The Great Pacifist. 



615 



I'ji. iirci 



ni.- wu\ or ani.'cner tin; impact ol the 

 tfnerg>' generated by the Peace Crusade. 



THE DiTERPAKLI.\ME>T.\HY CONFERENCE. 



On the adv. •.. ot Mr. Konow. the Norwegian delegate 

 JC the Corrtnce. supported strongly by Lord 

 Pauncefote. Baron d'Estoumelles and others, I 

 uruveUed dn-t from the Hague to Christiania in 

 order to i:::p-i.-ss upon the members of the Inter- 

 : . - amentory Conference the message of those 

 cc.^u:ates who were most earnest in promoting the 

 success of the Conference. The message which I had 

 to bring was that the Conference had met and made 

 a good machine, b«it that it would depend absolutely 

 upon tfae friends of peace in the various countries to 

 generate the steam by which alone it could be made 

 to work. .Vlter receiving my message, the Inter- 

 parliamentary Conference pa.ssed a strong resolution 

 ' ieciaring its intention to undertake this work, and the 

 :Tiembers of the vaxions groups undertook to organise 

 -pective countries groups for inculcating a 

 - in the people of what hud been done at 

 the Hague and creating public opinion in &vour of 

 Arbitration as against war. 



TEE SOCTH .\FRIC.\>" W.VR. 



Returmng home to my own country, I was at once 



nnfronted by the terrible prospect that the troubles 



:a South Africa would culminate in war. The men 



who were hurrying on the war, llilner, Rhodes, Jameson 



Cape, were all my own personal 



c too much to say that they owed 



o small measure of their position in public esteem 



J the way in which I had written about them in past 



(-•ars. Thev were enabled to avail themselves of the 



popular ; -St President Kruger which I had 



also done ; generate in my advocacy of reforms 



1 previous years. Bat the moment I realised the use, 

 or rather ■' .' ..y were making of their 



position, I my whole soul into the 



agiution aga:n.st the war. Both on the platform and 

 in the press, plMicIv and privately. I . -vvelf 



to the uttermost to induce the Eniili^^h i nt to 



apply the - of the Ha^'ue Conierence to the 



settlement _. -.^pute. Pa->>:on. however, was too 



much e.\cited, and the plaintive appeals of President 

 ^ •! by Sir 



iment was 

 summoned, the reserves were called out, troops 

 were hurried t-' South .\fnca. President Kruaer 

 issued his ultimatiun, making one last despairint; 

 appeal for arbitration. This was rejected, and war 

 began. 



'" WAR .VG^UNST W.VR." 



The outbreak of war led to the immediate auanuon- 

 ment of the cause of peace by the majoritv of our 

 friends in England, including the President of the Peace 

 Society, Sir Joseph VVhitwell Pease, who declared that 

 nothing could be done but for England to carrv on the 

 war with vigour. The actual outbreak of hostilities 

 paralysed most of those who. before Kru^er'^ 

 ultimatum, offered strenuous resistance to the polic\ 

 which threatened a breach of the peace. It did not 

 seem to me, however, that the mere fact that war 

 had begun rendered it less criminal than we believed 

 it to be before the first shot was fired. I published a 

 series of pamphlets which were widely circulated 

 through the length and breadth of the land. The 

 first, which was published iu the Review of Reviews 

 in the form of a catechism, was entitled "' Shall We Let 

 Hell Loose m South Africa ? " The first pamphlet. 

 pabUshed as such, was entitled "Shall I Slav M 

 Brother Boer ? " This was succeeded by another a^ 

 soon as war broke out, entitled " Are We in the 

 Right ? An Appeal to Honest Men." I then began 

 the publication of a weekly paper, War Against War 

 in Stmik Africa, which I continued to publish for 

 nine months. 



P.A.MPHLETS ON THE W.\R. 



I also published a pamphlet e.xposing Mr. 

 Chamberlain's share in the Jameson Conspiracv, en- 

 titled "Mr. Chamberlain, Conspirator or Statesman ? "' 

 Besides this, I published a great number of leaflets 

 and smaller pamphlets. The most effective broadsheet 

 which I published was entitled "• Hell Let Loose in 

 South Africa." It contained letters from a British 

 officer in command at the front, describing house- 

 burning and similar atrocities by which the British 

 violated the laws of civilised warfare. This was followed 

 up by the publication of another pamphlet entitled 

 ■' How Not to Make Peace in South .Vfnca," which 

 contained a collection sf evidence illustrating the 

 method in which war was being waged by the British 

 forces in South Africa. At the General Election I 

 published a cat' d "The 



Candidate-- of (. ,i ^ ^ a broad- 



sheet entitled ' The Truth .Vbout the War," of which 

 several hundred thousand copies were t! ' ' I 

 addressed several meetings in the ci . : in 



London, until all meetings were suppressed by the 

 violence of the mob. 



STOP THE W.VR. 



I took an active part in the organisation of the 

 Stop-the-War Committee, which has afforded un- 



