Chapter Twelve.
“Never Again.”
It would be nothing less than a crime against civilisation if, after the War has come to a close, Germany is left with the power again to make herself a menace to the peace of our modern civilised world.
We need have no sentimental considerations on this point. We want none. Germany has shown conclusively that she is not to be bound by any considerations of honour, and that she has deliberately aimed at what the world will never tolerate—world-dominion in the hands of a single Power. We and our Allies have determined that she shall not be allowed to realise her ambitions in this direction; it is our duty to see that for the future, in the interests of humanity as a whole, she is robbed of the power of making herself a nuisance and a danger to her neighbours, who wish only to live in peace.
If peace for the moment were the only object of the Allies, their wishes could be gratified on very easy terms.
There is no doubt whatever that Germany would be glad to bring the War to a close before she is more seriously weakened, if not utterly ruined; it is our business and the business of our Allies to see that no premature peace is allowed to rob them of the fruits of their great sacrifices. For, be it remembered, their real object is not so much victory now, except inasmuch as victory will enable them to gain security in the future. We do not want a world kept perpetually on tenterhooks by Germany’s exhibitions of the “mailed fist”; and unless I misread entirely the signs of the times, I do not think we are likely to have it. Germany will have to be dealt with after the War, and no feelings of pity or consideration for a defeated enemy can have any influence on the settlement.
For years past Germany has deliberately elected to make economic war in times of peace. Of this we have no reason to complain; a country’s fiscal arrangements are a matter for itself. But out of her economic war Germany grew rich and strong enough to wage military war, and she will do so again unless we and our Allies take steps to stop her. Now in this matter old shibboleths have got to go by the board, and there is every indication that, not as a matter of politics, but as a mere matter of self-preservation, both Britain and the Allies are preparing to fight Germany in the future with the weapon which in the past has proved so successful against themselves.
There are very few things indeed produced by Germany which Britain or her Allies cannot produce for themselves, and I have no hesitation in saying that for the future our fiscal watchword ought to be, “The Allies first and the rest nowhere.” I do not want to see this or that party snatch a party advantage out of our old quarrels on the subject of Free Trade.