III.
Offices of the Siècle,
Paris,
Chef-lieu of the
department of the Seine,
France.
6, Thermidor, 108.
My good Kruger.—It is evidently necessary that I should speak out to you in plain English. I can’t go into a long dissertation, but if you will read the books I send herewith, The Origin of Species, Spencer’s Sociology, Grant Allen’s Evolution of the Idea of God, &c., you will see why I can’t back you up. As for your contemptible offer, I cast it back at you with disdain. My name alone should have protected me from such insults. I would have you know that my paper represents French opinion in England, and is now owned by an international company. I am the irremovable editor.
Yours with reserve,
Yves Guyot.
P.S.—I have been a Cabinet Minister. I send you a circular of our new company. It is a good thing. Push it along.
IV.
The Chaplaincy,
Barford College,
Old St. Winifred’s Day,
1900.
My dear Mr. Kruger.—Your position is at once interesting and peculiar, and deserves, as you say, my fullest attention. On the one hand (as you well remark) you believe you have a right to your independence, and that our Government has no moral right to interfere in your domestic affairs. You speak warmly of Mr. Chamberlain and describe him as lacking in common morality or (as we put it) in breeding. I think you are hardly fair. Mr. Chamberlain has his own morality, and in that summing up of all ethics which we in England call “manners,” he is indistinguishable from other gentlemen of our class. He has had a great deal to bear and he has latterly borne it in silence. It is hardly the part of a generous foe to taunt him now. I fear you look upon these matters a little narrowly and tend to accept one aspect as the absolute. The truth is that international morality must always be largely Utilitarian, and in a very interesting little book by Beeker it is even doubted whether what we call “ethics” have any independent existence. This new attitude (which we call “moral anarchism”) has lately cast a great hold upon our younger men and is full of interesting possibilities. If you meet Milner you should discuss the point with him. I assure you this school is rapidly ousting the old “comparative-positive” in which he and Curzon were trained. There is a great deal of self-realization going on also. Lord Mestenvaux (whom you have doubtless met—he was a director of the Johannesberg Alcohol Concession) is of my opinion.
Believe me, my dear Mr. Kruger, with the fullest and warmest sympathy for such of your grievances as may be legitimate, and with the ardent prayer that the result of this deplorable quarrel may turn out to be the best for both parties,