With all this, and working toward the same end, is the false education which the war system has unconsciously produced. For generations it has obstructed sound teaching of history, of patriotism, of morals, of religion. It is only after reaching manhood, if at all, that we realize that Thackeray's "redcoat bully in his boots" has not been the maker of England's greatness. In the schools of all nations, the man of violence is the hero—the man on horse-back, the man who bears the flag, even if in defiance of justice and order.
We have been taught that nations grow strong through war, and that through war they achieve their destiny. Each man who falls in battle on any side, in any cause, is a patriot hero, giving his life for fatherland and for religion. Each boy learns that his own nation was in the right in every quarrel, that in every battle it was victorious against great odds, or else defeated through base treachery.
For the war system as it exists to-day, first and finally responsible are the people who pay for it, the common man in the nations concerned. The government belongs to him. It is his own fault if it does not. It cannot go far ahead of him, and it never lags much behind. When it is laggard, the fault still rests with him. He has neglected to look after the machinery of government, and it has been turned against him. This is the case in Germany and in Russia, where the government represents only part of the people. In these nations, the man belongs to the state. In the more democratic nations, the state belongs to the man, who has therefore the more pressing responsibility.
And this man on the street, the unit of the nation, whether noble or commoner, whether educated or illiterate, overlooks one fundamental fact. The other nations of Europe are made up of men about like himself. What he thinks, they think; what he hopes, they hope. If he has no designs of aggression, neither have they. If he is "hungry for peace," so are they. If he finds his taxes distressing, so do they. If he is one of a majority favoring more cordial relations between states, they belong to a like majority. If he is one of a minority who would do away with the war system, there is a similar minority which will meet him half way. If he is a workman, his problems are those of all other workmen; if he harbors no evil designs of a war of invasion, neither do his fellow-workmen across the border. If he is swept off his feet by a burst of martial music and resounding patriotism, so are they, and it is just as easy for them to recover as it is for him. If he is scared by the reckless talk of pangermanists across the channel, or of chauvinists on the Paris Boulevards, or of panslavists in St. Petersburg, or of jingoes in London or New York, let him remember that he finds just such people at home, wherever his home may be—just as many, just as noisy, and possessed of just as little permanent influence. The force of mere noise grows less and less, year by year, in each of the "settled nations." If you are convinced that other nations need have no fear of your jingoes, by the same token you need not fear theirs.
The War System is making this great, rich, resourceful world a bankrupt concern in the hands of its creditors. The nations of the earth still owe some 40 billions of dollars in gold for the wars of the last 100 years, from Waterloo to Adrianople. But one nation of all the number (our own) has made any progress whatever in paying its share of this debt. The tendency is ever to borrow more, up to and beyond the limit of credit. The interest is paid, perhaps by borrowing, but there is no haste about the principal. Except for war, no nation on earth would ever need to borrow a dollar.
And this interest money of a billion and a quarter every year is only an incident in the cost of the War System—about a fourth of its annual expense, even in what we call times of peace. Under the armed peace of the War System, a kind of frustrate war goes on, an antagonism the more repulsive because no one has the slightest idea what it is all about. This antagonism is simply part of the system, and the system itself is only organized cowardice, for it is perfectly well known that not one of the great nations has any design to attack any other. Only the poor crude Balkan people have taken the War System seriously. Because they have done so, and interfered with trade, they are now under the ban of Europe, as they lie supine on the floor of the arena.
The War System has exhausted its own resources. The great nations have no money with which to fight, and no stomach for fighting. The concert of Europe is content with the suppression of discords among its own players. And the reason for this is clearly indicated in the words of Mr. H. Bell of Lloyds Bank in London. He calls the attention of bankers to "the great spectre which will rise up in future before the monied classes when they are invited to lend their money for warlike purposes. There is going to be very clearly written in the handwriting on the wall the word 'Repudiation.' The peoples of Europe will say: 'We know we ought to pay our interest. We know we ought to pay our debt, but we cannot. We are human beings, we must live; we are overtaxed; we cannot get enough to clothe ourselves; we cannot get enough to eat. We can get no profit from our work!' The men who find money for purposes of war will not get their money back again."—(H. Bell. Remarks before the Institute of Bankers, Jan. 17, 1912.)
War cripples the nation physically by cutting off without posterity its strongest and boldest men. The key of national strength in the future is found in the good parentage of to-day. The basis of national greatness is indicated in the principles of Eugenics. To be well born is the first step to an effective life. "Like the seed is the harvest." This is the law of heredity. It applies to races of men as well as to breeds of horses or of sheep. No nation has ever fallen from leadership, intellectual or physical, save through breeding from inferior stock. The causes of all decline may be sought among these three factors, emigration, immigration, war. Rome fell when her streets swarmed with the sons of slaves, scullions, sutlers, adventurers, men who were not Romans. When, after her wars, internal and external, "Only cowards remained, and from their brood came forth the new generations." The culture of Greece passed away when war had obliterated the Greeks. "Send forth the best ye breed" and you will breed from the second best. First best, second best, third best and fourth among the yeomanry of Europe have been swallowed up in war in the "Obscene seas of slaughter" over which Europe has gloried and gloated through all these deluded ages.