stubborn conflict at night played the star-shells, which
on so many past occasions the Japanese have found such
formidable antagonists, revealing the stealthy and care-
fuUy calculated attack before it can be pushed home.
A vision rises before us of interminable snowy plains
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 49
and mountain ranges, under a winter sky, where hundreds
of thousands of men wrestle with death, till the
shimmering white expanse turns to scarlet, and the
corpses are piled in breastworks of human flesh.
" Along the whole front thundered incessantly the
two thousand guns which the two armies brought into
action, spraying the land before them with shrapnel
bullets and with the yet more terrible high-explosive
shell, the blast of which where it does not kill, stuns
men fifty yards away. The horizon was a-smoke by day
and a-fire by night with the flame of the artillery. Between
the two hosts stretched a terrain strewn with the wounded,
the dying, and the dead, and in the protracted struggle
the suffering were left to perish of frost-bite or to bleed
to death. It must be so, for help cannot be given on
a field incessantly swept by the fire of the two contending
armies, and even if it could be offered the resources of
both armies were probably unequal to grapple with that
terrible mass of human suffering. It was so at Port
Arthur, where to be wounded in the great assaults was
almost as a sentence of death, and this despite the heroic
efforts of the Red Cross service.
" The high courage of both armies is fully proved
by their heavy losses and by the constant hand-to-hand
combats which have marked the battle. The bayonet,
held obsolete only three years ago, has attained a new
importance now that it has proved so often the deciding
factor in the struggle. On their side the Japanese
infantry again and again return to the attack and seem
never to abate one whit in courage, notwithstanding
their repulses and their terrible losses. Theirs is the
spirit of the Samurai who, when mortally wounded,
prayed that he might be given ten thousand lives and
that each might be ended by death in arms in the service
of his Emperor and Lord. The old theory which held
that any troops would break and give way after a certain
percentage of loss seems not to apply to the Japanese.
They can be trusted to fight on and to be killed to the
E
50 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE
last man. Their attacks are met with equal stolidity
by the Russians, who rally after every defeat, and, as at
Eylau and Borodino, scarcely seem to know when they
are beaten. And were the directing power of the Russian
army equal to that of the Japanese, it might go hard
with our gallant allies, since man to man there is nothing
to choose between the two nations. It is the general's
skill that turns the scale.
" A note of horror is to be marked in the recollections
of those who have been through such a battle as this.
A witness who took part in one of the bloodiest episodes
of the battle of Mars-la-Tour, which was child's play
compared with the battle of Mukden, tells us how for
weeks after men's nerves shook at the very recollection,
and how in the combat itself, when the withering fire
of the French infantry mowed down the German battalions,
strange transformations of character were seen. One
man reputed brave would lose self-control and weep ;
of the officers, many faltered ; one vanished precipitately
to cover ; and, of the men, hundreds flung themselves
prostrate on the ground, though unwounded, and refused
to stir. On the other hand there were a few, but very
few, whose courage was above all praise, who retained
their coolness and devotion even under the torrent of
lead, and who went forward to death in the simple
faithfulness to duty. It is here that hes the majesty
of the battlefield. The spirit which holds life as nothing
when compared with fidelity to right in a great cause is a
spirit which the world will not willingly lose and which
animates the true soldier and hero."
This stupendous climax was not needed to set the
Manchurian campaign on a pinnacle of Titanic destructiveness
and unparalleled fury.
The Christian, November 17, 1904, writes : —
" The war in the Far East has impressed the Foreign
Secretary as it ought to impress all right thinking people :
' The spectacle of this terrible war may do something
to give a stimulus to the existing desire for the discovery
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 5T
of some less clumsy and less brutal method of adjusting
international differences.' That frightful object-lesson
in Manchuria should be sufficient to tame the wildest
advocate of war."
