"I do not think that many people, least of all the authorities, realise what a vigorous campaign is now being waged amongst the rank and file by the Social-Democratic Federation. Herewith I forward a leaflet which, I believe, is being distributed in thousands to the military stations in all the corners of our Empire. The one I enclose I found attached to a tree by the roadside during the recent manœuvres near Aylesbury. Copies of the same leaflet have reached me from India and Belfast, where they were distributed during the recent strike trouble. It is no exaggeration to say that this leaflet is dangerous; the men of our army are peculiarly susceptible to the tenets of the Social-Democratic Federation. Officers and N.C.O.s will tell you what a serious effect such propaganda must have upon discipline.
"Yours faithfully,
"H.C. Smart,
Editor, 'Army Graphic'"
"October 7, 1907."
Socialism is carrying on a vigorous propaganda for destroying discipline in the army and also in the navy. Hervéism has been imported into Great Britain, and is making rapid progress. "The Socialist," the organ of the Socialist Labour party, a party which at present is small in number, but which is most violent in attitude, in an article entitled "The Socialist Labour Party and the Citizen Army," quotes with approval Hervé's saying: "The present countries are cruel step-mothers to the proletariat. There is at present no country so superior to any other that its working class should get themselves killed in its defence. In case of mobilisation the proletariat should respond to the call to arms by an insurrection against their rulers to establish the Socialist or Communist régime. Rebellion sooner than war! In case of an order to mobilise, we would seize the moment to attempt the revolution, to place our hands on the social wealth to-day usurped by a minority." The foregoing is printed in very large type. The article then continues, commenting upon Hervé's advice as follows: "The soldier has been fed and clothed by the working class. His continued efficiency as a military automaton depends upon regular supply of food, clothing, and the necessaries of life from the same source. He has been transported to the field of conflict by the labour of a whole army of railwaymen. Let us suppose that the day of the final struggle has been reached. Suppose the capitalist attempts to stifle the revolution in blood; suppose he calls upon the army to crush the revolutionary working class by brute force. Let us suppose, too, that the revolutionary agitation has not penetrated the Chinese walls of military discipline (a most improbable hypothesis) and that the soldiers, instead of turning their guns against the capitalist murderers, cheerfully and willingly serve their masters in the attempt to crush the people—what then? We shall put the army in quarantine. We shall isolate it from the rest of the community. We shall cut off supplies of food, clothing, and fuel. The railway and telegraph service will no longer be at its disposal—and in this respect we are in a more advantageous position than our French and German fellow-workers, inasmuch as the Government ownership of the railways in these countries is used to deny the workers connected with them the right of organisation. The army would be in a state of siege, surrounded on all sides by implacable foes. That, coupled with whatever may be possible and necessary in the way of armed insurrection within and outside of the army, is the policy proposed by the Socialist Labour party and Industrial Unionism. Circumstances may, and probably will, modify it in many important details, but there is the main outline. Is it not more logical, more coherent, more likely to succeed than any 'citizen army scheme'?"[554]
Love of country has apparently no room in the Socialist's ethics. Its defence does not trouble him, since he is taught that his worst enemies are those Englishmen who happen to be better off.
Waste not your ready blows,
Strike not at foreign foes,
Your bitterest enemies tread your own soil;
The preachers who blind ye,
The landlords who grind ye,
The gluttons who revel whilst ye are at toil.
Rise in your might, brothers, bear it no longer,
Assemble in masses throughout the whole land;
Teach the vile bloodsuckers who are the stronger
When workers and robbers confronted shall stand.
Through Castle, Court, and Hall,
Over their acres all,
Onward we'll press like the waves of the sea.
Seizing the wealth we've made.
Ending the spoilers' trade;
Till Labour has triumphed, and England is free.[555]
In their desire to abolish the army, some Socialists argue that "The whole of your military system is entirely unnecessary."[556] Others falsify history and boldly assert that British wars, "in nearly every case have been waged for the suppression of liberty abroad, or from the irritating desire on the part of British statesmen to interfere with the internal affairs of other nations."[557] On the other hand, Mr. Quelch very sensibly argues: "Militarism is an evil against which we have to fight with all the means in our power, but to talk of universal disarmament at the present stage is mere Utopianism, a crying of peace where there is no peace, and where existing antagonisms make peace impossible. We have at first to eradicate the causes of conflict. To-day the unarmed nation offers itself as a temptation and a prey to some mighty brigand Power. War is the last argument of kings, and all Governments rest on force. So long as that is the case, it is only the people which is armed that can maintain its freedom, or can indeed lay claim to be a free people. An unarmed nation cannot be free. An armed nation, on the contrary, is a guarantee of individual liberty, of social freedom, and of national independence."[558] Mr. Quelch would have the same ideals as the National Service League, did not later utterances of his contradict sensible statements such as the above.
It is a curious and most interesting phenomenon that in France and Great Britain, two eminently non-aggressive countries, the Socialists do all in their power to disarm the nation, whilst in Germany, which can hardly be described as non-aggressive, the Socialists are patriotic and are ready to go to war, not only for the defence but also for the aggrandisement of their country. Numerous declarations to that effect made by the leading German Socialists are on record, and the following extract is characteristic of their attitude:
"That Germany be armed to the teeth, possessing a strong fleet, is of the utmost importance to the working men. What damages our exports damages them also, and working men have the most pressing interest in securing prosperity for our export trade, be it even by force of arms. Owing to her development, Germany may perhaps be obliged to maintain her position sword in hand. Only he who is under the protection of his guns can dominate the markets, and in the fight for markets German working men may come before the alternative either of perishing or of forcing their entrance into markets sword in hand."[559]