pular Anarchism, and has
exploded in a European war because the Commercialist Governments of
Europe had no faith in the effective guidance of any modern State by
higher considerations than Lord Roberts's "will to conquer," the weight
of the Kaiser's mailed fist, and the interest of the Bourses and Stock
Exchanges. Unless we are all prepared to fight Militarism at home as
well as abroad, the cessation of hostilities will last only until the
belligerents have recovered from their exhaustion.

6. It had better be admitted on our side that as to the conduct of the
war there is no trustworthy evidence that the Germans have committed any
worse or other atrocities than those which are admitted to be inevitable
in war or accepted as part of military usage by the Allies. By "making
examples" of towns, and seizing irresponsible citizens as hostages and
shooting them for the acts of armed civilians over whom they could exert
no possible control, the Germans have certainly pushed these usages to a
point of Terrorism which is hardly distinguishable from the deliberate
murder of non-combatants; but as the Allies have not renounced such
usages, nor ceased to employ them ruthlessly in their dealings with the
hill tribes and fellaheen and Arabs with whom they themselves have to
deal (to say nothing of the notorious domestic Terrorism of the Russian
Government), they cannot claim superior humanity. It is therefore waste
of time for the pot to call the kettle black. Our outcry against the
Germans for sowing the North Sea with mines was followed too closely by
the laying of a mine field there by ourselves to be revived without
flagrant Pharisaism. The case of Rheims cathedral also fell to the
ground as completely as a good deal of the building itself when it was
stated that the French had placed a post of observation on the roof.
Whether they did or not, all military experts were aware that an officer
neglecting to avail himself of the cathedral roof in this way, or an
opposing officer hestitating to fire on the cathedral so used, would
have been court-martialed in any of the armies engaged. The injury to
the cathedral must therefore be suffered as a strong hint from
Providence that though we can have glorious wars or glorious cathedrals
we cannot have both.

7. To sum up, we must remember that if this war does not make an end of
war in the west, our allies of to-day may be our enemies of to-morrow,
as they are of yesterday, and our enemi