The Great Pacifist, 



AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTER SKETCH. 



This article, which gives in bis own words a remarliable survey of a life devoted to Peace, contains some 

 of the latest work of Mr. W. T. Stead, the latter portion having been dictated only a few days before he le't on 

 the "Titanic," and he had not even an opportunity of revising it. With the MSS. we found the following 

 note ; — " This is a statement which I prepared, I think, about the year 1901, when I was asked by a 

 member of the Nobel Coramittea to submit a statement as to my record in relation to the Peace Question. I 

 have added to it a supplementary statement w<h:ch describes my activity in the field of International Peace 

 during the last ten years. I prefer that the first statement as prepared in igoi should go as it stands without 

 any alteration. I have not even read it over." 



ALL my lilt- long I have been a pa.-^sionatc advocate 

 of arbitration, not as the ultimate solution 

 of the difficulties, but as an ideal the advocacy 

 of which would strengthen the sentiment in lav«ur 

 of the creation of the United Slates of Europe. 

 The thought which has always dominated my 

 mind has been that of establishing a High Court 

 of Justice among the nations, whose decrees would 

 not merelv be the recommendations of Arbitrators, 

 but would be enforced by the authority of the 

 Court. My reading of history always pointed 

 to the same conclusion — the successive stages 

 by which mankind has emerged from that anarchic 

 savagery when every man's hand was against his 

 neighbour, and it was lawful to kill any stranger at 

 sight, up to the present slate of things when the right 

 to raakc war is practically confined to half a dozen 

 great Powers, who are all governed by the same law. 

 It was not by the abandonment of force on the part of 

 the advocates of law and of peace that anything could 

 be done, but i)y ihe use of force in the defence of law 

 and for the suppression of anarchy. 



EXORCISING THE SOLDIER BY THE POLICEMAN. 



This conception has always separated me from the 

 majority of the propagandists of peace. I was as earnest 

 as any of them to cast out militarism and (lethrone the 

 soldier, but my observations anfl reflections cryslallised 

 in one phrase — you can only exorcise the soldier by 

 the aid of the policeman. I was therefore ever anxious 

 to aid in the development and strengthening of the 

 principle of the European Concert, which seemed to 

 mc the germ ol the United Stales of Europe ; and I 



I ways wrote and spoke in favour of the European 



I oncert being ii'.(<l. not only for the purpose of con- 



olidalion, but .iUd for the purpose of action. For 



instance, when in 1876 the European Powers meeting 



in conference at Constantinople had unanimously 

 decreed that autonomy should be given to the Bul- 

 garians, I used every means at my disposal in order to 

 urge upon the Powers not to allow their unanimous 

 mandate to be set at defiance by the Turks. What I 

 wished to see was the use of the Allied Forces of all 

 the European Powers to compel the Turks by the use 

 of their overwhelming force to obey the mandate of 

 civilisation as formulated by the nearest approach to 

 an International Court that the world had yet seen. 

 Unfortunately England, under Lord Beaconsfield, 

 refused to support Russia in the coercion of Turkey for 

 the liberation of Bulgaria, and the Russn-Turkish War 

 was the result. Looking back upon the period when I 

 was a young man of seven-and-twenty, 1 remember 

 with gratitude the part which I was able to play in 

 rousing the North of England, and in supporting Mr. 

 Gladstone in his protests against the threatened war 

 against Russia on behalf of the Turks. Both Mr. Glad- 

 stone and Mr. Bright repeatedly recognised the service 

 which I rendered to the cause of peace in that cam- 

 paign, and it was my proud privilege to be one of the 

 three Englishmen who received the thanks of the first 

 Bulgarian Assembly for the services which I had 

 rendered to the cause of Bulgarian Independence. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF THE EUROPE.W CONCERT. 



All my life long I have been a thoroughgoing 

 opponent of the Russophobist war spirit which has 

 plunged Europe into the Crimean War, and which has 

 repeatedly brought about war both in Europe and in 

 Asia. Bv advocating constantly the principle of the 

 European Concert, and demanding the enforcement, 

 if need be, by the armies and navies of Europe, of the 

 ireat\-guarantred rights of the unfortunate Christians 

 of the East, I was always more or less at variance with 

 the orthodox Peace Partv, whose one idea was non- 



