And still we look, asking what great and terrible difference has suddenly arisen, so mighty that the human intellect cannot solve it by means of peace, that the highest and noblest diplomacy falls powerless before it, and the wisdom and justice of humanity cannot reach it, save by the mother’s drawing a sword and planting it in the heart of the daughter?
We can find none.
And again, we ask ourselves
WHO GAINS BY WAR?
What is it for? Who is there that desires it? Do men shed streams of human blood as children cut off poppy-heads to see the white juice flow?
WHO GAINS BY WAR?
Not England! She has a great young nation’s heart to lose. She has a cable of fellowship which stretches across the seas to rupture. She has treaties to violate. She has the great traditions of her past to part with. Whoever plays to win, she loses.
WHO GAINS BY WAR?
Not Africa! The great young nation, quickening to-day to its first consciousness of life, to be torn and rent, and bear upon its limb, into its fully ripened manhood, the marks of the wounds—wounds from a mother’s hands!