initial commit of ebook 2990HEADmain

1 files changed, 932 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/2990.txt b/2990.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93d575c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/2990.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,932 @@
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of NEVER AGAIN! by Edward Carpenter
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.
+
+Please do not remove this.
+
+This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book.
+Do not change or edit it without written permission.  The words
+are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they
+need about what they can legally do with the texts.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
+Texas, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota,
+Iowa, Indiana, and Vermont. As the requirements for other states
+are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will
+begin in the additional states. These donations should be made to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655
+
+
+Title:  NEVER AGAIN
+
+Author:  Edward Carpenter
+
+Release Date:  December, 2001  [Etext #2990]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+
+Edition:  10
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext of NEVER AGAIN! by Edward Carpenter
+*****This file should be named 2990.txt or 2990.zip******
+
+Scanned by Edward.W.Badger
+e-mail psittacus@bigfoot.com  OR
+e-mail ted@worksop.worldonline.co.uk
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any
+of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to send us error messages even years after
+the official publication date.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our sites at:
+https://gutenberg.org
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement
+can surf to them as follows, and just download by date; this is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01
+or
+ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01
+
+Or /etext00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release fifty new Etext
+files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 3000+
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
+of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
+manage to get some real funding.
+
+Something is needed to create a future for Project Gutenberg for
+the next 100 years.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+Presently, contributions are only being solicited from people in:
+Texas, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota,
+Iowa, Indiana, and Vermont. As the requirements for other states
+are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will
+begin in the additional states.
+
+All donations should be made to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation and will be tax deductible to the extent
+permitted by law.
+
+Mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Avenue
+Oxford, MS 38655  [USA]
+
+We are working with the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation to build more stable support and ensure the
+future of Project Gutenberg.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+You can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org
+if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if
+it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . .
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email.
+
+
+Example command-line FTP session:
+
+ftp metalab.unc.edu
+login: anonymous
+password: your@login
+cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
+cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext01, etc.
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99]
+GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain etexts, and royalty free copyright licenses.
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+Scanned by Edward.W.Badger
+e-mail psittacus@bigfoot.com  OR
+e-mail ted@worksop.worldonline.co.uk
+
+
+
+
+
+NEVER AGAIN!
+
+(A protest and a warning addressed to the peoples of Europe)
+
+by Edward Carpenter
+
+
+
+
+Never again must this Thing happen.  The time has come -- if the human
+race does not wish to destroy itself in its own madness -- for men
+to make up their minds as to what they will do in the future; for
+now indeed is it true that we are come to the cross-roads, we stand
+at the Parting of the Ways.
+
+The rapid and enormous growth of scientific invention makes it obvious
+that Violence ten times more potent and sinister than that which
+we are witnessing to-day may very shortly be available for our use -- or
+abuse -- in War.  On the other hand who can doubt that the rapid growth
+of interchange and understanding among the peoples of the world is
+daily making Warfare itself, and the barbarities inevitably connected
+with it, more abhorrent to our common humanity?
+
+Which of these lines are we to follow? Along which path are we to go?
+This is a question which the mass -- peoples of Europe in the future -- and
+not merely the Governments --- will have seriously to ponder and decide.
+
+That bodies of men -- as has happened a hundred times in the trenches
+in Northern France and even on the Eastern Front -- should exchange
+morning salutations and songs in humorous amity, and then at a word
+of command should fall to shooting each other;
+
+That peasants and artisans, and shopkeepers and students and
+schoolmasters, who have no quarrel whatever, who on the whole rather
+respect and honour each other, should with explosive bombs deliberately
+blow one another to bits so that even their own mothers could not
+recognize them;
+That human beings should use every devilish invention of science
+with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against
+whom they have no personal grudge or grievance;
+All this is sheer madness.
+
+Only a short time ago a private soldier said to me:  "Yes, we had
+got to be such friends with those Bavarians in the trenches over
+against us that if we had returned there again I believe nothing
+could have made us fight with each other; but of course that point
+was perceived and we were moved to another part of the Line."
+What a criticism in a few words on the whole War!
+A hundred times this or something similar has happened, and a hundred
+and a thousand times these 'enemies' who have madly mutilated each
+other have -- a few minutes later -- been only too glad to dress each
+other's wounds and share the last contents of their water-bottles.
