Statesmanship was defeated in the eighties, and those who defeated it,
those who exalted prejudice and racialism and intolerance above
rationality and foresight, are now among those whom the world salutes as
immortal statesmen. In truth, they have bowed the knee to violence.
By the same power, and not by reason, the Government extended the
franchise to women. Statesmanship held firmly on the contrary course
till the winds of violence rose and the rain of anarchy threatened to
descend in a flood of moral devastation.
Look closely into the great achievements of the Washington Conference
and you will find that the nations are not voluntarily seeking the
rational ideal of peace, but are being driven by urgent necessity into
the course of reason. Statesmanship would have disarmed the world before
1914. It was only after 1918 that the spectre of Universal Bankruptcy
drove the poor trembling immortals who pass for statesmen to embrace
each other as heroes in search of an ideal. Humanity has achieved
nothing noble or glorious in the last thirty years; it has been driven
by the winds of God into every haven which has saved it from shipwreck.
With a clear understanding of the meaning of the word statesmanship, one
may ask with some hope of arriving at an intelligent answer whether
Randall Davidson is a great statesman.
Under his rule a divided and distracted Church has held together; but
religion has gone out of favour.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213