Where is the man with a sound mind, with a strong heart, beating with the noble impulses of righteousness, with a soul dignified by lofty aspirations, who ignores to-day that for fifty years previous to the declaration of war, in August 1914, Germany had been perfecting her military organization for a grand effort at universal domination?
All my life a close student of History, I was much impressed by the constant Policy of England to maintain Peace during the last century. When the World emerged from the great wars of the Napoleonic Era, she firmly took her stand in favour of peaceful relations between the nations, trusting more and more for the future prosperity of them all to the advantages to be derived from the permanency of friendly intercourse, from the ever increasing development of international trade, prompted by the freest possible exchanges of the products of all the countries blessed by Providence with large and varied resources. Her statesmen, so many of them truly worthy of this name, however divided they may have been with regard to questions of domestic government and internal reforms, were most united about the course to be followed respecting foreign relations. Perhaps more than all others having a say in the management of the world's affairs at large, they fully realized that no nation could prosper and successfully work out her destinies by systematically trying to injure her neighbours. No independent country can become wealthier, happier, and greater, by spreading ruin and devastation around her frontiers.
The most convincing evidence that England was constantly favourable to the maintenance of peace amongst the great Powers of the World, for the last hundred years, is found in her permanent determination not to be drawn into the vortex of European continental militarism, so powerfully developed by Prussianism. She could have organized a standing army of millions of men. She would not. True, during the few years which preceded the present hurricane, some of the most eminent of England's military officers, notably, foremost amongst them, Lord Roberts, seeing, with their eyes wide open, the aggravated dangers accumulating on the darkening horizon, warned their countrymen about the threatening waves which menaced the future of the world. But British public opinion, as a whole, would not depart from her almost traditional policy of "non-intervention". For nearly a century, Great Britain maintained her "splendid isolation", trusting to the sound sense which should always govern the world to protect Mankind against the horrors of a general war. Never was this great national policy better exemplified than during the long and glorious reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. For more than fifty years, she graced one of the most illustrious Thrones that ever presided over the destinies of a great Empire, with sovereign dignity, with womanly virtues, with motherly devotion, with patriotic respect of the constitutional liberties of her free subjects. When she departed for a better world, she was succeeded by the great King and Emperor—Edward VII.—who, during the few years of his memorable reign, proved himself so much the friendly supporter of harmony and good will amongst the nations that he deserved to be called "The King of the Peace of the World."
CHAPTER II.
The Persistent Efforts of England in Favour of Peace.
In 1891, Lord Salisbury, then Prime Minister of England, witnessing the constant progress of Prussian militarism on land and sea, and fully conscious of the misfortunes it was preparing for Humanity, ordered an official statement to be made of the extravagant cost of the European military organization, and sent it confidentially to the German Kaiser, who took no notice of it.
In 1896, Lord Salisbury lays before the Czar of Russia all the information he has obtained on the question of militarism in Europe. On the 28th of August, 1898, the Emperor of Russia addressed to the world his celebrated Manifesto in favour of peace. It urged, first, the necessity of a truly permanent peace; second, the limitation of military preparation which, in its ever increasing development, was causing the economic ruin of the nations.
The conferences of The Hague in favour of an international agreement for the maintenance of peace were the direct result of the initiative of the British Prime Minister, who foresaw the frightful consequences for Humanity of the enormous development of militarism by the German Empire.