p. 9 | National Suicide

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 1, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 43.

National Suicide

LLOYD-GEORGE, chancellor of Great Britain, feels deeply over the war-mad race in which all nations are involved. In a recent interview, reported by Mr. Stead, in speaking of the awful burdens thrown upon the poor, when asked to what he alluded, he replied:

"To the wasteful, ruinous, suicidal competition in armaments. In the grammar of ruin there are three degrees — positive, protection; comparative, armaments; superlative, war. Why are armaments excused? Because tariff war, which is almost universal outside Britain, may lead to war of the other kind. Nations made war for markets, desiring to close those markets to their rivals. Every protectionist in our country assumes that every foreigner is in trade not a customer to be sought, but an enemy to be fenced off. Hence a mood of mind is produced in which war seems natural and inevitable, and hence, also, come those bloated armaments which are the curse and the disgrace of our civilization. I feel bitterly. As chancellor of the exchequer I have had to raise £25,000,000 extra taxation, and I have been more vehemently abused for performing that duty than any chancellor in history for every penny of the expenditure which I had to meet."

"But out of every penny social reform can only get a halfpenny; the other penny goes in armaments."