The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1915. TWELVE MONTHS OF WAR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 78, 31 July 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER SATURDAY, JULY 31, 1915. TWELVE MONTHS OF WAR.

When the appalling events of the past year are looked back upon, after twelve months of the most savage war] in the world’s history, one is almost forced to the conclusion that advance in science and civilisation has no con-1 nection with improvement in morals. The nnparrellelled treachery, brutality, and swinishness ot the Germans in the conflict they themselves willnlly ( provoked after forty years of secret preparation, is responsible for this shattering ol beliel that the " 01 ( n-ns growing better, and that morals advanced with civilisation, general progress and improvement. A wellknown writer in a leading Unghsh journal, however, takes the view that, in spite of the sudden appearance ol a horde of barbarians in the heart ol Europe, we must hear in mind that civilisation has virtues of its own. such as toleration and humanity, but for the most part they either belong to the. intellectual side of our nature, or they are beneficial consequences of moral defects. The same writer ventures to state that it is pleasanter to sou men treating those who differ Imm them in matters of opinion with respectful interest or careless indiflcionce than to see them tying others to a stake; but if the motives in the two cases could he fairly compared, with lull allowance for all surrounding and antecedent circumstances, it may ho doubted whether the fiery indignation of the. mediaeval inquisitor was not more productive of the minister virtues than the • comprehensive complacency ol the modern Teutonic sceptic. '! he conclusion arrived at is that in a harsh ami crude nation, such a v Gcnuanv liars exposed herself to b'\ • may lliat the thin veneer of so-called “kultur” has warn off. there is »o 1 shrinking, or even dislike, to seeing

others In p»m or .suffering and ihcro- ( fore they inflict it as ruthlessly ami needlessly as they ran. when there is no fem- of reprisal. Anything more utterly abhorrent than the piracy now linrtg practiced amongst the fishing folk o! the North Sea and the harmless coastal ships trading between Britain and northern Europe, it is I hard to conceive. The immense strides| that have been made in material prosperitv. tlio snhiection of natural forces

to the use of man, the accumulation of wealth, the increase both in the amount and diffusion of human knowledge, ought, if a misguided madman

aided by a band of military despots had not been allowed to govern and impose noon and misdirect the destines of Germany, to have brought the Old World to a very happy stage. But Germany wantonly sought war. for no

high cause or purpose, hut merely to 1 enlarge her borders and make a I “Greater German Empire” in Africa,and to replenish her coppers hydeliherate theft from her peace-loving neighbours. Germany, crude, dull and slowwitted as she has proved in all else hut the cunning of deceit and treachery, ought by this time surely to have realised that it is to enforce the observance of treaties, that it is against a nation who never kept a treaty that she ever made, or an oath she ever took, that civilisation' decided to take up arms against her and her dupe. Austria. Turkey another poor befooled tool, is now. after a century of tottering uncertainty as to her fate, doomed to be swept out of Europe, and must bitterly me tbe day site was gulled Into ■> hopeless conflict by German deception and intrigue.