Chapter VII
., Part I.
[105] London _Morning Post_, April 21, 1910. I pass over the fact that to cite all this as a reason for armaments is absurd. Does the _Morning Post_ really suggest that the Germans are going to attack England because they don't like the English taste in art, or music, or cooking? The notion that preferences of this sort need the protection of _Dreadnoughts_ is surely to bring the whole thing within the domain of the grotesque.
[106] I refer to the remarkable speech in which Mr. Chamberlain notified France that she must "mend her manners or take the consequences" (see London daily papers between November 28 and December 5, 1899).
[107] Not that a very great period separates us from such methods. Froude quotes Maltby's Report to Government as follows: "I burned all their corn and houses, and committed to the sword all that could be found. In like manner I assailed a castle. When the garrison surrendered, I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers. They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my way, which cruelty did so amaze their fellows that they could not tell where to bestow themselves." Of the commander of the English forces at Munster we read: "He diverted his forces into East Clanwilliam, and harassed the country; killed all mankind that were found therein ... not leaving behind us man or beast, corn or cattle ... sparing none of what quality, age, or sex soever. Beside many burned to death, we killed man, woman, child, horse, or beast or whatever we could find."
[108] In "The Evolution of Modern Germany" (Fisher Unwin, London) the same author says: "Germany implies not one people, but many peoples ... of different culture, different political and social institutions ... diversity of intellectual and economic life.... When the average Englishman speaks of Germany he really means Prussia, and consciously or not he ignores the fact that in but few things can Prussia be regarded as typical of the whole Empire."
[109] "International Law." John Murray, London.
[110] Lord Sanderson, dealing with the development of international intercourse in an address to the Royal Society of Arts (November 15, 1911), said: "The most notable feature of recent international intercourse, he thought, was the great increase in international exhibitions, associations, and conferences of every description and on every conceivable subject. When he first joined the Foreign Office, rather more than fifty years ago, conferences were confined almost entirely to formal diplomatic meetings to settle some urgent territorial or political question in which several States were interested. But as time had passed, not only were the number and frequency of political conferences increased, but a host of meetings of persons more or less official, termed indiscriminately conferences and congresses, had come into being."
[111] January 8, 1910.
[112] March 10, 1910.
[113] "The German Government is straining every nerve, with the zealous support of its people, to get ready for a fight with this country" (_Morning Post_, March 1, 1912). "The unsatiated will of the armed State will, when an opportunity offers, attack most likely its most satiated neighbors without scruple, and despoil them without ruth" (Dr. Dillon, _Contemporary Review_, October, 1911).
[114] I have shown in a former chapter (