The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1917-10-19

Gilbert Murray, distinguished OXFORD
writer and scholar written for pub.
lication in the London Daily News
Professor Murray might be called
almost Socialist" He has writ
ten of the international labor move
ment as the great spiritual force
of our times and has predicted that
this movement is to inspire our
greatest art in the years immediate
ly ahead.
The article follows:
Liberalism has not been destroyed
by the war. 1t has been fortified.
In spite of our many set-backs, in
spite of our present sense of exile
and discouragement, our horizon has
been widened, our experienced deep
end, our opinions have grown into a
faith. 1t is a faith for which we
have shed blood and endured great
suffering, and it would be strange
if we betrayed it.
For, unless all our chief states
men are using the language of mere
hypocrisy, the cause in which we
are now fighting is the central cause
for which Liberals have always
stood. Our Allies are all the great
democratic nations of the world; our
enemies the great despotisms. In
the few countries that still remain
neutral, the Libral and Socialist par
tis are with US, the military and
reactionary parties against us. On
the other hand, war itself and the
whole atmosphere of war are so
horrible, so profoundly illiberal that
we are, as it were, shaken by the
confusion of violent events, and cam
not without an effort get our minds
clear and realize what our policy
is.
How do we stand towards the more
moderate and enlightened Conserva-
tives? Our differences, though often
great in practice, have in principle
been largely differences of emphasis,
differences in the degree of import
ance which we and they attached to
different parts of the same field of
work. We stood for democracy and
the destruction of privilege; they
but pressed for preservation
of what they supposed to be val
uablea elements connected with par
ticular privileges. We aimed with
all our strength at avoiding war,
though we took pains also to be
for it. They prepared for
it with zeal, though at the same
time they wished to avoid it. They
English civilization so much
that they wished it to stay unchang
ed; we admired it so much that we
were eager for it to go on growing
in the same direction. We put our
hearts into the improvement of ma
tional life at home, they put theirs
into the increase of national strength
abroad. But these are old diff
ferences. We know them, and shall
fall instinctively back into them.
They do not necessarily prevent mu-
,uel respect and cooperation.
AS to Pacifists.
How do we stand towards the Pa
,ifists? We too love peace and
nave always worked for peace. But
here are some things which we |
ate still higher than peace, some
.hings which we think worse than
he shedding of human blood. The '
oacifist does not, indeed, say-it is {
Unjust to accuse him of saying
There is nothing for which | will I
lie;" but he does say: "There is I
lothing for which l will kill" or {
: least, "There is nothing for which 8
will plunge nations into this waste I
f killing and dying" And we say i
Iuite firmly: "There are things for 7
yhich | will die, for which l will
ill, for which ! will ask my coun-
,ymen to kill and die; and the U
ause involved in this war is one of t
hem." t
How do we stand towards the Rev II
lutionaries Are we content with h
his society in which we live? Do k
re not feel it's failures and baseness, r
ow it has oppressed the poor, how 6
, has followed advertisement in the p
lace of truth, and worshipped money a
4 the place of greatness? We feel a
II this. But our answer to the Il
.evolutionaries was given in our ac- e
eptance of the war. We felt, and Il
re feel still, that Great Britain, Brit
III society, British freedom, imper- "
ect as they are, are things so great t.
nd so beloved as to be worth dying a
Dr. We differ both from the Rev r
, h