Part 51 (1/2)
”They are English soldiers,” Mr. Haviland declared. ”I do not recognize your use of the word.”
”They are paid soldiers,” the Prince said, ”men who have adopted soldiering as a profession. Come, I will not pause half-way. I will tell you what is wrong with your country. You will not believe it. Some day you will see the truth, and you will remember my words. It may be that you will realize it a little sooner, or I would not have dared to speak as I am speaking. This, then, is the curse which is eating the heart out of your very existence. The love of his Motherland is no longer a religion with your young man. Let me repeat that,--I will alter one word only. The love of his Motherland is no longer _the_ religion or even part of the religion of your young man. Soldiering is a profession for those who embrace it. It is so that mercenaries are made. I have been to every one of your great cities in the North. I have been there on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the national holiday. That is the day in j.a.pan on which our young men march and learn to shoot, form companies and attend their drill. Feast days and holidays it is always the same. They do what tradition has made a necessity for them. They do it without grumbling, whole-heartedly, with an enthusiasm which has in it something almost of pa.s.sion. How do I find the youth of your country engaged? I have discovered. It is for that purpose that I have toured through England.
They go to see a game played called football. They sit on seats and smoke and shout. They watch a score of performers--one score, mind--and the numbers who watch them are millions. From town to town I went, and it was always the same. I see their white faces in a huge amphitheatre, fifteen thousand here, twenty thousand there, thirty thousand at another place. They watch and they shout while these men in the arena play with great skill this wonderful game. When the match is over, they stream into public houses. Their afternoon has been spent. They talk it over.
Again they smoke and drink. So it is in one town and another,--so it is everywhere,--the strangest sight of all that I have seen in Europe. These are your young men, the material out of which the coming generation must be fas.h.i.+oned? How many of them can shoot? How many of them can ride? How many of them have any sort of uniform in which they could prepare to meet the enemy of their country? What do they know or care for anything outside their little lives and what they call their love of sport,--they who spend five days in your grim factories toiling before machines,--their one afternoon, content to sit and watch the prowess of others! I speak to these footballers themselves. They are strong men and swift. They are paid to play this game. I do not find that even one of them is competent to strike a blow for his country if she needs him. It is because of your young men, then, Mr. Haviland, that I cannot advise j.a.pan to form a new alliance with you. It is because you are not a serious people. It is because the units of your nation have ceased to understand that behind the life of every great nation stands the love of G.o.d, whatever G.o.d it may be, and the love of Motherland.
These things may not be your fault. They may, indeed, be the terrible penalty of success. But no one who lives for ever so short a time amongst you can fail to see the truth. You are commercialized out of all the greatness of life. Forgive me, all of you, that I say it so plainly, but you are a race who are on the downward grade, and j.a.pan seeks for no alliance save with those whose faces are lifted to the skies.”
The pause which followed was in itself significant. The Duke alone remained impa.s.sive. Bransome's face was dark with anger. Even the Prime Minister was annoyed. Bransome would have spoken, but the former held out his hand to check him.
”If that is really your opinion of us, Prince,” he said, ”it is useless to enter into argument with you, especially as you have already acted upon your convictions. I should like to ask you this question, though.
A few weeks ago an appeal was made to our young men to bring up to its full strength certain forces which have been organized for the defence of the country. Do you know how many recruits we obtained in less than a month?”
”Fourteen thousand four hundred and seventy-five,” the Prince answered promptly, ”out of nearly seven millions who were eligible. This pitiful result of itself might have been included amongst my arguments if I had felt that arguments were necessary. Mr. Haviland, you may drive some of these young men to arms by persuasion, by appealing to them through their womankind or their employers, but you cannot create a national spirit. And I tell you, and I have proved it, that the national spirit is not there. I will go further,” the Prince continued with increased earnestness, ”if you still are not weary of the subject. I will point out to you how little encouragement the youth of this country receive from those who are above them in social station. In every one of your counties there is a hunt, cricket clubs, golf clubs in such numbers that their statistics absolutely overwhelm me. Everywhere one meets young men of leisure, well off, calmly proposing to settle down and spend the best part of their lives in what they call country life. They will look after their estates; they will hunt a little, shoot a little, go abroad for two months in the winter, play golf a little, lawn tennis, perhaps, or cricket. I tell you that there are hundreds and thousands of these young men, with money to spare, who have no uniform which they could wear,--no, I want to change that!” the Prince cried with an impressive gesture,--”who have no uniform which they will be able to wear when the evil time comes! How will they feel then, these young men of family, whose life has been given to sports and to idle amus.e.m.e.nts, when their womankind come shrieking to them for protection and they dare not even handle a gun or strike a blow! They must stand by and see their lands laid waste, their womankind insulted. They must see the land run red with the blood of those who offer a futile resistance, but they themselves must stand by inactive. They are not trained to fight as soldiers,--they cannot fight as civilians.”
