LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2570, 18 September 1915, Page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A PLEA FOR BELGIUM,

Sir, I hopo you will gran': mo spaco ?-.f a . y « , words about th © Bekiaus Btill m Belgium. The admirable efforts of the National Committee for Belief in Belgium arc going a long way to avert famine, but if the million and 1 a. .half destitute" Belgians are-to bo kept alive the National Committeo must have yet further Tiio only conccivablo cause of doubt in the matter must lio in a mere weariness in well-doing, produced not by any intellectual difficulty but by 6uch wholly unintolleetual things as time and fatigue. I think, therefore, the best way of preventing any possiblo neglect of so'great a mat-' ter is to repoat once more tho great truths upon which rested tho wholo original claim, not so much on our sympathy as oil our common honesty. The simplicity and enormityof tho Belgian story can best be ret Worth, perhaps, in four truisms, all toweringly self-evident. . First, of course, tho mere badness of the story is almost too .big to be lield in the mind. There have been stories of a woman or a child actually robbed of reason for life by the mere ocular shock of some revolting cruelty done :n their presence. There was reaJly a danger of something of the kind paralysing our protest against the largest, and, by the held of God, tho last of tlie crimes.of the Prussian Kings. The onlookers might have been struck into a sort of gibbering imbecility and even amiability, by the full and indefensible final-

it;V of the foul stroke. Wo had no machines that could measure tho stunning directness of the blow from hell. W< could hardly realise an enormous publk a-ct which the actor did not wish to excase,'but only to execute.' • Yet-such an act was' the occupation of Belgium ; al.most the only act in history for whicl there was qiute simply and literally nothing to be said. Bad history is the whole basis of Prussia ; but even in bad history the Prussians could find no precedent and no.palliation: and the more intelligent Prussians did not try. A few were so feeble-minded as to saj they had found dangerous documents in Brussels, as if what they had done could possibly be excused by things they did not know when they did it. This almost piteous lapse in argument,was, however, covered up by the cleverer Prussians as quickly as might be; They preferred to stand 1 without a rag of reason on them than with such- a rag a 6 that. Before wo come to the monstrous material suffering, there is in the existing situation an abstract unreason, nay an abstract insanity, whic!h the brain of man must not bear., A nightmare must not-abide to the end. The tiniest trace of. Prussian victory that remains will make us think of something which is not to be thought of: of something like the victory of the beasts over mankind. .Second, it must be remembered that this murder has been done upon o noople of such proximity and familiarity thai there oannot ; be any mistake about the matter. There is some shadowy justification for tho comparative indiffcrence to the wrongs of very remote peoples:, for it,is not easy for us .to guess how much, slavery shocks a negro or cannibalism a cannibal. But the innkeepers and shopkeepers of Ostead felt exactly as the inkeepers and shopkeepers of Dover would feel. We have to imagine a pre-historic cruelty cominr* suddenly upon a sceno lyhicli was civil" lsed and almost commonplace. Imagine tigers breaking out' of the Zoological Gardens and eating all the peoplo in AlStreet; imagine Red Indians exhibited at; Olympia literally scalping every passer-by from that.' -(place to Hammersmith Broadway; imagine, Jack the Ripper crowned king of Wliitechapel and conducting ins executions in broad daylight outside the Tube station at Aldgate; imagine as much as 'you can of what is violent and contradictory in an overturn of all modern life by troglodytes • and you are still falling short of this tearful .Belgian scene in that familiar Belgian scenery. It is idle to talk of exaggerations or misrepresentations about a case so close to us. Chinese tortures, maynot be quite so fantastic aJ> travellers tell us; Siberia may not be eo desolate as its fugitives say it is: but we oould no .more invent such a massacre in Belgium than we could a massacre in Balham. The things of shameless shame that have been dono are something .worse than prodigies, om!® j J devilries; they are facts, inird, this people wo have hoard of oaily bave endured this unheard of Mmg ; and endured it-for us. i There are countless, raises for compassion among tho bewildering and heartrending by-products of this war: but this is not a case of compassion. This' is. a case for that mere working minimum or a senso. of honour that makes us re>ay a Poor man who has advanced his last-penny to post a letter wo have forgotten to stamp.. In this respect Belgium stands alone; and the claims even ot other Allies may well stand aside till T1?J S t i the uttermost farthing. u * solf-sacrifice everywhere else; but it was self-sacrifice of individuals, each for his own country; tho l 6 r T+ n i, rmg t> f T ? 1 erbia > or the Mian Italy. But the Belgian did ■ not | e 'S'um. Belgium died ~N o t only was the soldier " ! f J"' ttlG nation; the nation was sacrificed for mankind. It is a sacrifice which .is, I think, quite uniaua even among Christians; and quite inconceivable among pagans. If we e\en privately utter a murmur, or' even n r / ru . go a ,Fnny for. binding the wounds of so solitary and exceptional a martyr,-wo ourselves shall be Sal " g W fif S °u tary and exce Pti • fll 1 perl,al) ? ho nearest okf wfcni ° ™ spe ? kable socioI «" gist who persuaded his wife to partake iself _ n S U^: obe an Tone on this w ho.doos not find the final success of such onme more than the mind not f P H r ; : t IT® be anyone who does ' 3 J l6 more eraphic since it walks among the tramway lines arid lamp-posts of a' life like our own •' if there be anyone who does not feel that to be caught napping about' Belgium is like being, caught robbing one's mother oil her death-bed; there still remains a eort of brutal t compassion for bodily pain which has been half-admitted hero ri hWe Tr n )y tlie oppressors themselves. If we do not do a great deal more even than we .have already dono it may yet be said of us that wo left it to the veiy butchers of this nation to see that it did not bleed to death I therefore plead for further help for the members of tho National- Committee, who have taken this duty upon themselves. All subscriptions can be addressed to tho treasurer at Trafalgar Buildings Trafalgar Square, London or to local committees, where they have been formed.—l am, eto , G. K. CHESTERTON. Overroaas, Beaconsfield, Bucks August 5, 1915. . ''