THE CRIME OF STUPIDITY
Voltaire is accredited with the saying that “the only crime is stupidity.” According to this dictum one must come to consider the “All-Highest War Lord” the greatest criminal of an epoch, his stupidity being almost without parallel in history. What man, not entirely mad, seeing a world of prosperity within reach of his hand would clench his fist and knock the whole splendid sphere away from him at one blow! The proposition seems absurd and untenable, yet it has been and continues to be the Kaiser’s policy, or the policy of his ministers and advisers; clear to all save those who remain perversely and wilfully blind.
For it is not too much to say that before the war Germany was pushing quietly but surely through every branch of commerce. From triumph to triumph she moved easily onward; everywhere her ramifications were spreading like the vigorous roots of a fast-growing tree. In Great Britain she had possessed herself of many of our trades; her goods were everywhere; her cutlery, her glass, her woollens, her linens, her dyes, her silver and copper ware, her chemicals—why, even our very window-frames were “Made in Germany”! She was at work in our mines and coal-fields; she was ahead of us in science, in invention, in industry and general “thoroughness.”
And let us not forget that we were, or appeared to be, supinely indifferent to her inroads on all that we used to claim as our “special line” and particular property. We were, like Hamlet, “growing fat and scant of breath.” We were disposed to indolence and self-indulgence, and, when we saw Germans working for us, and by us, and through us, taking the very tools out of our listless hands, we were agreeably convinced that they saved us a deal of trouble. They worked so cheaply, too!—and cheapness in necessary goods appealed to us, because it gave us more to spend on racing and football. The “Space for Special News” in our Press was not reserved (as intelligent foreigners conceive it ought to be) for serious information on world’s business; but for “Football Results” or cricket, in the respective seasons of these gamesome athletics—and the very word “patriotism” was laughed out of court as “Jingoism.” We gave the honours of heroes to our tennis champions, and played about while the Germans worked. They worked—as many of the British refuse to work; they saved—as many of the British decline to save; they gained their ends, because by our very inertia we gave them every opportunity to do so.