The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 3917. THE WAR AS A WORLD-WIDE MORAL CRISIS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3167, 18 August 1917, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 3917. THE WAR AS A WORLD-WIDE MORAL CRISIS

The writings of James Eussell Lowell, essayist, poot, and diplomatist, ■ were better known twenty years ago than they are to-day. But some of his poems live, and will live, for many a day. Tha-t gifted and erratic Galahad in journalism, tho late W..T. Stead, testified that ho found in Lowell's poems the truest inspiration'in his crusades against wrong. They put iron into his blood and made him strong. It was the American war of his day that fired Lowell with moral passion and made- his satire sermons and his songs trumpet-calls to moral conflict. He saw that the conflict between North and. South was at bedrock a. moral conflict; he saw that tho • North stood for principle and right, and that a moral crisis had been reached in the history of the Republic. It was this vision that led him to write his immortal poem The Present Crisis, in which he sot forth tho moral issues of the Civil War. The emancipation of the slave was "Gop's new Messiah," which tho nation must accept or repeat the crime of Calvary. To Lowell the hand of Heaven was clearly seen.: "Behind tho dim unknown standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."

The poet's-call is applicable to tho present war. Tho conflict of to-day has many aspects. There are questions aboiiij trade and territory, but at bedrock there are great moral questions, and economic questions are'secondary to these-.' When, the war was only a few.weeks.old'the British . Prime Minister saw .'-that this war was a moral crisis, and he said: ■•■■■■

■This is not merely a material, but a spiritual, conflict.'. Upon this issuo everything that contains the promise and hope that leads 'to emancipation and fuller liberty for the millions who make up tho masses of mankind will bo found sooner or later to depend."

■The significance, of this statement was • only ■partially understood by : the average citizen when it was spoken, but its meaning is better understood to-day. • Tho Prussian military, autocracy has iio place for spiritual' and moral ideals in its policy 'uf government, and' of Empire cxpansiun. For the. last 2000 years human progress has been represented by raising the idea of "lvigbVto the plane of the universal," and thus making it binding on Governments as well as on individuals.- 'But Germany stands for the undoing of this moral . progress. Might, she says, is the only standard of -Eight in this State. The German State knows nothing ' of morals. "We aro tho people who .are. able, therefore we. are fitted.to hold dominion, therefore we. havo the right," is in substance thu message of Tkeitschke. "A new commandment I give unto you. Become hard, 0 iny brethren. Tho world, belongs to us. If men do not give us the best things, we take." Such was tbo message of Neitzsche, another prophet applauded by the Potsdam War Lords. Such is German State "Kultur." It means the descent into tho savage stago'or into the animal world.in which brute force reigns supreme. This Gevrnanmado war is tho fruit of this doctrine Majiiuman Harden, at the outset, of the war, gloriod_ in it, for ho said : "Not as weak-willed blunderers havo we undertaken the fearful risk of this war. Wo wanted it. Because we had to wish it and could wish it. May the Teuton devil throttle those whose pleas for excuses make us ludicrous in these hours of lofty experiences. Our power shall create new law. Germany strikes." Germany's inhuman methods of war on the land 'and on the sea- and , in the air aro tho fruits of her non-moral theory of the .State. Right to, her meant only self-interest. And the Sta.te that held this diabolica.J creed was in 1914 the greatest military power

in the; world. Bismarck had qualms ol conscience with regard to Mm immoralities of Germany's earlier wars. But tho Prussian 'War' Lords have for years chloroformed their conscience with their doctrine of a noii-mora.l 'State. ' This ' trend of things .disquieted the great warrior von Moltkb in his old age. "Germany," he said, "won tho last war because she believed in God and the Fatherland. She no longer believes in anything: next time she will be defeated." The British Prime Minister spoke wiser than'ho knew in 1914. when he laid stress on the moral and spiritual issues involved in the war.

Gladstone, Rritain's great statesman, in. writing in 1851 on the atrocities of the Neapolitan Government said that he had heard the true expression used—"This is the negation of God erected into a system of government." Tho phrase aptly describes the rule of the Prussian military autocracy of to-day. It is a phrase that may also describe the Governments of Germany's allies, Austria, Turkey, and "Bulgaria. Mazzini, in his day, said that under Austrian rule there was "misfortune, suffering, protest, individual sacrifice. Tho cup is full. Oppression is everywhere." This description applies to-day to millions of Italians, Rumanians, and /Slavs doomed to live under Austria's hated.ila-g,. and longing.for freedom and Judgment on the Turk for his record of crime ; s long, overdue. Mit. Freeman, the historian, said thirty years ago: "His rule for 500 years has been the rule of strangers over enslaved nations in their own land. It has been the nilo of cruelty, faithlessness, and brutal lust; it has not been government, but organised bri- | gandage. Justice, reason, humanity demand that tho rule of the Turk in Europe should be got rid of." Since Freeman wrote, to Turkey's crimes must.be added tho massacre of a million Armenians. Bulgaria, during the short period of her modern rise to independence, has put up abad moral record. Sho has shown through her rulers a, strange propensity for treachery. After being under tho heel of Turkey for centuries she was liberated by Russia, and yet, soon after her liberation, her conduct induced Froude to write about her thus: "If the dead have any knowledge of what is passing upon earth he must laugh in his grave when the Bulgarian survivors of these horrors are now inviting tho Turks into an alliance with them against their Russian deliverers." Such was Bulgaria, in 1870, and in 1912 she was the same. At the end of the first Balkan war her soldiers, by special command, rose in dead of night and slew their sleeping Serbian allies because sho feared that her spoils of victory were in danger. Dr. Dillon remarked on this crime: "It is well io realise how near to the surface the human beast lies vigilant in some nations hastily set down as civilised." It is against this quartet of non-moral, immoral, and criminal Powers that Britain and her Allies are at war. In the history of the human race there has never been such an alliance of criminal Powers against the peace and freedom of Hie world. The non-moral beast-power of Germany has said, "Wo want world-power or downfall!" There can only bo one answer to such a dema.nd, and that is "Downfall." /That this war is a moral crisis in the history of tho human race is being recognised by tho nations of the earth. The- existence- of Germany as a great'predatory Power outrages the moral sense of Christian and Buddhist nations, and has driven them to intervene by the sword. Our political leaders licrc realise tho high moral issues involved in this war. Sin Joseph Wahd is sounding this high note. He has issued an appeal to ministers of religion, to assist in. making the i new War' Loan a success, and in it he says:

There- is no force nioro potent in raising a nation to the full sense of its responsibility than a spiritual and a moral one. You are one whoso life is set apart to nurturing and directing such a force. May I ask your co-operation in raisins the funds neccssnry to obtain ultimnto victory? . . . I am relying upon you for assistance—for an appeal to your people based on the. highest inotives-and I know I shall not ask in vain. *

.Sir Jossph Ward will not strike this high note in vain. A clear perception of the moral and spiritual issues of this war on tho part of our citizens will lighten tho weight of their sacrifices and strengthen the spirit of inflexible determination to win. There can be no' doubt about the victory that, will come to us in the future, perhaps in the ■very near, future. "Welive in a 'moral universe, and in the words of another poet of the American War , of Emancipation we say: "Yet, surely as He live?, the day Of Pence'He promised shall be ours, To fold the flags of war, and lay lb sword and spear to rust awny. And sow its ghastly field with flowers.