somewhat unfair to say that nothing but a mean desire to secure the interests of her bond-holders retains her. She has a great task in hand, done in the sight of civilised Europe, and directly it is completed the occupation will be over. It is, perhaps, too much to expect that, even when arbitration shall rule universally, international jealousies shall be laid entirely to rest; but they ought to be as much as possible restrained even now. The way to accomplish this end is to teach thoroughly that no country has an entire monopoly of heroism, victories, and virtues. These gifts have been distributed equally by a Providence which some people may think has erred in this respect --but the fact remains. Therefore, in international as in private relations, there must be a constant tolerance, a desire to look at things on the best side, and a belief that the Fatherland does not comprise within its boundaries all that is excellent on this globe.

When

The means for such instruction, however, are at present limited. School-books devoting more space to the development of the national life and industries, and less to the quarrels and consequent battles of sovereigns and statesmen, are much needed. Still more wanted is the growth of that state of public feeling which not only makes such books possible, but necessary. public opinion has been lifted out of the slough of Jingoism and false patriotism which at present envelops it, the dawn will have begun. Germany is a country so strongly sensible, so keenly alive to great ideals, and so cultivated through all the various strata of her population, that the time cannot be distant when she will disdain all meretricious aids to the love felt for her by her children, and will inaugurate the reign of a clear-sighted and intelligent patriotism. Then, although knowing that other countries have their share of good qualities, and perhaps in consequence of this, our Teuton cousins will still declare, as their most heartfelt utterance:

"Deutsches Haus und Deutsches Land,
Gott schütze Dich mit stärke Hand."

LAURENCE OLIPHANT ON WAR.

M.

A CORRESPONDENT sends us the following interesting extracts from the recently published life of Laurence Oliphant :

"The bishop has appointed a day of humiliation for this Indian business (the Mutiny); so we are to humble ourselves to-day and inake up for it next week by sending a few thousands of our fellow-creatures into the next world." (This refers to the approaching bombardment of Canton.) And again: "My natural man is intensely warlike, which is just as low a passion as avarice or any other. I went last Sunday to church to hear a parson, with a Crimean medal on his surplice, preach between a lot of 68-pounders, on 'Fear not man that can kill the body, but fear Him who can cast both soul and body into hell'; and I wondered what sort of morality you could expect from men whose occupation was the destruction of their fellow-creatures, to the conscientious discharge of which they were to be urged by the fear of an avenging Deity, the Creator of them all. One would think even a sailor would discern the impossibility of elevating his moral nature by the application of two such principles as cruelty and fear."

MR. GLADSTONE'S CRITICISM OF LORD

TENNYSON'S POETRY ON WAR.

WHAT the greatest living statesman has said about war and warfare; what has fallen from the lips of the grand old man, "Bold and resolute, whole in himself, a common good"; and what has emanated from the pen of one whose public and private virtues are the

admiration of the world, cannot but be intensely interesting to all true lovers of international peace and concord. If any man is entitled to a respectful and reverential hearing by the friends of peace, it is he who, for the last eighty years, has lived and laboured amongst us, bearing all the while "the white flower of a blameless life." It is he whose noble eloquence exposed the Bulgarian atrocities, and hurled from place and power the bastard jingoism that was threatening the land; and it is he whose liberal love, splendid talents, and broad and cosmopolitan sympathies have ever been at the disposal of all oppressed and downcast nationalities. Kindly permit me, therefore, to draw your attention to some of the thoughts and sayings of this noble statesman, who, not so long ago, told us that "militarism was the most conspicuous tyrant of the age in which we live, and that it was the road to war." În an intensely interesting criticism of Mr. Tennyson's poem "Maud," Mr. Gladstone admits that "peace has its moral perils and temptations for degenerate man, as has every other blessing without exception that he can receive from the hand of God. It is, moreover, not less true that amidst the clash of arms the noblest forms of character may be reared, the highest acts of duty done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular, the love of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from the bloody strife." Now mark how all this is qualified by what follows. "But this is

