But, then, that is not a popular thing to point out, and Mr. Churchill is very careful not to point it out in any way that could give justification to an unpopular view or discredit a popular one. He is, however, far too able a Cabinet Minister to ignore obvious facts, and it is interesting to note how he disposes of them. Observe the following passage:
For the drama or tragedy which is moving to its climax in the Balkans we all have our responsibilities, and none of us can escape our share of them by blaming others or by blaming the Turk. If there is any man here who, looking back over the last 35 years, thinks he knows where to fix the sole responsibility for all the procrastination and provocation, for all the jealousies and rivalries, for all the religious and racial animosities, which have worked together for this result, I do not envy him his complacency…. Whether we blame the belligerents or criticise the Powers or sit in sackcloth and ashes ourselves is absolutely of no consequence at the present moment.
Now if for this tragedy we "all have our responsibility," then what becomes of his first statement that the war is raging despite all that rulers and diplomats could do to prevent it? If the war was "inevitable," and rulers and diplomats have done all they could to prevent it, neither they nor we have any responsibility for it. He knows, of course, that it is impossible to deny that responsibility, that our errors in the past have been due not to any lack of readiness to fight or quarrel with foreign nations, but precisely to the tendency to do those things and our _in_disposition to set aside instinctive and reasonless jealousies and rivalries in favour of a deeper sense of responsibility and a somewhat longer vision.
But, again, this quite obvious moral, that if we have our responsibility, if, in other words, we have not done all that we might and have been led away by temper and passion, we should, in order to avoid a repetition of such errors in the future, try and see where we have erred in the past, is precisely the moral that Mr. Churchill does not draw. Again, it is not the popular line to show with any definiteness that we have been wrong. An abstract proposition that "we all have our responsibilities," is, while a formal admission of the obvious fact also at the same time, an excuse, almost a justification. You realise Mr. Churchill's method: Having made the necessary admission of fact, you immediately prevent any unpleasant (or unpopular) practical conclusion concerning our duty in the matter by talking of the "complacency" of those who would fix any real and definite part of the responsibility upon you. (Because, of course, no man, knows where lies, and no one would ever attempt to fix, the "sole" responsibility). Incidentally, one might point out to Mr. Churchill that the attempt to see the errors of past conduct and to avoid them in the future is not complacency, but that airily to dismiss our responsibility by saying that it is of "no consequence whether we sit in sackcloth and ashes" is complacency.
Mr. Churchill's idea seems to be that men should forget their errors—and commit them again. For that is what it amounts to. We cannot, indeed, undo the past, that is true; but we can prevent it being repeated. But we certainly shall not prevent such repetition if we hug the easy doctrine that we have always been right—that it is not worth while to see how our principles have worked out in practice, to take stock of our experience, and to see what results the principles we propose again to put into operation, have given.
The practical thing for us if we would avoid like errors in the future is to see where our responsibility lies—a thing which we shall never do if we are governed by the net impression which disengages itself from speeches like those of Mr. Churchill. For the net result of that speech, the impression, despite a few shrewd qualifications which do not in reality affect that net result but which may be useful later wherewith to silence critics, is that war is inevitable, a matter of "destiny," that diplomacy—the policy pursued by the respective powers—can do nothing to prevent it; that as brute force is the one and final appeal the only practical policy is to have plenty of armaments and to show a great readiness to fight; that it is futile to worry about past errors; (especially as an examination of them would go a long way to discredit the policy just indicated); that the troublesome and unpopular people who in the past happen to have kept their heads during a prevailing dementia—and whose policy happens to have been as right as that of the popular side was wrong—can be dismissed with left-handed references to "complacency," This sort of thing is popular enough, of course, but—
Well, I will take the risks of a tactic which is the exact contrary to that adopted by Mr. Churchill and would urge upon those whose patriotism is not of the order which is ready to see their country in the wrong and who do feel some responsibility for its national policy, to ask themselves these questions:
Is it true that the Powers could have prevented in large measure the abominations which Turkey has practised in the Balkans for the last half-century or so?
Has our own policy been a large factor in determining that of the
Powers?
Has our own policy directly prevented in the past the triumph of the Christian populations which, despite that policy, has finally taken place?