”The Prince forgets,” Bransome remarked dryly, ”that an invasion of this country--a practical invasion--is very nearly an impossible thing.”
The Prince laughed softly.
”My friend,” he said, ”if I thought that you believed that, although you are a Cabinet Minister of England I should think that you were the biggest fool who ever breathed. Today, in warfare, nothing is impossible. I will guarantee, I who have had only ten years of soldiering, that if j.a.pan were where Holland is today, I would halve my strength in s.h.i.+ps and I would halve my strength in men, and I would overrun your country with ease at any time I chose. You need not agree with me, of course. It is not a subject which we need discuss. It is, perhaps, out of my province to allude to it. The feeling which I have in my heart is this. The laws of history are incontrovertible. So surely as a great nation has weakened with prosperity, so that her limbs have lost their suppleness and her finger joints have stiffened, so surely does the plunderer come in good time. The nation which loses its citizen army drives the first nail into its own coffin. I do not say who will invade you, or when, although, to my thinking, any one could do it. I simply say that in your present state invasion from some one or other is a sure thing.”
”Without admitting the truth of a single word you have said, my dear Prince,” the Prime Minister remarked, ”there is another aspect of the whole subject which I think that you should consider. If you find us in so parlous a state, it is surely scarcely dignified or gracious, on the part of a great nation like yours, to leave us so abruptly to our fate.
Supposing it were true that we were suffering a little from a period of too lengthened prosperity, from an attack of over-confidence. Still think of the part we have played in the past. We kept the world at bay while you fought with Russia.”
”That,” the Prince replied, ”was one of the conditions of a treaty which has expired. If by that treaty our country profited more than yours, that is still no reason why we should renew it under altered conditions.
Grat.i.tude is an admirable sentiment, but it has nothing to do with the making of treaties.”
”We are, nevertheless,” Bransome declared, ”justified in pointing out to you some of the advantages which you have gained from your alliance with us. You realize, I suppose, that save for our intervention the United States would have declared war against you four months ago?”
”Your good offices were duly acknowledged by my Government,” the Prince admitted. ”Yet what you did was in itself of no consequence. It is as sure as north is north and south is south that you and America would never quarrel for the sake of j.a.pan. That is another reason, if another reason is needed, why a treaty between us would be valueless. You and I--the whole world knows that before a cycle of years have pa.s.sed j.a.pan and America must fight. When that time comes, it will not be you who will help us.”
”An alliance duly concluded between this country--”
The Prince held out both his hands.
”Listen,” he said. ”A fortnight ago a certain person in America wrote and asked you in plain terms what your position would be if war between j.a.pan and America were declared. What was your reply?”
Bransome was on the point of exclaiming, but the Prime Minister intervened.
”You appear to be a perfect Secret Service to yourself, Prince,” he said smoothly. ”Perhaps you can also tell us our reply?”
”I can tell you this much,” the Prince answered. ”You did not send word back to Was.h.i.+ngton that your alliance was a sacred charge upon your honor and that its terms must be fulfilled to the uttermost letter. Your reply, I fancy, was more in the nature of a compromise.”
”How do you know what our reply was?” Mr. Haviland asked.
”To tell you the truth, I do not,” the Prince answered, smiling. ”I have simply told you what I am a.s.sured that your answer must have been. Let us leave this matter. We gain nothing by discussing it.”
”You have been very candid with us, Prince,” Mr. Haviland remarked. ”We gather that you are opposed to a renewal of our alliance chiefly for two reasons,--first, that you have formed an unfavorable opinion of our resources and capacity as a nation; and secondly, because you are seeking an ally who would be of service to you in one particular eventuality, namely, a war with the United States. You have spent some time upon the Continent. May we inquire whether your present att.i.tude is the result of advances made to you by any other Power? If I am asking too much, leave my question unanswered.”
The Prince shook his head slowly.