The master gunner, aided by chemist, gun-factor, and the
assistants of the dread trio, has won control over forces so
superlatively superhuman that we imagine him as a veritable
angel of death. He " fells squadrons at once," like Milton's
Michael with his sword. To some, in view of such stupendous
energy manifested by opposed engines, man, partly controller
of force, partly at its mercy, seems altogether puny. Maurice
Maeterhnck, writing in the Daily Mail, June 6, 1904, says,
in this spirit : —
" The fearful struggle in which two empires are
engaged, out yonder, at the other end of the world,
holds more than one surprise in store.
" For the first time since the origin of history, man
is being supplanted on the battlefield ; and by entirely
new forces, which, mature at last, have now definitely
emerged from their long period of experiment and
probation. Until this war (I leave out of count that of
the Transvaal, which was incomplete, and too unequal)
they still hung in the balance — held themselves aloof,
and only acted from afar. They were reluctant to assert
themselves ; and there was still some connection between
their mysterious action and the work of our hands.
The range of the gun was not greater than that of our
eye ; and the destructive energy of the most murderous
cannon, the most formidable explosive, still preserved
human proportions.
" To-day we are overwhelmed, our reign is ended ;
and behold us, as so many grains of sand, at the mercy
of the monstrous and enigmatic power whose aid we
have dared to invoke."
And again : —
" For to-day the children of mystery have emerged
from childhood ; the gods are other who press on our
ranks, break our lines, and scatter our squadrons, sink
E2
52 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
our ships and rock our fortresses. These gods have
no longer a human shape ; they issue from primitive
chaos, far beyond the home of their predecessors ;
and all their laws, their power, their intentions,
must be sought outside the circle of our own life, on
the other face of our intelligent sphere, in a world
that is closely sealed, the world most hostile of all
to the destinies of our species, the raw, formless world
of inert matter.
"It is to this blind and frightful unknown, which
has nothing in common with us, which obeys impulses
and commands as incomprehensible as those which
govern the most fabulously distant stars — it is to this
impenetrable, irresistible energy that we confide the
exclusive attribute of what is highest in the form of
life that we are alone to represent in this world ; it is to
these undefinable monsters that we entrust the almost
divine mission of establishing the right, and separating
the just from the unjust."
The Morning Leader, November lo, 1904, says with respect
to the Dogger Bank incident :—
" What more, asks Lord Lansdowne, could any less
peaceful settlement have obtained ? For us it is not
necessary to enforce by any argument the answer that
is here implied, or to emphasise the Foreign Secretary's
strongly-worded appeal for arbitration and conciliation
in the disputes of great peoples. But we hope that the
little peoples will not be forgotten. We can all realise
the horrors of a war between the first-class Powers of
Europe. They are not less horrible in kind, when inflicted
by one of those Powers upon an insignificant adversary.
When the nations assemble for the second time in a
Peace Conference at President Roosevelt's invitation
their object should be not merely to make war rarer
because it is costly and " clumsy," but because it is
cruel and demoralising. Peace is something more than
a condition precedent to prosperity. It is an end,
second to none, in itself."
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 53
What limit indeed can we ascribe to the competitive
invocation of Nature's malefic powers in which the world
is engaged ? What fresh or intensified catastrophes will
astound us in the next war ? The possibility of aerial navies
has been suggested already. May not electricity be employed
to destroy life more surely and widely than the highest
explosives ? It has already been hinted that an enemy's
ammunition might be exploded wholesale by wireless trans-
mission of electric waves. Imagination is powerless to realise
the effect on naval affairs and battles which would be
produced by the invention of a satisfactory submarine mine-
layer or torpedo boat ; and such a consummation cannot
be regarded as impossible. One grave consequence may be
indicated. An enemy's commerce might be annihilated in
defiance of all Conventions without any evidence of breaches
of International Law, and at least two of the largest liners
might vanish without even protest on suspicion being
justified.