as the furious cruelty of Pharaoh made place for the benign influence of his daughter, as the butchering sentence of Herod raised without doubt many a mother's love into heroic sublimity; as plague, as famine, as fire, as blood, as every curse and every scourge, wielded by an angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is an appointed instrument for tempting human souls in the seven times heated furnace of affliction." But observe, Pharaoh's conduct is not commended because it called forth the benign virtue of his daughter; nor are Herod's doings praised or justified because they raised many a mother's love into heroic sublimity. We are not told that the plague, the famine, the fire, the flood, and every other scourge and curse that man is subject to are good things in themselves because they happen to have called into being such virtues as self-sacrifice, courage, heroism, and bravery. And so it is with war. It may have, as Mr. Gladstone says it has, the property of exciting much generous and noble feeling on a large scale. But it does not follow from this that Mr. Gladstone agrees with the madman in "Maud," who "spoke of a hope for the world in coming wars," or that the following passage from the poem has his approval :"When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee,

And Tymour Mammon grins on a pile of children's bonesIs it peace or war? Better war, loud war, war by land and by sea! War with a thousand battles and shaking a hundred thrones."

Nevertheless, although war may possess this special recommendation, it has, in its modern forms especially, peculiar and unequalled evils. As it has a wider sweep of desolating power than the rest, so it has the peculiar quality of being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the imagination of those whose proud, angry passions it inflames. But it is on this very account that it is a perilous delusion to teach that war is a cure for moral evil in any other sense than the sister tribulations are." War seems to be recommended even by Mr. Tennyson himself as a kind of specific for mammonworship. Mr. Gladstone, however, has very little trouble in demolishing this absurd contention, for, as he points out, "the mass of mankind is composed of men, women, and children who can but just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness; whose whole ideas of mammon-worship are comprised in the search for their daily food, clothing, shelter, fuel, whom any casualty reduces to positive want, and whose already low estate is yet further lowered and ground down when

"The blood-red blossom of war flames with a heart of fire."

War, we are told, never was a specific for mammonworship, even in the days when the Greek heroes longed for the booty of Troy. On the contrary, there is no such incentive to mammon-worship as that which modern war affords. The political economy of war is its most commanding aspect. "Every farthing," as Mr. Gladstone points out, "with the smallest exceptions conceivable, of the score or hundreds of millions which a war may cost, goes directly, and very violently, to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for waste and destruction. He then points out that war ipso facto suspends every rule of thrift. It tends to sap honesty itself in the use of public treasure, for which it makes such unbounded calls. It is, therefore, the greatest feeder of the lust for gold. The commerce of peace is tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war, through the rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings into trade, always produces. In its moral operations, Mr. Gladstone tells us that war more resembles the discovery of a new gold pit than anything else. So much, then, for the contention that peace is favourable to mammon-worship, whilst war acts as a restraining influence on that vice. "Mothers do not kill their children from a taste for the practice in the abstract, but under pressure of want; and, as war always brings home want to a larger circle of the people than feel it in peace, we ask the hero of 'Maud to let us know if war is more likely to reduce than to muitiply the horrors which he denounces." Now, there can be no possible doubt of the truth of all this, because war produces poverty and want, and it is poverty and want that drive so many to suicide, and cause so many others even to forget their maternal instincts. Will more babies be poisoned amidst comparative ease and plenty, or when, as before the fall of Napoleon, provisions were twice as dear as they are now, and wages not more than half as high? Again, although the Romans and Carthaginians were pretty much given to war, no nations were more sedulous in the cult of mammon. The Scriptures, too, are very strong against mammon-worship, but they do not recommend us to go to war to cure it. Once more, what sad error must have crept into the text of Isaiah when he made us to desire that our swords should be beaten into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. If peace only encourages mammon-worship, would the Prophet have taught us this? All these terrible words, then, of the poet about "The long, long canker of peace" are both misleading and inaccurate. We deny that people are more wicked in times of peace than in times of war, or that it can ever be desirable to substitute war for peace on moral grounds, or in order to subdue mammon-worship. Perhaps the most charitable construction to be placed on this dangerous teaching of the Poet Laureate is this, that he has placed these terrible words in the mouth of a madman; the only mouth, indeed, from which they could issue with either truth, credit, or propriety. In justice and fairness, however, to our great bard, we ought to quote other passages from his works which go far to neutralise the passages above referred to, and which, as might be expected, are quoted by Mr. Gladstone, e.g. :—

