The 

 Human 

 Harvest 



Testimony 

 of Kipling 



[88] 



most of them were worthy. Most of them 

 were brave and true, and most of them 

 looked out on life with "frank blue British 

 eyes. 



This too we may admit, that war is not 

 the only destructive agency in modern so- 

 ciety, and that in the struggle for existence 

 the England of to-day has had many advan- 

 tages which must hide or neutralize the 

 waste of war. 



In default of facts unquestioned, we may 

 appeal to the poets, letting their testimony 

 as to the reversal of selection stand for what 

 it is worth. 



Rudyard Kipling is the poet of imperial- 

 ism ; and as to the cost of it all, we may well 

 heed his testimony. This he says of the rule 

 of the sea: — 



We have fed our sea for a thousand years, 



And she calls us, still unfed; 

 Though there's never a wave of all her waves 



But marks our English dead. 

 We've strawed our best to the waves' unrest, 



To the shark and the sheering gull. 

 If blood be the price of Admiralty, 



Lord God, we ha' paid it in full! 