+
+
+By all the heart-rending experiences which have now become so common
+and familiar to us;
+
+By the fact that to-day there is hardly a family over the greater
+part of Europe that is not grieving bitterly over the loss of some
+dearest member of its circle;
+
+By the white faces of the women clad in black, whom one sees everywhere
+in the streets of Berlin and Brussels and Paris and Vienna, of London
+and Milan and Belgrade and Petrograd;
+
+By the sufferings of famine-stricken Poland, ravaged already three
+or four times in the last two years by opposing and alternate armies;
+
+By the awful sufferings of the six or seven million Jews of the
+Russian Pale, hounded homeless in winter to and, fro over the frozen
+earth the old men and women and children perishing of exposure,
+fatigue, and starvation;
+By the agony of Serbia, and the despair of Belgium;
+
+This must not be again!
+
+By the five or six million actual combatants already slain; and,
+the strange spectacle of millions of Women (over half a million
+in Britain, more in France, multitudes in Germany and America)
+manufacturing man-destroying explosive shells in ceaseless stream
+by day and night;
+(And it is estimated that on the average some fifty shells are expended
+for every one man slain)
+By the terrified faces -- as of drowning men -- of those suffering in
+countless hospitals from shell-shock; by their trembling hands and,
+limbs and horrible dreams at night -- pursued by an ever-living horror;
+
+By the curses of the tender-hearted friend who collects in No-man's-land
+between the lines the scattered fragments of his comrade's
+body -- the dabs of flesh, the hand, the head he knows so well, a boot
+with a foot still in it -- and puts them all together in a sack for
+burial;
+
+By the silent stupefaction of wives and mothers trying vainly to
+picture to themselves a death which cannot be pictured; by the insane
+laughter of those who having witnessed these things can no longer
+weep;
+
+This must not be again!
+
+
+By the beach at Gallipoli covered with the prostrate and writhing
+forms of men exhausted and emaciated with dysentery, who have crawled
+down from the hills only to lie out there in the terrible sun tormented
+with flies and thirst, or to shiver through the frosty night, waiting
+for the tardy arrival of the Hospital Ship;
+
+By the hundreds of bodies thrown at the last into the sea at sunrise,
+for their unceremonious end;
+
+And each poor body for all its loathsome state so loved, so loved
+by some one far away;
+
+By the dear Lord who in the beautiful legend descended for three
+days into Hell that he might redeem mankind; but these have lived
+in an actual Hell for weeks and months together --
+
+This must not be again!
+
+
+By the growth and expansion of Science (God forgive the word!) which
+will inevitably make each future war more devilish and inhuman than
+the last;
+
+
+By the cry of the black and coloured peoples of the Earth who have
+for long enough already said how hard and cruel the faces of the
+white men seemed to them, and who now think how black their souls are;
+
+
+By the hardness of heart, the insensitiveness of a certain kind,
+which during a century or more now has been bred by the institutions
+of Commercialism;
+
+
+By the habitual betrayal, through long periods of 'prosperity' and
+`peace,' of men by their fellows -- of the weak by the powerful, of
+the generous by the mean, of the simple and thoughtless by the crafty
+and selfish;
+
+
+By the huge dividends declared by Armament Firms; by the
+international agreements of these firms with one another, even to
+cozen their own respective Governments;
+
+By the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent folk trampled
+underfoot in the ditch of competition, the mad, race in which the
+devil takes the hindmost;
+
+By the treacherous internal warfare of the ordinary industrial life
+of every country, the secret betrayal and murder of bodies and souls
+for profit -- at last written out in letters of blood and fire across
+the continents, for all to behold --
+
+This must not be again !
+
+Let the Allies by all means accuse Germany of world-ambition and
+world-plunder, and let the German people accuse their Prussian lords
+but let every nation also search its own heart and accuse itself.
+
+For have not the lords of every nation set before themselves the
+same goal, the goal of world-ambition and glory and 'empire' and
+plunder?  And have not the mass-peoples of every nation stood meanly
+by and acclaimed the fraud, nor spoken out against it, silently
+consenting to these things in the prospect of some advantage also
+to themselves?
+
+Have not all the nations without exception acted meanly and dastardly
+towards the out lying black races, and even towards those more
+civilized peoples whom they thought weaker than themselves -- and now
+in the stress of war are they not finding that their own rights
+and liberties are being slowly filched from them?
