Excerpt from Tripoli and the Treaties: Britain"s Duty in This War; A Plain Statement of Facts for the Man in the Street
One of those decisive moments has arrived in the history of mankind when the destiny of the future hangs upon the promptitude with which we seize an opportunity that once neglected goes by for ever.
For years past we have seen the stealthy encroachment of lawless Might upon the Rights of Nations. It was difficult to say at what precise point this tendency could be challenged. There was always some semblance of justification pleaded by the aggressor. Always some complication which rendered it difficult, if not impossible, for the masses of mankind to form a clear idea as to the issue at stake. But at last an occasion has arisen in which it is impossible for anyone to be in any doubt as to the issue that has been raised. The Italian attack upon Tripoli is one of those rare crimes which are devoid of any semblance of justification or excuse, which are equally a violation of the moral law and the law of nations. Against this we must one and all take our stand or for ever hold our peace.
Anything more wicked than the Italian seizure of Tripoli it is impossible to conceive. It is as if the Author of all Evil had deliberately said to his fiends in council, "Go to, let us see whether or not the conscience of the world is dead. We pricked it with Morocco; it did not stir. We seared it with Bosnia and the Herzegovina, and it remained impassive. Perhaps it is really dead. But let us make certain. Therefore let us create a crime so flagrant, compounded out of outrages so inexcusable, that if there be even a lone glimmering spark of vitality left in the moral sense of the world, it must be fanned into a flame. If the conscience of mankind will stand the Italian seizure of Tripoli it will stand anything. Therefore let us try it on."
The Devil has tried it on, and we are face to face with one of these supreme moral questions which decide the destiny of nations. "Some great cause - God"s new Messiah!" has once more risen in our midst to divide the goats upon the left hand and the sheep upon the right. The governments have, by a process of natural selection, gravitated to the side of the goats. "But hast thou chosen, oh, my people, on whose party you shall stand. Ere the doom from the worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?" It is a question for you, for me, for all of us. Above all it is a question for all who profess, however perfunctorily, to belong to the Church of Christ.
The Italians, their own allies - nay, their own ultimatum - being witness, are absolutely and demonstrably in the wrong.
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