226 MY LIFE 



honour or glory apart from justice and mercy, and that to take away 

 people's liberty and force our rule upon them against their will is the 

 greatest of all national crimes, should take every opportunity of mak- 

 ing their voices heard. If, for instance, every Socialist in our land, 

 and I hope a very large proportion of workers and advanced thinkers 

 who may not be Socialists, would agree to maintain this as one of 

 their fundamental principles, to be continually brought before the 

 people through the press and on the platform, to be urged on the 

 Government at every opportunity, and to be made a condition of our 

 support of every advanced Parliamentary candidate, we should create 

 a body of ethical opinion and feeling that would not only be of the 

 highest educational value at home, but which would influence the whole 

 world in their estimate of us. It would show them that though our 

 Government is bad — as all Governments are — yet the people at heart 

 are honest and true, and that it will not be very long before the people 

 will force their Governments to be honest also. 



This, I submit, would be really "practical politics." At the present 

 day we have got so far as this — that none of the Great Powers wages 

 a war of aggression and conquest against another Power without 

 some quarrel or some colourable pretence of injury. But surely the 

 fact of there being such a party as I have outlined, and especially if 

 it would (as I think it certainly could) compel the next Government 

 to make some of the smaller concessions here indicated and adopt the 

 general principle of respecting the liberties of even the smallest 

 nationalities, would so reduce the amount of envy and hatred with 

 which we are now regarded as to considerably diminish the danger 

 of combined aggression upon us. 



I should have liked to say something about Russia, and the fact 

 that we are answerable for the present war in the Far East, by so 

 long upholding Turkey, and preventing Russia from acquiring free 

 egress into the Mediterranean, in exchange for which concession she 

 would (after the Russo-Turkish War) have willingly agreed to the 

 neutralizing of Constantinople as a free port under the guarantee of 

 the Powers. We had at that time a preponderance of power in 

 Europe, as shown by what occurred at the Berlin Congress; but Lord 

 Beaconsfield used that power for a bad purpose, as Lord Salisbury 

 afterwards admitted. 



I greatly regret being obliged to differ so radically from a man I 

 admire and respect so much as I do Robert Blatchford; but, as I am 

 known to be a Socialist and a constant reader of the Clarion, it might 

 be thought that my silence would imply some degree of agreement. 

 The present letter is merely for the purpose of making my views 

 clear on this vitally important question, and with the hope that others 

 who agree with me will not longer keep silence. 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



