And there will be none in the
Servile State.
THE SERVILE STATE AGAIN
I read the other day, in a quotation from a German newspaper, the highly
characteristic remark that Germany having annexed Belgium would soon
re-establish its commerce and prosperity, and that, in particular,
arrangements were already being made for introducing into the new province
the German laws for the protection of workmen.
I am quite content with that paragraph for the purpose of any controversy
about what is called German atrocity. If men I know had not told me they
had themselves seen the bayoneting of a baby; if the most respectable
refugees did not bring with them stories of burning cottages--yes, and of
burning cottagers as well; if doctors did not report what they do report
of the condition of girls in the hospitals; if there were no facts; if
there were no photographs, that one phrase I have quoted would be quite
sufficient to satisfy me that the Prussians are tyrants; tyrants in a
peculiar and almost insane sense which makes them pre-eminent among the
evil princes of the earth. The first and most striking feature is a
stupidity that rises into a sort of ghastly innocence. The protection of
workmen! Some workmen, perhaps, might have a fancy for being protected
from shrapnel; some might be glad to put up an umbrella that would ward
off things dropping from the gentle Zeppelin in heaven upon the place
beneath.
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