“When once war breaks out . . .” Violet began helplessly.
“The governments that allowed war to break out failed in their first duty,” I maintained. “By negligence or malignity or impotence they’re responsible for the death or mutilation of some ten million human beings. It’s not enough to put the blame on Germany or the kaiser or Bernhardi. If a homicidal maniac runs amok in England, we blame the police for not stopping him.”
While my cousin turned the pages of my manuscript, I flung a similar cold douche of first principles over the head of Philip Hornbeck, who had come to us for a week between dismantling his old department and erecting the new.
“If you’d had a bigger police-force,” he suggested, “your homicidal maniac would have had no run for his money. If we’d smashed the German navy while it was building . . .”
“And turned homicidal maniac on our own account?,” I interrupted.
“If you like to put it that way. It’s not much use arguing with me, George, because I’m one of the old impenitents who believe that there will always be wars and what not. Admitting that it’s the duty of all governments to keep the peace, admitting that every government has failed in its duty, what are you going to do then?”
“Try a different kind of government,” I answered.
“A soviet?,” he asked. “If the aristocracy and bourgeoisie have failed, that’s all you have left.”
“I’d sooner have a soviet that thought it could keep peace than an aristocracy that admits it can’t.”
“You should go and live in Russia,” Hornbeck recommended.