Albert Apponyi
Our friend Dr. Clark, a Scotchman, who has never missed a Peace Congress and has always distinguished himself by his clever speeches characterized by a certain dry humor, had just been made the object of bitter attacks by the British press. He sent me the following explanation of the circumstances:
Ardnahane Cove, Dunbartonshire, September 11, 1900
Dear Madam von Suttner:
I have received your letter, for which I thank you very heartily. These are indeed evil days for the cause with which we are associated, though I cannot but think that the events of the last year must have led many to the contemplation of the awful waste of life and suffering caused by the present system of settling international disputes by force of arms, and will induce them to work for the day when arbitration shall take the place of war with its horrible human sacrifice.
You mention the letters written to President Kruger and General Joubert by me on the 29th of September of last year, which have lately been published by Mr. Chamberlain and copied by the continental press. It is quite true that there has been a great deal of misrepresentation on that subject. For some months before the war began there had been a small party in this country who had been working to bring about a peaceable settlement. I had some correspondence with President Kruger and General Joubert, in which I had advised them to make such concessions to the British government that the calamity of war might be averted, since the prosperity of South Africa must depend on the good faith and friendly feeling between the two white races. The published letters, to which you refer, are the last portion of this correspondence, and were written less than a fortnight before the war began. In my letter to President Kruger I gave him the result of an interview which I had with Mr. Chamberlain, in which I endeavored to induce him to accede to the repeated request which the Transvaal government had made that matters at issue should be settled by arbitration, and to consent that a permanent arbitration tribunal should be formed to which all present and future disputes should at once be submitted. I told him that the Transvaal government were willing to submit the differences pending between the two governments to a court of arbitration, consisting of the four chief justices of South Africa, and to accept the Lord Chief Justice of England as umpire in the event of the two colonial and two republican chief justices not being able to agree,—a suggestion which, as you will have seen, the colonial secretary was not able to accept.
The force of misrepresentation and calumny which the peace party here have had to endure from the virulent and unscrupulous jingo press can be estimated by the manner in which they have misrepresented my warning to President Kruger. I knew, as every one who knew anything of the geography of South Africa must have known, that the obvious line of action for the Boers to adopt would be that of seizing the passes, and I warned President Kruger that to do so would alienate the sympathy of many of their supporters in this country and on the continent of Europe. My words were deliberately misconstrued, and it was asserted that I urged the Boers to seize the passes. Nothing further from the truth can be imagined.
But, in spite of the difficulties with which we have had to contend, there is, undoubtedly, a large minority here who are firmly convinced that the war is an unjust one, and who regard the settlement by annexation as another wrong against which they will continue to protest. We shall go on working by all constitutional means for the restoration of the independence of the two republics, believing that by these means only can peace and prosperity exist once more in South Africa. We believe that we are working in a just cause, and shall hope in the not too distant future that we may be able to appeal to the justice of this people, who will then have recognized the folly and wickedness for which they have been made responsible.
We do not doubt the future. We are sure that it is with us. It is true that the middle classes and the moderate liberals have abandoned their old watchword of “Peace, retrenchment, and reform,” but the radicals and socialists are standing firmly by these principles. I send you a copy of the socialist paper Justice, which expressed fairly the attitude of the democratic party. I have, as you know, opposed the growth of socialism, which I formerly believed to be inimical to freedom and progress, but I am considerably modifying my views. The power for evil of the lawless and conscienceless capitalism which is now rampant is so great, and entails such unlimited moral and physical degeneracy, that I am convinced some form of collective action is a necessity to put an end to its baneful influence.
The history of this miserable war determines us to stand more determinedly by the principle of the substitution of arbitration for war. It becomes clearer and clearer that no permanent settlement can be based on war, and that, as between individuals, so between nations, magnanimity is not only morally desirable, but it is the best policy.