Whatever be the development of belligerent methods
in the future, there can be little doubt that in every successive
campaign proportionately larger numbers of men and naval
units will have to be forthcoming. This is ensured by the
demonstrated necessity, if defeat is to be avoided, of out-
numbering and outclassing the enemy's guns, and by the
enveloping and flanking tactics rendered expedient by the
ever increasing difficulty and risk of frontal attack ; while
equally imperative are mounted forces adequate to prevent
raids and circumventions by the enemy's light artillery and
horsemen. The massing together of multitudes unparalleled
in modern history has been made practicable by the
utilisation of railways and tinned provisions and desiccated
food-stuffs.
A few more great wars, with a progressive augmentation
of the number of troops massed for important engagements,
would either force conscription upon Great Britain or render
her tenure of India precarious.
The vast expansion of the area covered by troops engaged
in battle is a novel and astounding phenomenon. Imagine
54 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
over three hundred square miles occupied at once by
stupendous forces of destruction in full activity !
The new horrors added by time to war have not
involved the diminution of the old horrors of the battlefield.
Witness Mr. Brindle's message to the Daily Mail,
published September 7, 1904 : —
" The battle was resumed next day, and resulted in
the Russian evacuation of every position after another
tremendous hand-to-hand conflict.
" The Japanese, who were as active as cats, climbed
mountains with sides as steep as those of a house, and
engaged the Russians on the tops.
" A hundred were thrown into the ravines and smashed
to pieces, presenting sickening sights that surpassed
all description — heads, arms, and legs being scattered
in all directions. The streams and the pools of water
with which the country, flooded after rain, was covered,
were the colour of blood. The whole scene was one
of the utmost desolation.
" After the battle the natives fled, except some
who robbed the dead."
In spite of the general immunity of non-combatants from
robbery and violence, modern warfare brings terrible sufferings
upon the inhabitants of the areas of miUtary operations. A
siege is worse than ever for civilians, except that it is now
not likely to end with a sack. Occasionally the force of
circumstances proves too strong for the restraints of disciphne
based on the humane ordinances of International Law.
All this is vividly illustrated by Mr. C. E. Hands with
respect to Manchuria in the Daily Mail of September 16,
1904 :—
" During the temporary lull, while both armies are
recovering wind after the great battle around Liaoyang,
some consideration may perhaps be directed to another
aspect of the war — to the case of the unfortunate native
population.
" Chinese refugees are now pouring into Mukden,
as earlier they streamed into Haicheng and Liaoyang.
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 55
" Along every road moves a sad procession across
the silent plain of families flying from their homes, which
are threatened with the volcanic horrors of war. Country
carts, drawn by lean ponies and donkeys, accompanied
by the few oxen still remaining, carry the remnants
of their riches, little stores of grain and a few household
treasures, in addition to the women and numerous
children.
" Many less fortunate are compelled to trudge on
foot through the deep Manchurian mud, able to carry
away of their belongings only their babies. But whatever
they have carried away, all have left behind them their
village homes and their only real wealth, consisting of
the standing crops of millet, kiaohang, and beans, now
almost ripe for the sickle. Still, whatever their fortune
was, nothing but destitution now faces them during the
ensuing winter.
" These poor people come to Mukden from every
direction. The Hun River valley and the villages
along the Sinminting road are practically deserted,
and the same is the case with the main eastern roads,
while to the south the whole fertile plain has been
depopulated.
" Mukden, however, is not the only sanctuary, for
further west people have fled across the Liao River,
braving the dangers from Hunhuses. Further east they
have fled into the primeval forests among the moimtains
where the native Christians lay hid, their only subsistence
berries, during the Boxer terror.
" They do not know which way to fly. All they
know — from what befell their fellows in the south —
is that to remain for some means loss of life, and all
may suffer the nameless atrocities from which even
women and little children are not exempted.
" The flying shell is no respecter of neutrality. More-
over, neutrality itself, in the case of a Chinese viUage
within the battle-area, carries an added danger, since
each combatant suspects the other of taking shelter in
56 SAFEGUARDS FOR fEACE.
such a place, presuming on its neutrality being respected,
with the result that both have shelled it. This explains
the apparently wanton burning of many villages in the
districts around Liaoyang. Then soldiers, still hungry
from long marches, whether enraged by defeat or furious
under pursuit, do not consider the niceties of conduct
in their eagerness for food and firewood.
