as wrote the "World's Work" (a high-class London periodical) only in October last.
These are views which I myself have, as you know, held for years; the very views which I ex- pressed to a "Standard" interviewer in August 1911 (not in 1909 as X.... writes) and which no war can change. Over here it is only the minority which loses its sense of justice and proportion.
Can you imagine anybody in Germany not flying into a passionate rage at only thinking of the possi- bility of strikes in times of war. And yet there are people in England, patriots and even admirers of Ger- many's enthusiastic unity and single-mindedness, who do not much excite themselves over actual strikes, condemnable as of course they know them to be. In- dividual liberty of thought and action is too deeply rooted in the nation!
One cannot expect a peacefully inclined nation all at once to alter its whole outlook upon life, least of all to look at matters from a German point of view. The psychology of the public of the two nations is too widely different for that.
Of course, we all know that England has won her world-wide possessions partly by the sword (often by peaceful penetration), and only sentimentalists and cranks prattle about eternal love and peace. In that breed, England is perhaps more prolific than other countries, owing to her greater popular liberty.
Of course, England like every other State has a Foreign policy, and can X.... wonder that that policy was and is to keep what she has? What would Ger- many do in England's position? Let him ask himself this single question, in regard to this and all the other points, and his answer will soon guide him to quite different conclusions !
Also let X.... not forget that England, in all her large and small dependencies, has always given the Germans every equality and privilege enjoyed by
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Britishers themselves! That, if England conquered by the sword, she does not hold her acquisitions by the sword. She holds them by the moral force of tolerant and liberal government, by granting the conquered autonomy or equal rights as soon as ever possible.
Let X.... think of the Boers and their present loyalty. They were overthrown not much more than 10 years ago.
Though Englishmen did not greatly love Germany, they much respected her and nobody could have treated the Germans with greater hospitality and consideration up to the last moments of peace. Even at present, there are 20,000 male enemy-aliens free in the Metropolis of which about half are of military age; and since November last about 3,000 of the interned men have been released.
As to the treatment of civilian prisoners in the Hongkong camp, it stands to reason that people who are all at once deprived of personal liberty and their usual comforts must of necessity have endured great and regrettable hardship, particularly in the tropics; but here again the point is that these hardships were a consequence of the war.
I also know for a fact that our own gentlemen- soldiers, by force of circumstances, have been treated in many cases quite as badly, even at home in England. Britishers are happy-go-lucky mortals-not Germans who with machine-like precision lay their plans in an- ticipation of almost everything, and from a point of human happiness it is well that they are.
From a point of business, this places us of course at a disadvantage when in competition with nations who are taking life's responsibilities more seriously.
The stories of inhuman treatment of prisoners in England are obviously quite untrue. As to the officers, the majority live in luxuriously furnished and beautifully situated country mansions, with billiards and such like conveniences; one of these, Donington Hall, was acquired and furnished at a cost of almost £20,000. As to the
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