Evening journal. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1888-1932, 1916-08-19

the British Islands can fail to per-
ceive that for some months there
has been a very marked change COM
ing in all that should reveal the spirit
and thought Of the British people.
Mr.. Garvin, in his admirable letter.
published in The Tribune yesterday,
discusses and discloses this, but his
is only one voice among many.
The thing that one must. see and
feel is that, after long delays, after
hesitations and dubitations, the real
significance OF this struggle to all
that England means to her millions
Of people and all the empire means
alike to Britain and those who dwell
in the lands beyond the seas, "The
Dominions," as the contemporary
phrase has II, has got home. There
we're weeks and there were months
when II seemed as IL the British
people-alone Of the great people en-
gagged in the war failed to grasp the
deadly seriousness of the issues al
stake. There was a time when Brit
aims allies. as well as Britain's
friends, looked with apprehension
and frank bewilderment at the appar-
ent lack OF clear vision or accurate
appraisal Of tbs struggle in England.
How much OF this was real, how
much due the habits Of mind and eX-
preston Of the Englishman. one may
not say. Yet it is true that the Brit
ish people as a mass far less clearly
perceived the actual situation in Eur
ope in July 1914 than did the peo
pie Of any other nation in Europe
Above all. they perceived less clearly
than any other people that the fate OF
the British Empire was at stake and
that the real design Of German pol
icy was to destroy the foundations of
the British Empire.
Tangier, Bosnia, Agadir, the three
crises that preceded the storm, car
ried their full meaning to France. to-
Russia, to Austria and to Germany.
There were millions of Frenchmen
who said after Tangier that the hope
OF permanent peace had gone; there
we're few Frenchmen after Agadir
who believed a general war could
long be postponed When the Austrian
ultimatum was uttered France and
Russia alike had neither doubts nor
hopes. In Paris, as in Petrograd,
men said to each other, $50 it has
come at last" and the whole course
OF French and Russian craftsmanship
in the last few days of the last crisis
showed together with a willingness
to make any sacrifice for peace a
clear conviction that war was inevi-
table.
This was not true of British states.
manship. Of British leadership Blind
ed by his illusory influence in the
Albanian time, Sir Edward Grey
chung long to the hope that peace
could be preserved. and, taking their
Views. from their statesmen, the mass
of the British people looked on the
whole Serbian affair as one more "in.
cident," one more in the series OF
newspaper crisis that would be set
tied after some delay and bad tenn
per, as the three preceding crises had
been.
The greatest fault Of the British
Government in the years OF Liberal
Radical supremacy had been that il
had misunderstood It's Europe and
| permitted its people to become totally
/
affairs. Thus, when war came II
came almost in the night, and II
came to a people not yet advised Of
the issues, not yet aware Of the Ger
man aims and ambitions. not YET
conscious Of cumprehending that a
new Napoleonic peril, a new anc
even more dangerous Louis XIV, had
arisen on the Continent and that 4
was not the question Of Serbia, wbicl
concerned no Englishman nearly
but the life Of the empire that was il
the balance.
One can trace, If he chooses. tn
slow but steady growth Of British un
derstanding OF the meaning Of tn
war to Britons. II is not an easy o
a simple thing for 4O,00000o of peopl
to pass from the state OF mind
peace 10 that Of war suddenly. Eve
Belgium. while Il momentarily fir
the chivalry and awakened the syn
pathy OF the masses Of Britons. ID
not serve to bring home the lesso
that It was to make Britain anoth'
Belgium that Germany had unde
taken her great war
A democracy, plunged over 4
wears into the most engrossing al
absorbing Of domestic quarrels al
, political warfares. its ears filled wi
the forecasts not of foreign wars b
Of civil strife, classes Of its popul
ton turned against other classes. Z
E thought OF the outside world exit
= guished. its mind obsessed by vag
, and vain Utopian ideas of the arriy
of universal peace, suddenly fou
itself at war with a nation whose q
structive purposes ii did not undo
stand. whose deliberate. If stealtl
preparation it had not seen, who
propaganda of hate il did not d
tinguish.
n What followed over year and me
=. Than a year was the process OF mo-
d and intellectual mobilization OF Rr
. ain. France was an open fronti'
the memories OF 1870 and a clos
knowledge of Germanism mobiliz
r in mind and soul with the coming
war. But neither in body nor in 81
=, could the British people mobilize l
T" I'll that hour when they perceived
Il last what was actually at stake. A
It In all those long months there is
g. blindness and wandering OF the ma
4 redeemed by the heroism of the j
the bravest and clearest visioned
Englishmen, who answered the Il
Il call and died that their fellow-col
,e trymen might ultimately learn
. truth.
v 4-,.o todo.- ;- that tho I