in Gods name! Because, finally, It's aim is not peace but sword'
 Let me ask you this Have you seem a German with a sword? Do you remem- Der Zabern? There was German there with a sword. That Zabern affairs, very probably. was the first thing which stirred our instinct for liberty"
 That showed the set of the wind, you think?''
 Yes, to the people at large, not to the government. not to Sir Edward Grey The people at large know nothing of what he knows about Germany Why, they don't know as much as I know. 1 have stayed in German houses, and heard the officers talk in German clubs. I have seen German officers cuff and beat their men with the flat of the sword. have seen how they behave to women. Without swords they are pleasant, af- fable, ordinary people. With swords they arc brutal But the people don't know all that
 "Sir Edward Grey knows that the, Pan German doctrine was nursing by Bis marck long before the war of 1870. He knows that it was Bismarck who pro- voked that war for which Germany was ready and France was not. He knows, | and we all know now, that this present | hateful business has been cooking for 10 or 15 years past In the light of pres | ent knowledge we can almost trace the stages of it. It Is easy to be wise after the event. But what beside Zabern gave us the hint?"
 Hewlett threw up his hands 'Who shall say how the instinct for Freedom is awakened? That instinct, I tell you. Is in our very nerve centers We can feel, we can read. the lightest airs that blow upon it. The Austrian's bullying of Servia, the Germans bullying of Bel | gium-who can misread these things? Yet I am almost a peace-at-any- price man. I am like Quaker on that sub ject. l think war is a disgrace to man hood. In the days of the Boer war. I tell you frankly. I was ashamed of my own country. And was not alone. Don't | think that Nearly half England was with me There again-as in the case of | your own uprlsing-we felt that the free- dom of a people was being invaded-and | invaded by our country. That was hard to bear.
 "But here-now-I am heart and soul | for it. My son goes--I would send five If I had them,-I would so myself (and | go shall If 6ey want such men as | am) with a single heart and clear con- science This war is holy war. I don't believe there is man against it."
 Finally he said, ITO your people. sir. | who have not scrupied to fight against their own blood for freedom to your people who have won the freedom they deserved, shan't speak in vain. You are free, and we respect you the better for the beating you gave us. You did what nightly became you. We all know 1t now. We'll. and today 1t is our free dom. which Is in the fire. and not only ours. Freedom itself is in the fire. What is to rule mankind at this age of the world, reason or the sword?
 "Let Louvain and Malines have a word to say in your answer to that question"
 
 Her Apprenticeship