VI
The march of events is the proof that the woe of humanity is too deeply seated to be healed by any human salve. There is no balm in any Gilead for these wounds. The first step towards the rehabilitation of the world would be the mutual cancelling of the nations' debts to each other. The United States alone makes this impossible. Money that we borrowed for our allies, and which we cannot recover from our allies, America insists that we pay. And yet that money was spent to save America as well as ourselves. To realise that one has only to think what would have happened if Germany had won? The greatest day in the history of Scotland was when the German fleet, its crimes against the laws of Neptune for ever ended, came sailing into the Forth to surrender. Through the mist that shrouded it there never moved a procession so humiliating and so woeful. Judgment at last overtook the murderers who gloated over the Lusitania! But supposing Germany had won, what then? The first condition would have been the surrender of the British fleet at Kiel. And we would have no choice; for a starving nation must sacrifice everything to feed its children. But what would have happened then? Think of the Emperor William master of the British and French fleets as well as his own. What would have become of the Monroe Doctrine next morning? What would have become of the scores he had to settle about the supplying of munitions to his foes? In face of the might confronting her, America would have been helpless. New York would have been given to the flames if America came not to heel. We saved the great Republic as well as France and ourselves. And now, having given our sons and our treasure, we are being bled white that we may pay America for the munitions which we used in her defence. These payments are earmarked for the payment of American war-pensions! The world has never seen so grotesque a situation. The protected and the delivered demand that their protectors and deliverers should pay for the privilege of protecting and delivering them! What is at the back of so preposterous a state of things? It is this, that there is the shadow of a Presidential Election looming ahead, and the cancelling of the debts guaranteed by Britain would be unpopular. One can quite realise the use the Irish orators would make of that. We forget that Anglophobia is still the staple of American history as taught in her schools. The Boston Tea Party and the War of Independence were due to British vices and the triumph of American virtues. To cancel the debts for which such a nation is responsible would be to repudiate the makers of America! ... What is required, of course, is the right education of the American democracy. Schools should teach that it is impossible in so imperfect a world that all the right can be on one side. Yet that is how history is taught, not only there but here. Our foes also were always wrong! There will be no peace in the world until the spirit of spread-eagleism is replaced by that of meekness; until nations and men realise that we are members one of another, and that we are here to help and serve each other. Until that new spirit breathes through the masses of humanity, there will be war. And we shall have to endure. We who saved America must pay for the privilege of saving her; and we must do it while every opportunity of doing so is snatched from us. A tariff that will exclude our goods has been established; the only way left to pay is by acting as carriers on the seas! Now we are to be driven from that service by nationally subsidised mercantile American fleets! And yet we must pay! ... If anything could waken humanity to the fact that the conversion of the people can alone save the world, it would be this. Missionaries to convert the hearts of the American voters is the world's supreme need.
VII
One of the most impressive sights in New York is the tomb of General Grant. Its site overlooking the deep-gorged Hudson river is most impressive. It is a square building of white granite without and white marble within, surmounted by a cupola with Ionic columns. Above the door, between two figures emblematic of peace and war, are inscribed the words, 'Let us have peace.' These are the closing words of his letter accepting the Presidency. Grant had a right to use the words, for he was a great peace-maker. He made peace by conquering the forces of disruption. He kept stubbornly at it. But when he won at last he would not humiliate Lee by taking his sword from him; and when he was told that Lee's men owned their own horses—'Let them keep them,' said Grant; 'they will need them for the spring ploughing.' Nor would he allow any salvos of victory. 'We are all citizens of the same Republic,' said he; 'let us have peace.' To-day the whole world is one Republic woven together by the mighty shuttles of steamships, airships, and wireless. In that world there can be no hermit nation. In that world, 'let us have peace.' In the Governor's garden at the base of the slope that leads to the citadel, in Quebec, there is an obelisk that stirs the heart. It is a monument to Wolfe and Montcalm. The one died content that he had won a dominion greater than he knew for the nation that he loved; the other, dying, comforted himself with the thought that he did not live to see the surrender of Quebec. There, these two heroic souls, near the scene of their heroism, share a common monument. The inscription is the most beautiful I know:—
Mortem, Virtus, Communem,
Famam Historia
Monumentum Posteritas
Dedit.
'Valour gave them a common death; history a common fame; posterity a common monument.' That obelisk visualises the hope of the future. It would indeed be a miserable world in which men went on hating for ever. Only the spirit of Him who for the love of men stooped to a cross can dig the grave of hate and war at last. When the world shall awake from its nightmare and shall listen to Him, then the world will have peace.
VIII
When I shall have forgotten all else, I shall remember a morning spent in Trinity Church, New York. The oldest grave in the graveyard surrounding it is that of a little child, Richard Churcher, 'who died the 5 of April 1681 of age 5 years and 5 months.' The child's name has outlived the city; for the old city is gone. A few years ago the spire of Trinity Church was a landmark. Now they are completely hidden by the buildings of enormous height that surround them. By contrast the church and spire look like toys. One building soars to 724 feet—49 storeys, with elevators rising 41 storeys in one minute, and express elevators 30 storeys in 30 seconds! Even St. Paul's Cathedral surrounded by buildings such as the Woolworth, rising to 800 feet, would be dwarfed into significance, and Trinity Church is small compared to St. Paul's. It is when one ponders such a scene that one realises what it is that is wrong with the world. The towers and pinnacles of Mammon soar everywhere high above the puny sanctuaries of faith. The evangel of the Carpenter of Nazareth is jostled aside and crowded out. What the world has to do is to make room once more for love and self-sacrifice—for idealism. That is the only road to salvation. Nobody knows that better than the American. He likes to listen to oratory about world-peace; but when the oratory is done he smiles. 'We might as well,' says he, 'try to lift ourselves by our bootlaces.' And that is the moral of it all.
*****
The United States refused the mandate for Armenia, and the mandate for Constantinople, and dishonoured the signature of its chief magistrate guaranteeing the security of France. To-day the blood of the slain cries to Heaven, and Britain is left alone holding the gates of Europe against a race whose only rule is government by massacre. And from America the Press reports a cablegram to the Prime Minister:—'Win civilisation's everlasting appreciation by keeping the brutes out of Europe. Americans expect every Englishman to do his duty.' What a strange species of humour! In very truth the regeneration of the world's democracies is the only road to peace.