To fight in order to compel Germany to observe it was crass militarism.  Plainly, Mr. Shaw is a little difficult.  The Government under which he lives is either too bellicose or not bellicose enough; too ready to help France if France is attacked or not ready enough to bully Germany, and especially it is all wrong about Belgium and its treaty, since treaties have several times been broken, and so on through a bewildering circle of contradictory statements and notions.

Mr. Shaw finds little to choose between the groups of combatants.  He distinctly prides himself on his impartiality, not to say indifference.  On account of his Irish birth he claims something of the detachment of a foreigner, but admits a touch of Irish malice in taking the conceit out of the English.  Add to this his professed many-sidedness as a dramatist and playwright and we get as good an explanation as can be given of this noted writer’s attitude toward the tremendous struggle now waging.  But Mr. Shaw’s assumption of even-handed scorn for every one concerned, of “six of one and a half dozen of the other,” does not hold out.  He feels profoundly that such fighting as Germany does, for such a purpose as inspires Germany, must be met by force, and that England could not in the long run, no matter by whom guided or governed, have shirked the task laid upon her.  That being the case, one wonders a little why it was worth while to cover every one with ridicule and to present a picture of Great Britain so essentially grotesque and distorted.

* * * * *

Bernard Shaw on the End of the War.

From The New York Sun, Nov. 15, 1914.

In the midst of a good deal of untimely gibing, George Bernard Shaw, as reported in a London dispatch to The Sun of yesterday, says one or two very wise and appropriate things about the end of the war and the times to come after it.  His warnings are a useful check to the current loose talk of the fire-eaters and preachers of the gospel of vengeance.

“We and France have to live with Germany after the war,” Mr. Shaw points out.  Even to embarrass her financially would be a blow to England herself, Germany being one of England’s best customers and one of her most frequently visited neighbors.  The truth of this is unanswerable.  The great object must be to effect a peace with as little rancor as possible.

Mr. Shaw does not say it, but there are going to be overwhelming political reasons why the pride of Germany and Austria and still more why their military power shall not be too much impaired in case of their defeat.

Perhaps in the final settlement the Western Allies may be found to have more in common with Berlin than with St. Petersburg.  Germany has pointed this out with much force.

Mr. Shaw’s position is not admirable when he chooses their days of tribulation for sticking pins into his own people, even though some of the things he says may be unpleasantly true.  But it cannot be denied that he has some sane views on the situation.  The pity is that he must always impair the force of the useful things he has to say by flippancies, impertinences, and out-of-place girdings at those whose courage he should help to maintain.  He reminds one of a man who insists on wrangling over the mistaken construction of a chimney while the house is burning down.