+
+Yes, that is, the end of Glory and of Greed.
+
+But the day of glory is departed.  The newspapers, it is true,
+still keep up the phrase.  They talk of a battalion "covering itself
+with glory."  But the men themselves do not talk so.  They know
+too well what it all means.  They see no glory in covering themselves
+with the blood of their brothers of the opposing trenches; with
+whom a few moments before they were joining in songs and jokes.
+
+They only say:  Now that we have begun, we will see it through -- but
+it must not be Again.
+
+
+
+Never I think in all the history of the world has there been a thing
+so great in its way as the present British Army and Navy.  This enormous
+force, raised -- except for a small remnant -- by Voluntary enlistment
+from all classes of the nation, and inspired more by a general and
+protective sense towards the Motherland than by anything else, has
+fulfilled what it considered to be its duty and its honour with a
+devotion and a heroism unsurpassed.  It were impossible to stay
+and recount its many wonderful deeds.
+
+A young officer said to me one day -- "Horrible as the whole thing
+is, yet it almost seems worth while, when you think of the splendid
+things done -- and done too in such a simple matter-of-fact way: when
+you think of all the love and devotion poured out, and the lives
+our men have given one for the sake of another."
+
+Great indeed is the spirit of such an army, great its magnanimity,
+its simplicity of mind, its unself-consciousness, its single
+concentration on its purpose.
+
+Yet perhaps the most surprising thing about our men is that they
+have done all this with so little hatred in their hearts for the enemy.
+
+Whatever the Germans may have felt, and whatever the French, the
+Britishers have just done their fighting in their own nonchalant
+way "because they had to" -- with scarcely a shadow of malice or
+revenge -- rather with that respect for a doughty opponent which
+always distinguishes the true fighter.
+
+Think of that quaint story (Between The Lines, by Boyd Cable, pp 188 ff)
+of the German Burschen in their trenches, singing with pious enthusiasm
+the Song of Hate (probably commanded and compelled, poor devils, to sing it)
+and our men for days secretly listening, learning the words, practicing
+the tune on their muffled, mouth-organs; till having got it all
+complete they one morning, burst it forth in full chorus on the
+astonished Teutons, nor failed at the end to blaze out
+"Gott strafe England" at the top of, their voices as if they really
+meant it -- and then subsided into a roar of laughter.  They simply would
+not take the German "Hate" seriously.
+
+Well, what can an enemy do with such an army? It would seem indeed
+to be invincible.
+
+
+The other surprising thing about this Army is (but it is also in
+part true of the Russians and others) that the members of it not
+only bear so little malice in their heart of hearts against the
+enemy, but that all the time they (or nine-tenths of them) are giving
+their life-blood, for a Country which in hardly any available or
+adequate sense can really be said to belong to them.
+
+Not one man of ours in ten, probably not one in a hundred, has any
+direct rights or interest in his native soil; and the Motherland
+has too often (at any rate in the past) turned out a stepmother
+who disowned him later when crippled in her service.
+
+He is told that he is fighting for his country, but he finds that
+his real privilege is to die at the foot of a Trespass-board on some
+rich man's estate, singing bravely to the last that "Britons never,
+never shall be slaves!"  He is told that he is defending his hearth
+and his home, and to prove that that is so, he is sent out on a
+far campaign to further some dubious scheme -- in Mesopotamia! I think
+we cannot refuse to say that the good temper and they single-heartedness
+and the single mindedness of the British soldier are beyond all
+praise.
+
+
+But, in another way, how admirable and how great has the French
+soldier proved himself to be!
+
+The passion of Patriotism, the sheer love of their own country
+(in the case of the French, more truly "their own" than in the
+case of the British) has swept through France in a wave of devotion
+which consumed in its flame, one may almost say, the energies and
+the treasures of every household. To protect their beautiful land,
+their divine mistress, from violation by the German hordes was a
+thing for which all men -- artists, literary men and all -- were glad
+to die.
+
+When at Meaux the French army (reorganized and reinforced) broke
+through the German centre and fell upon Von Kluck's left flank
+(his right being already threatened by the French Sixth Army),
+they were surely not men who fought, but spirits rather -- many of
+them almost ghosts, white with the fatigues and privations of a
+long retreat; but to save their beloved Paris they faced the enemy
+with a fury that nothing could resist.
