"THE FOOL'S HOUR"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2298, 31 October 1914, Page 4

"THE FOOL'S HOUR"

A WARNING AGAINST BOASTFULNESS AND HATRED. "The Times" devoted' a leading article recently' to a warning against "boastfulness and a comforting hatred of our enomies." The following are extracts from the article, which is headed "The Fool's Hour" :— "It is not difficult for a great nation to behave well when war first : breaks out. The sudden change from peace to war sobers it. It is anxious, DUt has not yot been strained by a long anxiety; and it has not begun to Buffer injuries, either fair or unfair, at the hands of the enemy. But'gradually it becomes used to a state of war; and, at the • same time, the strain or anxiety tells upon it, and it begins to feel the resentment'caused by suffering, whether that suffering be necessarily or wantonly inflicted. At such a stage it is natural to men to seek some compensation for what they have to endure, and if compensation is not given to them in tho jov of any dazzling victories, they are tempted to provide it for themselves in a kind of mental indulgence, in boastfulness in a comforting hatred of their enemies, in a readiness to believe _ any evil of them or any rumourof their defeat or general demoraliastion. At such a time, and when a whole people is thus tempted, the f<yl comes into his own. "There are signs now that we are threatened by this danger, that cur fools are tempting us to share in their indulgence of their own folly; and no.v is the time'for us to remember that we 'have always .been esteemed _ a great nation even by our enemies. The Germans, for all that they may say, fear us; but their fear will grow less if we talk nonsense about them or about ourselves; if we raise premature shouts of victory; if'we believe _ falsehoods against them when there is so much that is time to believe; if we magnify tho deeds of our army -when they *heed no magnifying. There is nothing that awes ; an enemy so "much as quiet before the stroke; every foolish boast of ours that the Germans hear will convince them that .we are mere boasters; every unjust accusation we make against tnera will persuade them that all our accusations are unjust. When wo Tead nonsense of theirs we are glad;' and they, too, are glad -when they read nonsense of ours, In fact the foois in each .country hearten and exasperate the enemy; and that is the only effect they have upon tho war. "There is a duty upon non-combatants as high as any duty in this war, and that is that we do not allow ourselves to suffer any spiritual defeat, whatever the national issue may be. In that way we ehall fight for England, the England of our souls, against the baser part of ourselves, even though wo are not_fight- . ing against the enoniy. Hatred is the easiest and tho most worthless part _ of patriotism; it is the stimulant by which the coward persuades himself that he is brave, and the worse ho thinks of his enemy the more ho 'will fear him n disaster. The brave man knows^ that his task is to defeat the enemy, 1106 to hate him, and he knows, too, that those who hate cannot understand. It is part of , cur task to understand the Germans, even when they eeom most unintelligible .; to us, so that we may defeat them, and so that when tho war is over we may make with them that lasting peace in the hope of which we hod gone to war.