But when once Labour is freed -- or rather when once it frees itself -- from the thraldom, of the old Feudal system, and finally from the fearful burden of modern Capitalism -- when once it can lift its head and see the great constructive vision of the new society which awaits it -- then surely it will perceive that all the great qualities we have named as exhibited in the past in the old destructive Warfare, and now become the splendid heritage of the peoples of Europe, will be necessary and will have a field for their exercise in the beneficent constructive conquests of Nature and the building up on Earth of that great City of the Sun which for so many ages has been the dream and inspiration of Man.
And of the old mad Warfare it will then say This odious and inhuman Thing must never be again!
In conclusion, and to look to the future:
I think we may see that the new conception of life will only come through the peeling off in the various nations of the old husks of the diplomatic, military, legal, and commercial classes, with their antiquated, narrow-minded and profoundly. irreligious and inhuman standards -- those husks which have so long restricted and strangulated the growing life within.
It will only come with the determination of the workers (that is, of everybody) to produce things useful, profitable, and beautiful, in free and rational co-operation -- things useful because deliberately made for use, things profitable for all because not made for the gain of the few, and things beautiful because of the joy and gladness wrought into their very production.
Simultaneously with this peeling off, of the Old, and disclosure of the New, will of necessity appear -- indeed it is taking shape already the blossom of international solidarity and federation -- the common cause of Humanity and of Labour liberated over the world.
Naturally such process will not mature all at once. It may, bit that the four Western nations, England, France, Italy and Belgium, combining with some of the neutral States, will constitute the first European Federationor at any rate the nucleus of a Federation destined, as it expands to absorb within its borders Germany herself (of course when she shall have taken on her true republican form)and the other States in due succession.
Such Federation when firmly consolidated might, it is not unlikely, still retain for a long period a military system, of some kind, if only for its own protection against outlying and non European dangers; but that military system would be small and secondary.
It right reasonably be no more dominant or meddlesome than the military system of China has been during the last thousand years in comparison with the massive imperturbability of the great Chinese Empire itself.
Meanwhile let us remember how important it is for the future of the world that each nation and people should be free to contribute its special quality and character to the whole; nor be ridden-over roughshod by the others;That each should contribute, in Trade or otherwise, its special gifts or facilities; and that the Internationalism which already rules in labour affairs and in Commerce and Science and Fashion and Finance and Philanthropy and Literature and Art and Music, should at last be recognized in Politics.
Let us further remember how important it is that every man and woman should insist on the rights of Personality to preserve sacred his or her most intimate sense of selfness and duty the very, essence of Freedom.
Though I do not, for instance, think that a refusal to fight under any condition or circumstance can reasonably be maintained to its logical conclusion, and though I certainly would not engage myself to refuse to fight in any and every case. Still, I do honour and respect the genuine conscientious objectors (of whom there are great numbers) very sincerely.
Some of them may, be narrow-minded and faddist (as conscience often is), but let us remember that the great things of History have been initiated by such folk.
It was they who barred and broke the gladiatorial games at Rome;it was they, who, steered the "Mayflower" across the Atlantic, and started the great Republic of the United States;And it is they, who are possibly sowing the seed a great Movement which will spread all over Europe, and ultimately by opposing compulsory military service inaugurate a world-era of Peace.
(For certainly, without Conscription the Continental Powers would never have become involved in the present war)Let us recognize the right and the duty of each man to ponder these world-problems for himself: to play his part and to make his own voice heard in the solution of them.
Let us recognize the falsity of Science divorced from the Heart, and begin to-day to create a political, an economic, and a material world which shall be the true and satisfying expression of the real human soul;Let us acknowledge even at the last that the War may have been a, necessary evil to show us by contrast the way, of deliverance;Let us render, homage to those who have given their lives in it;let us vow that their great sacrifice shall not be in vain, but shall consecrate for us a new purpose and a new ideal;Let us believe that Love, not Hatred, is the power by which in the end the World will be saved;And let us pray that a Heroism equal to that, shown to-day in the cause of Destruction may urge us in the future towards a great and glorious Constructive era in social life -- and inspire us with a new hope:
Out of purgatory to build a paradise, in which the ugliness, vulgarity, sordidness and cruelty of the present scheme of things will be repeated.
August 1916
End
