H G Wells

Washington And The Riddle Of Peace H G Wells

Washington, Nov. 7. The conference nominally for the limitation of armaments that now gathers at Washington may become a cardinal event in the history of mankind. It may mark a turning point in human affairs or it may go on record as one of the last failures to stave off the disasters and destruction that gather about our race. In August, 1914, an age of insecure progress and accumulation came to an end. When at last, on the most momentous summer night in history, the long preparations of militarism burst their bounds and the little Belgian village Vise went up in flames, men said: "This is a catastrophe." But they found it hard to anticipate the nature of the catastrophe. They thought for the most part of the wounds and killing and burning of war and imagined that when at last the war was over we should count our losses and go on again much as we did before 1914. As well might a little shopkeeper murder his wife in the night and expect to carry on "business as usual" in the morning. "Business as usual"-that was the catchword in Britain in 1914; of all the catchwords of the world it carries now the heaviest charge of irony.