"Certain if knowledge brings the sword, That knowledge takes that sword away." And again—

"When shall all men's good be each man's rule and universal peace, Lie like a shaft of light across the land."

But supposing it be true that peace fosters mammonworship, and that the lust for gold -is increased, when the war drums beat no longer and the battle flags are furled, surely it does not follow that we ought to advocate war as a remedy or cure for this! By doing So we resort to a remedy which is worse than the disease itself. Cobden, in his day, was accused of attempting to increase the thirst for gold by teaching the doctrines of peace, and Moltke and Lord Wolseley have talked the same pernicious nonsense in our day.

A very cursory glance at Mr. Gladstone's criticism of "Maud" will, however, serve to dispel such a delusion. We do not glorify the storm and the shipwreck because they called into existence a Grace Darling. We do not praise and extol accident, disease, pain, and death because they have been instrumental in producing many a Sister Dora. We do not consider it a good or a desirable thing that our homes should catch fire because the fatal catastrophe in Whitechapel gave to the world the bright example of the devotion of Alice Ayres. What would be thought of the man who should advocate another Crimean War in order to produce another Florence Nightingale? And what must we think of those who would have us believe that in order to put an end to mammon-worship we should be justified in going to war?

WE have seen the place occupied by force and lawlessness in the current code of military morals. We propose now to draw attention to the part played by fraud and deception in the same creed. Here again it is the end that justifies the means. Military reasoning on stratagens is precisely the same as that which was indulged in by the Jesuits, and was so mercilessly exposed in "Pascal's Provincial Letters." These priests taught that it was lawful to perpetrate any sin or wickedness so long as they thereby secured their end, which was the good of their Church; and military men hold that they may indulge in any fraud or deceit so long as thereby they secure their end, which is the defeat and subjection of their enemy. If you may overcome your enemy by superiority of muscle, irrespective of the justice or the right and wrong of the issue between you, why may you not defeat him by a recourse to superiority in fraud and cunning? Military men, then, are really no farther advanced than Lysander, the Spartan, who taught that an enemy might be cheated with oaths. In the Franco-German War, twenty-five franc-tireurs clothed themselves in Prussian uniform, and in that disguise killed several Prussians at Sennegy. And this deed was boasted of in a French journal as a justifiable "ruse de guerre." And it was rightly so boasted of if the teaching of Bynkershoek and Bluntschli be sound on the matter, for the former laid it down that it was a matter of perfect indifference whether stratagem or open force be employed against the enemy, provided only perfidy be absent from the former, whilst the latter expressly includes amongst the lawful stratagems of war the use of the enemy's uniform or flag. In 1800 an English crew attacked two ships at Barcelona by forcing a Swedish vessel to take on board some English sailors, and so obtaining a means of approach which was otherwise impossible. In 1798, two English ships, the Sybylle and the Fox, by sailing under false colours, captured three Spanish gunboats in Manilla Roadstead, the English Captain Cook being introduced under the French name of Latour. A state of war, then, plays strange tricks with men's reason and conscience when it leads them to justify and approve of such infamous actions as these. No scruples intervene against the prostitution of a country's flag, the symbol of her independence, her nationality, and her pride, to the shame of open falsehood. The only limit placed on the stratagem of a false flag seems to be the custom of hoisting the real one before firing, a limitation of very little consequence after the deception has brought the doomed vessel within easy reach of capture. It is true that by the Brussels Conference of 1874 the use of the enemy's flag or uniform was expressly prohibited. But who can doubt that this deceit would be resorted to by commanders-in-chief and