+
+A miracle was wrought (talk of Angels at Mons, it was Devils at Meaux),
+and Germany in that moment was defeated -- even though it took two
+years more to make her acknowledge her defeat.
+
+Think of Lieutenant Pericard who in a trench full of corpses at
+Bois-brule cried, suddenly entranced, in a loud voice, "Debout les morts!"
+and in a moment, as it were, the souls of their dead comrades were
+around his men, inspiring them to victory.
+
+When again at Verdun week after week and month after month the French
+army endured tine almost hourly mass-attacks of the enemy battalions
+and the deluge of their shells (eight million shells, it is estimated
+the Germans threw in ten weeks), it still, though heavily punished,
+stood solid, and the whole of France stood solid behind it.  France
+never doubted the conclusion; and the conclusion was never doubtful.
+
+
+We have spoken of `glory,' but the day of ` la gloire ' has departed.
+France herself has ceased to speak of it -- and there can be no better
+proof than that, of the change that has come over the minds of men .
+
+France has emerged from the War a changed nation.  The people who
+in 1870 made ribald verses and sang cynical songs over the plight
+of their country are now no more, and France emerges serious, resolute,
+to the great work which she has before her -- of building the great
+first Democratic State of Europe and becoming the corner-stone of
+the future European Confederation.
+
+
+And what shall we say of the German army? (In the moment and merely
+for the sake of brevity I leave the Belgians, Russians, Italians
+and Serbians aside.)
+
+When I think of the great German army now scattered over Europe,
+fighting along that immense line (including the Austrian portion)
+of some 1,400 miles in extent; when I think of this on the whole so
+wonderfully goodhearted, genial, sociable people, these regiments
+of Westphalians, Wurtemburgers, Saxons, Bavarians, Hungarians, these
+men and boys from the fields and farms of Posen and Pomerania, the
+forests of Thuringia, the vineyards of the Rhine or the vegetable
+gardens of the Palatinate, these students from the Universities
+and scholars from the Technical Schools; plunged in this insane War,
+fighting in very truth for they know not what, and pouring out their
+life-blood, like water in obedience to the long-prepared schemes
+of their rulers -- I am seized with an immense pity.
+
+They have been told they are fighting to save their Fatherland.
+And as far as our argument is concerned it does not matter how
+falsely they have been instructed or what grain of actual truth
+there may be in the contention.
+
+The point is that the vast majority of them believe this to be
+true; and they too, dear children, are giving their lives for their
+hearths and homes -- they too are leading this hateful existence in
+trenches and mines, called to it by what seems to them a good
+conscience, and carried onward (in company with those they have
+left at home) in the mad millrace of public opinion.
+
+
+However we may, blame the German High Command -- and certainly we must
+blame those in power, who over such a long period deliberately
+prepared this war, and at the last so suddenly launched it upon
+Europe.
+
+However we may blame the German High Command, we cannot refuse
+to acknowledge the really great qualities of their general Army:
+its extraordinary courage and devotion, its versatility and resource.
+
+As to its goodheartedness, that is proved by the endless stories
+of spontaneous friendliness shown by the German troops even to
+their enemies, the individual rapprochements on occasions, the
+succour to the wounded, the Christmas songs and celebrations, and
+by the fact of advances of this kind so often coming first from
+the German side.
+
+As to its good sense, that element certainly has not been wanting.
+Among the stories' above-mentioned as coming from the Front is one
+which I have every reason to believe is true. The Saxons one day,
+in their trenches thirty or forty yards away, put up a blackboard
+on which was written: "The English are fools!"  The board was
+of course peppered with bullets, and went drown.  Presently it
+reappeared with "The French are fools!" written on it. Being
+duly peppered again it went down, and came up with "The Russians
+are fools!"  Same treatment. But when it, or a similar board,
+appeared for the fourth time, lo! the inscription was "The Austrians
+are fools!"; and when it appeared for the fifth time, "The
+Germans are fools!"; and the sixth time, "We are all fools!"
+
+I don't think there could be much better sense than that.
+
+
+And to think that the insane policy of a Government or Governments
+should bring about the wholesale slaughter of such mien as all
+these that I have described.
