Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
Letters’, F rom Edinburgh
Sincere Communication from
Dear Sir:
HE censors interpret the official relation that this
country bears towards your own in a very step-
motherly fashion.
The latest news is that Grey has contemptuously
pigeon-holed Wi1son’s note and refuses to alter his
attitude towards neutrals in any shape or form. In-
deed he rather intends to make it more stringent and
hostile, especially in the case of unhappy Greece.
No Englishman imagines that the United States
actually meant what it wrote per Lansing. There
was a time however when Uncle Sam was capable
of walking without the support of J. B.
Grey rests his defense and refusal on the precedents
set by the North in your Civil War, the evil that men
do lives after them, and Northerners did many heart-
less things. You made chloroform and medical ap-
pliances contraband of war; you refused to exchange
prisoners when your men were dying like sheep in
Libby prison. You also shot and hanged women, so
I feel you will dutifully and humbly take Grey’s
brusque rejection of your appeal.
Poor John Bull is very peevish fish now, his paunch
is shrinking and though, like Shakespeare’s Welshman,
he is full of “Pravevorts” his feet are getting very,
very cold.
Asifar as I can gauge opinion our people are still
imagining a vain thing. They believe the military
and economic existence of the Central Powers can be
crushed. You know of course that Demos, blind in
one eye, sees the roseate vision thrown on the screen
by his political leaders and the press. No secret is
made now of the fact that this country planned the
war for one purpose only, the destruction of German
trade and as the grand corollary its seizure by the
capable (alien) hands of the British merchant.
I would submit respectfully the following questions:
First, what man would give 35 per cent. for a Pound,
and second, what man would destroy his best cus-
tomer’s means of living? Every 20 days we spend
$500,000,000 in an absolutely unremunerative way.
What we have already wasted only God knows and
He won’t tell us yet.
It is a fact that Central Europe paid hundreds of
millions per annum for goods produced or sold by
Great Britain. After the destruction of this trade,
who will supply the deficit? The Senegalese ne ro
and Servian I suppose. What sane merchant would
contemplate with joy the destruction of his best cus-
tomer, and can this country expect to emerge solvent
from such bankrutpcy proceedings. Another year
and our buccaneer bankers will be playing the “Dead
March” for their insolvent clients. A 25 per cent.
income tax is now on, fancy, one quarter of your net
income cast into a bottomless pit! This tax is driv-
ing many firms abroad.
The Press is now working overtime with hysterical,
outpourings. Horrible tales are being issued too about
Hindenburg’s possible march into London and mysteri-
ous allusions to the brutal treatment of some noble
Greek lady by a bold, bad German Prince. All quite
in the old time style of story once so popular with
your juveniles. But this is our culture and it runs no
risk of being destroyed. ‘
Yes, we live in stirring times. When we are not
hiding in coal cellars from Zeppelin bombs we are
busy in our offices writing to the papers demanding
a Scotsman to an American.
that other citizens should at once enlist, holding out
the inducement to the unwilling ones that they will
be able to learn a new language when kept as prisoners
in Germany. .Some Heroes!
The old gods of finance are passing. Men are realiz-
ing that the Morgan type and method must give away
to more honest and humane concepts. So far no
country, save Germany, has recognized or practiced
this rule of salvation. Come weal, come woe, German
methods thus have hacked their way through the
jungle of stupid and wild custom and will yet domin-
ate the intellectual world.‘ Brute force and money
don’t fool all the people all the time. Brains plus
ideals must finally win. What they are aiming at now
at home is a government a la Russe. I wonder how
Bonar Law enjoys all this. He is only a puppet, the
accident of an accident, tolerated because he serves
as a buttress between two rival forces. Three men
rule England to-day, Lloyd George, Lord Lansdown
and Carson. No one else counts. All of the other
politicians only count their wages. With the excep-
tion of Sir VVilliam Lever, there is no outstanding
personality in sight.
Another thing which you might bear in mind is
that the people who engineered this war against
Germany, will be the people -who will sign the treaty
of peace. What the terms must be if Germany is de-
feated are well known. One word suffices, “annihila-
tion.” If this result so much prayed for by our prelates
should come to pass I should abandon my conception
of a just God as a myth. '
Labor troubles on the Clyde have been common,
and are not over yet. Clyde men are deeply dis-
satisfied with the labor laws of the government and‘
they have no confidence in their leaders. All the ma-
terial is here for a social revolution, but no such spirit
can rise in the realm of Flunkeydom. We have be-
come a race of ostriches. Zeppelins never did any
damage. They were invented to teach Englishmen
how to save coal oil and,live without too much out-
ward show. The Peace movement is growing, how-
ever. Large meetings in Scotland listen quietly and
attentively to speakers who advocate the cessation
of hostilities. Six months ago they would have been
assaulted. The feeling against conscriptionlis more
bitter than before. Privileged finance and the shop
keeping element are staking their last moneyon. the
successful ending for them of this war. Patriotism
may be defined as the art of getting someone else to
pay the costs. There is an egregious ass now stump-
ing Great Britian in the sacred cause of self and
boodle. This is Hughes, the nominal premier of
Australia. Let your friends know that this man repre-
sents no one but himself and the snobs of Australia.
The gqverning and elective parties of Australia, which
are the labor and trade bodies, are dead against
him. Though nominally chief he is. losing every elec-
tion he contests. VVhen the times comes for a general
election he will be put back in the dust heap of
oblivion. He is a nominee of jingoes and the money
spinners. .
The siege of Verdun goes on methodically. It is a
military axiom that the besieged fortress must fall
provided the attacking force can work out the attack
in safety. The French resistance is crumbling, the
human supply is running‘ short and Heaven help the
Frenchman when he has to depend on. British troops
to back him up. '