Rebuilding Britain: A Survey of Problems of Reconstruction After the World War

by Sir Alfred Hopkinson

those whom the majority of the German people not only submit to as their rulers, but follow willingly as their guides.

Nor for years to come will many of the men of younger age risk the chance of contact with those who were responsible for or committed such crimes as they have witnessed from the day when German troops first entered Belgium four years ago to the sinking of the last hospital ship or last murder of wounded men and of nurses under the shadow of the Red Cross.

But a new generation will follow us who may find and may accept a welcome from a younger German race who had no part in the sins against humanity committed by the Germans of to-day. Some, indeed, of that younger race will have learned from their own fathers who suffered for them, to detest those crimes.

For another generation of Englishmen it may be possible once again to find even in Germany something to enjoy and to admire. They may watch from the Schlossgarten at Heidelberg the sun go down beyond the Rhine over Alsace, then again united to France; they may wander again in friendly talk with some forester under the pines of the Schwarzwald and listen to the singing of the familiar Volkslieder—Tannenbaum or Haiden Röslein—by a people who have a natural gift for song; they may in Nuremberg again look with delight on the marvels in stone wrought by its craftsmen or seek out the hidden meanings in the mystic art of Albrecht Dürer; perhaps be whirled along in the Isar "rolling rapidly" through the baths of Munich or plunge in the crystal depths of the König See; from the highlands of Bavaria they may lift up their eyes to the long ranges of the snowy Alps of Tyrol, and, as the decennial cycle comes round and the reverent peasants re-enact the sacred drama, may make their pilgrimage to Ammergau and share the thrill passing along the crowded benches when the children's voices are heard, and they enter, waving their palm branches, that those who watch their beautiful counterfeit may recall, with imagination vivid like a

child's, another procession of joyous children, nineteen hundred years ago.

The rest of mankind would be the poorer if it were cut off for ever from some of the things which Germany has given and might again give to the world in the realm of thought—in science and literature—and in music; things which have added and may again add to the knowledge and to the beauty of life. But let there be no mistake. Such a future is possible only if the powers which are dominant in Germany are utterly destroyed; but that is not enough, there must be a regeneration of the German people. The alternative for Germany must be either exclusion from intercourse with the rest of mankind save those who desire to share in her crimes, and who will also share in her outlawry, or a change of spirit and of purpose in the nation. If such a change comes, we "dare be known to think" that the renewal of friendly relations with the German people is an object we desire to attain.

For us, too, comes the double warning. Strange voices are already heard among us; some seem like echoes of the German spirit we are fighting to exorcise, others of that anarchic spirit still more fatal that makes a lawless democracy the most deadly foe of liberty and ordered progress. If we in our turn make self-interest, regardless of the rights of others, our guide, find in hatred, envy and jealousy our stimulus to action, victory will confer no lasting blessing and the end of this War will bring no real peace. The recognition of dangers threatened must be for us the incentive to greater effort, with plans more carefully thought out and clearer understanding of the true goal we are striving to reach. Keeping our highest ideals always before us, labouring steadily day by day, moving forward step by step, though the way may be long, we may look with confidence to their attainment.

The earth moves onward, revolving in its course, bearing with it our older generation towards the inevitable night; it may be to the utter darkness where "there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor

wisdom," or, "as the holy sages once did sing," when that night comes, "Creation" may "be widen'd in man's view," revealing the infinite depths and innumerable bright Existences which the light of common day has hidden. But whatever our destiny may be, let us trust, as we leave the sunshine of life behind, that those gleams of hope for mankind, "faint beams that gild the west" as our stormy day closes, are to the younger race which is following on, the rising of a glorious dawn.

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