Some of these discontented proletarians have taken the same view
as Vandervelde their leader, and are now energetically engaged in
protecting themselves along the line of the Yser; I am glad to say not
altogether without success. It is probable that nearly all of the Belgian
workers would, on the whole, prefer to be protected against bombs, sabres,
burning cities, starvation, torture, and the treason of wicked kings. In
short, it is probable--it is at least possible, impious as is the
idea--that they would prefer to be protected against Germans and all they
represent. But if a Belgian workman is told that he is not to be
protected against Germans, but actually to be protected by Germans, I
think he may be excused for staring. His first impulse, I imagine, will
be to ask, "Against whom? Are there any worse people to come along?"
But apart from the hellish irony of this humanitarian idea, the question
it raises is really one of solid importance for people whose politics are
more or less like ours. There is a very urgent point in that question,
"Against whom would the Belgian workmen be protected by the German laws?"
And if we pursue it, we shall be enabled to analyse something of that
poison--very largely a Prussian poison--which has long been working in our
own commonwealth, to the enslavement of the weak and the secret
strengthening of the strong.
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