“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down.” Thus spoke the voice of the minister and the wind carried his words, and the wind played with the flag of England, the flag that flies over all seas, in Flanders, in France, in the Balkans, in Egypt, as the symbol of threatened freedom--the flag whose folds here covered a fallen warrior. Deeply were we moved when the clergyman in his prayer asked for a “message of comfort to his home.”
Who, tell me, oh silent field, Who lies buried here? Here?
Yes, who is Walker, No. 16092, Private Joseph Walker, Bedfordshire regiment? Who, in loving thoughts, thinks of him with hope even now when we, strangers to them, stand near to him in death? Where is his home? We know it not, but in our inmost hearts we pray for a “message of comfort and consolation” for his people.
And in the roaring storm we went our way. There was he carried, the soldier come to rest, and the flag fluttered in the wind and wrapped itself round that son of England. Then the coffin sank into the ground and the hearts of us, the departing witnesses, were sore. Earth fell on it, and the preacher said: “Earth to earth, dust to dust.”--_From the Amsterdam_ “Telegraaf,” _January, 1916_.
“The Religion of Valor”--that new creed for which Germany now claims to be fighting--will call for many martyrs behind the fighting lines, and we may suppose that the middle classes of the fatherland as little like the sacrifices demanded from them as any other members of the community, whose savings are the result of their own energy and enterprise. That Germany is subscribing to her loans with generosity and self-denial we have no reason to doubt; but since there is no free press, the nation as a whole remains under delusion as to the value of its securities. The dust, however, cannot be in every eye much longer, and before another spring is spent, Germany’s people will know that she is powerless to keep her paper promises.
For the one hope that a victorious trade war would instantly break out upon the arrival of peace is destined to be disappointed.
As Mr. Kitson recently and very effectively showed, economic power is the basis of political power, the root from which all national power, which can be interpreted into force, must spring. “Trade warfare is therefore a struggle for economic power, for the control of men and of all factors of wealth production.”