I " This phase of the horrors of war is comparatively
meaningless, notwithstanding one's knowledge of the
privations and sufferings of the soldiers, until one sees
its effect upon the crowded population of the neutral
country.
" At first it seemed that the natives were profiting
by the war, by reason of the general employment of
highly-paid labour. Large profits have been made
by a few individuals from the sale of bread, vodki, and
cigarettes to the soldiers. Undoubtedly coolie labour
has enjoyed a standard of employment undreamt of
before, but this is a small matter in comparison with
the devastation of a great part of the country.
" Wherever large supplies have been purchased
from the farmers they have not benefited, for though
the Russians have paid generous prices the profits have
gone into the hands of a few clever contractors.
Frequently the farmers' money, whether for supphes,
crops, or damages, has been intercepted by rascally
interpreters.
" Charles E. Hands."
While science has been labouring so successfully to
intensify the revolting and agonising characteristics of war,
in other directions she has vigorously co-operated with
rehgion and moral culture in cultivating the tender emotions
of sympathy and compassion, and thus accentuating our
appreciation of the enhanced horrors of war.
Eastern Morning News, August 25th, 1904 : —
" How httle influence rehgion has upon people,
or else how far off we yet are from true rehgion !
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 57
" In the case of the present struggle many people
are beginning to realise how contrary it is to the spirit
of the truest civiUsation. There are those who pray
for its end lest worse befall. For we can see quite clearly
the possibility of terrible complications ahead."
Respect for human life and disgust at the infliction of
suffering on living beings have been fostered by many salutary
reforms. In our own country flogging in the army has been
abolished, bullying in schools has been almost suppressed,
corporal punishment of children has become much rarer than
of old. Brutal sports, such as prize fights, cock-fights, and
rat-kilhng matches have generally declined in popularity.
The use of anaesthetics has lessened considerably the amount
of acute suffering, and supported the humane disposition
to prevent it or relieve it as much as possible. Our law,
reserving man's assumed right to kill the lower animals, has
forbidden them to be ill-treated or wantonly tortured. The
labour of women and children has been beneficently regulated.
Employers have been made responsible for the safety of work-
men. The treatment of lunatics and also that of prisoners has
been ameliorated. In a limited sort of way the Home
Office enjoins the relief of the destitute. In theory at
least the Empire recognises the duty of endeavouring
to remove or mitigate suffering and distress. We are most
of us, really or nominally, philanthropists. Our Royal
Family takes keen interest and a prominent part in the
assiduous struggle against the torments inflicted by disease.
In several other States the philanthropic spirit has been
steadily gaining ground ; the survivals of primitive instincts
are being eliminated.
Echo, August i6th, 1904 : —
" Tolstoy believes that men are waking up to the
true horror of war. The relation of men to war is now
quite different, he says, from that which formerly existed,
even so lately as the year 'yy. That which is now taking
place never took place before.
" In illustration he gives some striking letters from
Russian soldiers. In one of them occur these notable
58 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
words : — ' I was not able to resist the summons, but I
say beforehand that through me not one Japanese
family shall be orphaned."
The inevitable inference to be drawn from all this is that
war and its works and ways are becoming more and ever
more incompatible with the progress of civilisation and the
trend of popular sentiment. It is the fast friend and ally
of disease, the common foe of all mankind. I agree with a
writer in the Spectator, July gth, 1904, that
" War is a destructive, not a constructive, force,
while the aim of civilisation is essentially constructive.
Civilisation has now reached a higher level, and is more
widely diffused, than at any period of the world's history.
