The object and effect of our entering into this war would be to insure the victory of Russia and her Slavonic allies.  Will a dominant Slavonic federation of, say, 200,000,000 autocratically governed people, with a very rudimentary civilization, but heavily equipped for military aggression, be a less dangerous factor in Europe than a dominant Germany of 65,000,000 highly civilized and mainly given to the arts of trade and commerce?

The last war we fought on the Continent was for the purpose of preventing the growth of Russia.  We are now asked to fight one for the purpose of promoting it.  It is now universally admitted that our last Continental war—­the Crimean war—­was a monstrous error and miscalculation.  Would this intervention be any wiser or likely to be better in its results?

On several occasions Sir Edward Grey has solemnly declared that we are not bound by any agreement to support France, and there is certainly no moral obligation on the part of the English people so to do.  We can best serve civilization, Europe—­including France—­and ourselves by remaining the one power in Europe that has not yielded to the war madness.

This, I believe, will be found to be the firm conviction of the overwhelming majority of the English people.

Yours faithfully,

NORMAN ANGELL.

4 Kings Bench Walk, Temple, E.C., July 31.

Why England Came To Be In It

By Gilbert K. Chesterton.

I.

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story; and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness.  If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people’s weaknesses as well as my own.  It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of the fire-escape.  It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house.  That is the story of the thing.  The mere facts of the story about the present European conflagration are quite as easy to tell.

Before we go on to the deeper things which make this war the most sincere war of human history, it is easy to answer the question of why England came to be in it at all; as one asks how a man fell down a coal hole, or failed to keep an appointment.  Facts are not the whole truth.  But facts are facts, and in this case the facts are few and simple.

Prussia, France, and England had all promised not to invade Belgium, because it was the safest way of invading France.  But Prussia promised that if she might break in through her own broken promise and ours she would break in and not steal.  In other words, we were offered at the same instant a promise of faith in the future and a proposal of perjury in the present.