admirals in the present day if they considered that the exigencies of the war demanded it? There is no doubt that they would justify night attacks, spies, surprises, ambuscades, counterfeit flights, and sudden returns, now, as they have done in the past, by appealing to the doctrines of military necessity and the exigency of war. When the cross-bow and the musket were first introduced into warfare, they were both protested against as cruel and cowardly weapons, because their tendency was to prevent personal encounters. These old-world notions of honour and courage have now, however, given way to the newer doctrine that in war anything and everything is justifiable. The pagan nations of old recognised some principles of moral action, which were never dreamed of in the best days of Christian chivalry, and which are altogether despised in the nineteenth century. To such passes has the justification of this deceit been carried that Montaigne has told us that it had become a fixed maxim of military men in his time never to go out to parley; and the great French soldier, Montluc, who rose to be a Marshal of France, in his "Commentaries," justifies taking advantage of a parley to defeat an enemy. Vattel lays it down that if we can overcome an enemy "by stratagem or feint void of perfidy," we may do so. But who is to be the judge of what perfidy is, and what it is not? Was it perfidy when Paches, having promised personal safety to his enemies on condition of their laying down their iron, slew all those who, having laid down their arms, still retained the iron clasps in their coats? As Vattel says: "It is not contrary to the law of nations to seduce an enemy to turn spy, nor to bribe a governor to deliver a town." Such is the code of military honour and morals taught and practised in every war! Here is an example of military morality emanating from "Frederick the Great" of Prussia in 1760. "When you wish to convey false information to an enemy you take a trustworthy soldier and compel him to pass to the enemy's camp to report there all you wish the enemy to believe; you also send him letters to excite the troops to desertion." If this is not inculcating the lawfulness of lying we know not what is. But perhaps even this is outdone by the advice of Lord Wolseley, contained in his "Soldier's Pocket Book." "The best way is to send a peasant with a letter written on very thin paper, which may be rolled up so tightly as to be portable in a quill an inch and a half long, and this precious quill may be hidden in the hair or beard, or in a hollow made at the end of a walking-stick. . . . As a nation we are bred up to feel it a disgrace even to succeed by falsehood; the word spy conveys something as repulsive as slave; we will keep hammering along with the conviction that honesty is the best policy, and truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little sentiments do very well for a child's copy-book, but a man who acts upon them had better sheathe the sword for ever." This latter sentiment we most cordially endorse. Yes, a soldier must scorn honesty and trample upon truth. It would be altogether superfluous to comment upon such teaching, for it demonstrates conclusively how utterly incompatible and antagonistic war and morals are. Custine entered Mayence in the disguise of a butcher; Catinat spied out the strength of Luxembourg in the costume of a coal-heaver; and Montluc entered Perpignan as a coolie. Such is the teaching and practice of military moralists! The general who employs a spy is as culpable as the spy himself. Surely the common law rule that he who acts through another acts for himself is applicable in this case. Here is another example from Lord Wolseley's "Pocket Book." "Before or during an action an enemy may be deceived to any extent by means of such men; messages can be sent to him to concentrate upon wrong points, or by giving him false information you may induce him to move as you wish." That is, a soldier in uniform may perpetrate any wickedness and iniquity which, if perpetrated by a civilian in plain clothes would at once,