It stands to-day secure from the attacks of barbarism ;
it can never fall absolutely like the isolated civilisations
of Babylon and Egypt, or be lost partially like those of
Greece and Rome. Secure from all attacks from without,
civilisation can proceed with her constructive work
unless she is menaced from within. When the discoveries
and achievements of science and art become the property
of all, when the increased prosperity of any one country
is a gain to all, surely war has become suicidal ? In
other words, does it not appear that civilisation has now
become so universal as to call for some extension of
the scope of international law ? Is it not somewhat
paradoxical for nations to take away from their citizens
the private right of the savage to settle his personal
disputes, and yet to revert to the primitive method of
bloodshed for the settlement of some question in which,
as often as not, neither party has any real interest or
claim ? If we look at war emotionally, we may see it
as a 'national sacrament,' when in reality it is stupendous
folly and waste. — I am. Sir, etc.,
"Kenneth MacLennan."
The natural development of peaceful arts and crafts, of
commerce, of general prosperity, of education, and of moral
enlightenment is stunted and warped by the intolerable burden
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 59
of war and preparation for possible war ; and the worst of it
is that the heavier the burden, the fewer are the producers
left to provide the national income out of which the financial
portion of the load has to be exacted. Not only the men of
the navy and army, but also the employes in Government
dockyards, arsenals, and factories of arms and ammunitions,
are non-producers of wealth, seeing that the nation does not
sell these manufactures and only to a very limited extent
uses them for livelihood.
The immense importance of peaceful habits was ably
maintained by Sir Norman Lockyer in an address delivered
at Colchester, in which he said that " It must be admitted
that science was now the basis of every important operation
in the community, and it constituted the life-blood of every
nation ; so that not only should there be an industrial com-
petition dependent upon science, but there must be a national
competition. The nation where most science was understood
and applied, where the marriage between science and industry
was the most binding, was the nation that was bound to
succeed in the modern struggle for existence. Japan, for
instance, was applying science to both war and to peace.
Modern Japan was not so old as a London schoolboy, and
one marvelled when one realised that Japan could almost
give lessons to the British Navy, and how she excelled in
the arts of war. While the Enghsh School Boards had been
teaching principally in the primary schools, the attention
of the Japanese had been directed chiefly to the higher schools
and universities, and the higher stations of life, whether
mihtary or civil. ' In this gigantic campaign we are seeing
the first fruits of an absolutely organised brain power utilised
in the service of killing men, and I believe the time will come
when you will see exactly the same result when the same
thing is organised, not in the operations of war, but in the
operations of ]:)eace.' .... He hoped the present
auguries would be reversed, and that thinking men would
not in the future be talking so much of the gigantic progress
in Germany and the United States in the matters of industry,
but he did think this : that it was absolutely essential for all
60 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE
communities, whether large or small, to see whether these
things were so or not ; and if they found them to be so, they
must go about it in their real English way. He thought
that if it was true this scientific instruction was of the value
it was said to be, then we must have it as other nations had.
It was not a question of spending millions upon ironclads,
and leaving the Universities to starve. The United States
and Germany had built many ironclads, but they had built
more Universities than we. Much had been heard of the
two-power standard, but our rulers had not thought of the
two-power standard in relation to the Universities. We
were more out-numbered by the Universities of the United
States and Germany than by their ironclads, and it was
madness not to think of the scientific question, the education
question."
The cost of war seems to be going up by leaps and bounds.
The total cost of the Crimean war per week was £3,000,000 ;
the total cost of the last Franco-German war was estimated
at £7,000,000 a week ; as the war with the Orange Free State
and the Boers cost us £1,500,000 per week, we might expect
a war with a great Power with a navy to cost about £5,000,000
a week. As for the statement that the war with Japan
costs Russia £1,097,000 odd a week, the estimate must involve
certain reservations which have not been made in other cases.
Perhaps no charge is made for transport by railway. More-
over, events show that Russia has not spent enough to avert
disaster. That an appreciable percentage of the cost of wars
is due to more or less peculation and mismanagement does
not seriously affect the main question of comparative costli-
ness. Bear in mind, my readers, that no official statement
gives anything like the full sum of a nation's expenses and
losses directly or indirectly attributable to any one war.
The pecuniary burdens laid upon nations by the competi-
tive increase in the effective strength of armies and navies
on a peace footing may be realised by scanning a few figures.