England, 

 1911. 



Our Duly 



In 

 Tripoli. 



LONDON, Nov. i, 1911. 



Milton ! thou should'st be living 

 at this hour : 



England hath need of thee : she 

 is a fen 

 Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 

 Fireside, the heroic wealth of hail and bower, 

 Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

 Of inward hapjiiness. W'e are selfish men ; 

 Oh 1 raise us up, return to us again ; 

 And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

 Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : 

 Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like tlie sea : 

 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 

 So didst thou travel on life's common way, 

 In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 

 The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 



It is not to be thought of that the 

 Flood 



(Jf British freedom, which to the 

 open Sea 



Of the world's praise from dark antiquity 

 Hath flowed ; " with pomp of waters unwithstood," 

 Roused though it be full often in a mood 

 Which spurns the check of salutary bands, 

 That lliis most famous Stream in 15ogs and Sands 

 .Should perish ; and to evil and to good 

 He lost for ever. In our Halls is hung 

 .\rmoury of the invincible Knights of old : 

 We must be free or die, who speak the tongue 

 That Shakespeare spake ; the faith and morals hold 

 Which .Milton held. — In everything we are sprung 

 Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold. 



I have quoted \Vordsworth's 



The Challenge immortal sonnets because they 

 of 



the Crime. e.xpress what ought to be the 

 mood of the nation confronted 

 as it is by the challenge of a monstrous crime. The 

 Italian attack upon Tripoli is the culmination of 

 a long series of incidents which have jjroved that 

 we are living in '" one of those recurring eras when 

 force, truculent and unabashed, sweeps away the 



moral judgments of the world." It has unforlunatelv 

 found Great Britain without any spokesman on 

 either side of the House competent to express with 

 adequate authority the horror and loathing inspired 

 by the latest and most cynical outrage upon the ele- 

 mentary principles of international intercourse. Since 

 the coi/p d'etat of the Third Napoleon nothing quite so 

 infamous has been accomplished by men in authority. 

 Victor Hugo voiced the conscience of mankind on 

 that occasion as Mr. Gladstone did on the subject of 

 the Neapolitan prisons and the Bulgarian atrocities. 

 But nowadays, since the eloquent voice of the great 

 master has been hushed in death, even the challenge 

 of the Tripolitan crime awakes no adequate censure 

 from those who sit in the high places of the land. 

 But as there is no longer a Mr. Gladstone amongst 

 us, and the voices even of those who stood nearest to 

 him are muffled by the liveries of office, we must 

 needs be make this like Inkertnan, a private soldier's 

 battle, and each man be his own Gladstone. Other- 

 wise one of the greatest outrages upon the moral 

 bonds which hold the nations together will pass with- 

 out protest and without punisliment. 



Many States, our own included, 



The Enormity i,ave made unprovoked and un- 

 of the , r , • 



Italian Attack. warranted attacks upon tiie terri- 

 tory of their neighbours. These 

 attacks have been condoned by many specious pleas 

 which impose upon no one but those who hope to 

 ])rofit by the aggression. There is sufficient resem- 

 blance between the Italian attack on Tripoli and our 

 own harrying of the South African Republics to enable 

 Britons to understand the frenzy of conquest which 

 has converted even Nobel prizemen like Signer 

 .\Ioneta into e.xultant jingoes. But bad as was the 

 Boer war, its criminality pales before the lurid hue of 

 the Italian outrage. The invasion of the Transvaal was 

 so to speak a domesiic crime. The integrity and 