and without hesitation, be condemned as immoral and wrong. No soldier, then, in his military capacity, can be guilty of crime, for it is his duty simply to obey orders. Military duty precludes a man from discussing the justice of the end pursued in a war. It can hardly, therefore, be disputed that it equally precludes him from making inquiries as to the means employed in it. But if there are orders which the soldier is not bound to obey-and even Lord Wolseley would admit that there might be such-why should it not be open for him to discuss the justice of the war altogether, and decline to take part in it, if he was satisfied that it was wrong? The contrary doctrine that it is the soldier's duty to obey blindfolded, to annihilate his moral and intellectual being, to commit spiritual suicide, to dethrone conscience, and to decline to use the noblest faculties with which he is endowed, assimilates him to a machine, and reduces him to the same brainless and heartless condition as the sabre that he carries at his side. The same faculties that are possessed by the civilian who votes the taxes to carry on a war with are possessed by the soldier who wages it. Why, then, should the one be relieved from responsibility to his conscience any more than the other? The soldier claims to be a non-moral agent. Challenge then the claimant to justify his first principle, and the custom of war will shake to its foundations, for its moral support will be undermined and shattered.

C. D.

FOUNDATION OF A BRANCH SOCIETY IN VIENNA.

WE have the greatest satisfaction in announcing that a branch of our Association has been formed in the capital city of Austria. This is an event for which we have long hoped, and which we endeavoured to bring about by personal efforts during the winter of 1887-88. We found many friends there, both members of the Reichsrath and others; but the political circumstances of that time were discouraging, and no Society was formed.

Where a stranger failed, an honoured and gifted Austrian has succeeded. We refer to the able and brilliant authoress of Die Waffen Nieder ("Down with Arms!"), the BARONESS VON SUTTNER, at whose instance a great and influential meeting has been held. The proceedings terminated in the formation of a Committee, of which this distinguished servant of our great cause is president, and Dr. Kunwald the secretary. We hope to give information as to the progress of this good work in future numbers of CONCORD.

Bonghi with reference to the system of voting, written papers, and other questions connected with the Congress, approved.

Sept. 14.-ANGLO-AMERICAN TREATY.-Reported interviews with Mr. Robert Treat Paine, President of the American Peace Society, on this subject.

Resolved: "That it is desirable that further public action be taken on this question, especially in support of the motion of which Mr. W. R. Cremer has given notice to bring forward in the House of Commons next session.

28.-CONGRESS AT ROME.-Read draft letter proposed to be sent by the Chairman of the Committee to certain members of the Interparliamentary Conference, pointing out the importance of the question of the proposed Central Peace Bureau being discussed early at the Conference, in order that a joint Committee of the Conference and Congress may be appointed to consider the subject; and also pointing out the importance of good relations being maintained between the Conference and Congress.

Resolved: "That the letter now read be approved."

28.-PROPOSED CENTRAL PEACE BUREAU.-The proposal as set forth in M. Bajer's "Tactics for the Friends of Peace," was read and discussed.

Resolved: "That this Committee is of opinion that the decision on this question should be left to the Inter-parliamentary Conference and the Peace Congress."

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND DONATIONS

From 9th September to 9th October, 1891.

The Editor acknowledges, with thanks, the receipt of the following:-Herald of Peace, Arbitrator, La Paix, Les Etats-Unis d'Europe, L'Eglise de France, Le Devoir, Bulletin des Sommaires, Revue de l'Orient, La Revue Libérale, Die Nation, Le Courrier de Londres, Belgian News, Peacemaker, 1l Secolo, La Pace (Turin) La Libertà et la Pace (Palermo), and Financial Reformer.

HOW SHALL THE SPIRIT OF PEACE PREVAIL?

(Extracts from a Discourse by W. E. CHANNING, D.D.) Price One Penny, or One Shilling per hundred. To be had at the Offices of the Association, 40, Outer Temple, W.C.

A PEACE EMBLEM.

WITH the object of providing a distinctive badge which may be worn both by men and women at Peace Congresses and at other times, Mr. Francis Sangster has prepared a design of an appropriate character-the Star of Hope, rising above a scroll, with the sentence Pax quæritur justitia, surrounded by olive branches. For the Congress at Rome next month, a pendant has been added, bearing the words "Congresso di Roma, 1891," as shown in the accompanying drawing, thus forming a "Congress Badge" for 1891.

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