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THE PEACE CRUSADE.

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THE PEACE CRUSADE. SIR. CECIL RHODES'S OPINION. By W. T. STEAD. There are two good tests of success in a public movement-" cash and cranks." If subscriptions are given it is certain that hearts are touched. If a movement is widespread some of the foolish ones of the earth will certainly have their say. Tried by these two tests the Peace Crusade, up to the time of writing, is certainly a success. There has been a steady stream of anonymous letters into headquarters at Talbot House during the past week. One of the broadsheets was returned with this written on the top: "To give you my opinion of you, I consider, if you claim to be a Briton, you are a disgrace to your country and deserve to be lynched. Happily the subscriptions have come, and with larger flow. The "volunteer idea has caught on, and half-crowns, mainly in postal orders, as sub- scriptions to the Cruside and to the paper and as enlistment for three months, have arrived by every post. These volunteers, once enlisted, have set to work to secure others. One warm-hearted friend enlisted on the Tuesday writes on Wednesday: I fired two effective shots to-day," and the two effective shots meant the enrolment of two other volunteers. Another volunteer writes: "Looking bad: to my childhood. I can only recollect one British war in which I could have engaged with enthusiasm or with a full sense of its rightness and necessity, and that one did not come off! It would have been England against Turkey, two years ago." Of the meetings the report is most encouraging. London is now fairly roused, and more than a dozen meetings are in course of arrangement in the districts which, cities in themselves, are over- shadowed by the greatness of the Imperial city of which they form part. Hackney or St. Pancras, Islington, Camberwell, or Paddington, by them- selves would each form first-class provincial cities. There can be no question what their response will be at their coming town's meetings. In Paddington, Sir George Fardell, M.P., and Mr. Aird, M.P., the two Conservative members for the district, are keenly interested in the whole matter, and are organising the meeting over which Sir George Fardell is to preside; and this is only typical of other places. The Battersea meeting, held after a gale which drenched the streets all day, was not so successful in numbers as had been hoped for, the Town Hall, which holds 3,000. being a little more than half full but the meeting was repre- sentative of all shades of opinion, as the pro- ceedings shewed, and the feeling throughout was cordial and enthusiastic. t When the Pilgrimage of Peace was proposed it was suggested that among the English delegates no better man could te found than Cecil Rhodes. The idea was ridiculed by those who did not know that Mr. Rhodes has always been the opponent of war. With the exception of the blunder of the Raid, he has always preferred to negotiate rather than to fight. Hence, it is not surprising that, on the very day of his arrival, Mr. Rhodes expressed his hearty sympathy with the objects of the Crusade, in which his most intimate friends, Lord Grey and Mr. Hawksley, are actively engaged. The practical point that struck the practical mind of Mr. Rhodes was the immense good that could be done with the money that will be saved if the Czar's proposal is a cepted. The immediate result would be the savinij by England of £ 14,000,000, which will otherwise be spent in building ships to match the r.ew Russian ironclads, which, if the Peace Conference succeeds, the Emperor will not build. With Z14,000,000 what might not be done? "One thing," says Mr. Rhodes, "you could certainly do with less than that sum. With P-10,000,000 you could complete the railway from the Cape to Cairo, and still have Pa. 000.000 to snare. „ When Mark Twain was in Africa-he wrote some- what cruelly about Mr. Rhodes that he hoped, if ever the great African were hanged, he might be there to hold the rope. But Mark Twain is now side by side with Mr. Rhodes in supporting the Czar's proposal. In an amusing autograph, pub- lished this week in the new number of War Against War, he contributes his shaft to the armoury of the Crusade. He says IN EQUIVALENTS FOH WATERLOO MLN. BY MARK TWAIN. VIENNA, January 9th. Dear Mr. Stead,—Peace by compulsion. That Eeems a better idea than the other. Peace by per- suasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to shew that that cannot be done. Can't we reduce the armaments little by little-on a pro ratd basis-by concert of the Powers ? Can't we get four Great Powers to agree to reduce their strength ten per cent. a year, and thrash the others into doing likewise ? For, of course, we cannot expect all of the Powers to be in their right minds at one time. It has been tried. We are not going to try to get all of them to go into the scheme peaceably, are we ? In that case I must withdraw my influence. Because, for business reasons, I n ust preserve the outward signs of sanity. Four is enough, if they can be securely harnessed together. They can compel peace, and peace without compulsion would be against nature and not opera- tive. A sliding scale of reduction, of ten per cent. a year, has a sort of plausible look, and I am willing to try that if three other Powers will join. I feel sure that the armaments are now many times greater than necessary for the requirements of either peace or war. Take war-time, for instance. Suppose circumstances made it necessary for us to light another Waterloo, and that it would do what it did before—settle a large question and bring peace. I will guess that 400,000;men were on hand at Waterloo-I have forgotten the figures. In five hours they disabled 50,000 men. It took them that tedious long time because the firearms delivered only two or three shots a minute. But we would do the work now as it was done atOmdurman, with shower-guns reining six hundred balls a minute. Four men to a gun-is that the number ? A hundred and fifty shots a minute per man. bus a modern soldier is one hundred and forty-nine Waterloo soldiers in one. Thus, also, we can now retain one man out of each one hundred and fifty in service, disband the others, and fight our Waterloos just as effectively as we did eighty-five years ago. We should do the same beneficent job with 2,800 men now that we did with 400,000 then. The allies could take 1,400 o the men. and give Napoleon 1,400, and then whip him. But, instead, what do we see? In war-time, in Germany, Russia, and Fiance, taken together, we find about 3,000,000 men equipped for the field, Each man represents 149 Waterloo men in usehil- ness and killing caparity. Altogether they con- stitute about 350,000.000 Waterloo men—and there are not quite that many grown males of the human race now on this planet. Thus we have this insane fact: that whereas those three countries could arm 18,000 men with modern weapons and make them the equals of 3,000,000 men of Napoleon's day, and accomplish with them all necessary war-work, they waste their money and the prosperity-creating forces of their populations in piling together 349.982,000 extra Waterloo equivalents, which they would have no sort of use for if they would only stop drinking, and sit down and cipher a little. Perpetual peace we cannot have, on any terms, i Fuppcse, but I hope we can gradually reduce the war strength of Europe till we get it down to what it ought to be-20,000 men, properly armed.. Then we can have all the peace that is worth while, and when we want a war anybody can afford it. MARK TWAIN. Anions the others who havo placed their pens and pencils at the disposal of the Crusade are Mr. Bjornson, the famous Norwegian novelist, Fere Hvacivithe, the illustrious French preacher, Mrs. I. T. Meade, Mr. Grant ALcn, Sarah Grand, Mr. Felix Moscheles, Mr. Silas K. Hocking, Mr. F. Carruthers Gould, Sir ewl9 Morris, Max Nordau, and many other eminen men of letters. "Ouida," the novelist, has written declaring that the moment is most inopportune for a Peace Crusade, because "England is given over to a roaring, ramping war lust." To whom Madame N, o vikoff wittily replies that it is the first time she ever heard that when the conflagration brealu out it is inopportune to call out the fire brigade, ■

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