+
+To think that the longer such a war goes on, the less heroic and
+generous it becomes, and the more dominated by hatred and revenge -- by
+the wish to score a military victory or the desire to secure mere
+political and commercial advantages.
+
+To think that nations who consider themselves civilized should be
+thus acting: so contrary to the natural laws and instincts of
+humanity that often in order for a bayonet charge men must be primed
+with liquor to the verge of intoxication .
+
+We need not go further.
+
+Of the three great nations primarily involved those indeed of
+which we can speak most confidently, knowing them best -- it is
+intolerable to think they should thus mutilate and destroy each other.
+
+All we can say is:  Never again must this thing happen!
+
+
+When one thinks of the whole dread Coil and Entanglement, and,
+what it is for, the mind reels in despair.
+
+When one thinks of the marvellous scientific ingenuity and skill,
+directed in a kind of diabolic concentration on the one purpose
+of slaughter.
+
+Of the huge guns, the 12.5's, weighing 40 tons apiece, and boxed
+and rifled to the nicety of the thousandth part of an inch (I have
+watched them being made at Sheffield).
+
+Of the larger 15 in. guns, with range of 13 or 14 miles, so accurate
+that the shells thrown at that distance will deviate hardly a couple
+of yards to the right hand or the left of their line of fire (and in
+the Jutland battle the firing opened at nearly 11 miles).
+
+Of the still larger guns even now being constructed.
+
+Of the shells themselves varying from a few pounds to nearly, a ton
+in weight, and so delicately fashioned that the moment of their
+explosion can be positively timed to the tenth part of a second:
+
+When one thinks of the ingenuity put into aeroplanes and airships,
+and almost entirely with a view to the destruction of life;
+
+Of the automatic steering of submarine torpedoes by means of gyroscopes,
+so that when deviated by any obstacle or accident from their set
+course they will actually return of themselves to that course again;
+
+Of the everlasting duel going on in any one country between armour
+plates and projectiles but of course always between the armour
+plates of one firm and the projectiles of another (since obviously
+for any one firm to prove its own inferiority in either line would
+be bad business)!
+
+Of the competition even now in progress between the Russian
+universities for the invention of a new explosive or a new gas
+more devastating than any hitherto produced;
+
+Of the weighty Advisory Committee of scientific Experts sitting
+permanently in Britain for the discussion and handling of the
+technical problems of the War;
+
+When one thinks of what a Paradise all this ingenuity, all this
+expenditure of labour and treasure, might make of our mortal Earth -- if
+it were only decently employed;
+
+That Great Britain alone has already spent on the War enough to
+provide every family in the whole kingdom with a comfortable cottage
+and an acre of land;
+
+When further one thinks of all the mass of human material there
+is, such as we have already described -- of the very finest quality,
+and fit to build the most splendid races and cities "the sun
+ever shone upon" -- and then that it is being used for these utterly
+senseless purposes;
+
+How heart-rending the waste and the folly!  How disgusting the sin
+of those who are responsible!
+
+But to-day surely the armies themselves of these three countries
+are beginning to see through the illusions which have been dangled
+before then so long by those in power -- the "My-country -- right-or-wrong"
+kind of Patriotism which has so often been evoked only in order
+to serve the plots of private schemers;
+
+They are surely beginning to see that the directing of State-policy
+and foreign relations must no longer be left in the hands of a
+few highborn diplomats (mostly ignorant of the actual modern world
+amid which they live), but must be subject to the severest scrutiny
+and surveillance by the people at large and their representatives;
+
+They are beginning to see that if courage, devotion to an Idea,
+love of the Father- or Mother-land, Fidelity of comrade to comrade,
+Efficiency, daring in Adventure, exactness in Organization, and
+so forth, are the qualities which in the past have made the profession
+of arms great and glorious, it is these very qualities which will
+be demanded and evoked for all future time in the great free
+armies of Industry.
+
+For with the cessation of Militarism as the leading principle
+of national life must inevitably come the liberation of Industry -- else
+the last state of our societies will indeed be worse than the first.
+
+Truly there is nothing very exhilarating about Industry as it has
+in modern times been conceived, and one does not altogether wonder
+that all down the centuries the man with the sword has despised
+the man with the hoe, since the latter has generally been little
+better than a slave.
+
+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 of The Project Gutenberg Etext of NEVER AGAIN! by Edward Carpenter
+