to pay taxes. Indeed, we scarcely understand why they do pay taxes; it seems not very logical or noble to refuse to fight while continuing to pay others to do so. The argument of political duty is the same in both cases. In the one, as in the other, there is a debt, whose payment the State is justified in exacting before letting the debtor leave the country. People who are born into the State, who have grown up under its privileges and advantages, who have, up to the moment when a particular civic obligation fell due, acquiesced in their citizenship, cannot claim to select that moment for shaking their citizenship off. They must pay or suffer. And if it be said that, whereas taxes have always been on the Statute-book, conscription has not, the answer is simple. It has always been (as Lord Haldane pointed out early in the war) a common-law liability of Englishmen to defend the realm. That is the principle. The fact that the application of this principle had lain in abeyance for a century is, however important, a matter of policy only. Nor, again, can a valid distinction be drawn between "killing" and other duties demanded by the State. The State at all times rests absolutely, though not solely, on force; and though such force may not commonly take the form of killing, it always implies it.

The State, then, is justified in punishing political defaulters, whether they default in taxes or in military service. We may go further, and say that some penalty is necessary; because, if you let off merely political default on the score of "conscience," you will put a most demoralizing premium upon the development of bogus consciences. This seems a valid objection to the Pelham Committee's scheme of "alternative occupations," where it is applied for the benefit of any but religious objectors. Its effect tends to be, in the cases to which it is applied, to eliminate the

penalty which even-handed justice requires. Conscientious objectors, whose objection is political, ought not therefore to complain of being punished. Nor, we believe, would those who are worth their salt do so. But punishment is one thing, and bullying quite another. What the State is not justified in doing is withdrawing from these men the securities and guarantees which other offenders against penal law enjoy under a civilized régime— viz., treatment defined by law, prescribed by sentence, and carried out under the carefully regulated and inspected system of H.M. Prisons. There is no conceivable justification for handing them over to be bullied in barracks by irresponsible people, to be beaten, kicked, spat upon and have their heads banged against the wall, to be dressed and fed by compulsion, and to have their power of resistance lowered by solitary confinement, irons, and semistarvation. Even the slightly more systematized cruelties of the Non-combatant Corps are revolting to all our civilized instincts. The origin of most of these hideous blunders is to be found, we believe, in the initial mistake of making the alternative for non-religious, as well as religious, objectors one between "service" and "exemption." The true alternative for the non-religious objector should be between "service and "penalty"; the latter should be as strictly defined and as carefully regulated as for any other class of offenders; and the objector should have it entirely in his power to choose which alternative he prefers. If he prefers to serve in the Army, well and good; if he prefers to undergo the specific penalties, he ought to be at liberty to do so. No question of inquiry into conscience would in these non-religious cases come before the tribunals at all.

It may be said that this liberty to undergo alternative punishment would necessitate stiffer as well as more uni

form penalties. We should not mind if it did, so long as they were fair, appropriate, and above all, civilized. An example of an "appropriate" penalty would be disfranchisement for life; its relevance would be as obvious as the relation of a citizen's duties to his rights; and few other penalties would be so efficacious in making the genuine political objector think twice. If it were necessary to couple with it a sentence of imprisonment or internment of some kind, we do not know that its fairness could be challenged; a year's service at the Front in the infantry entails a great

The New Statesman.

deal of hardship, and the alternative to such service, whatever it may be, must not entail less. There is no reason for giving those who opt against the army a soft option; nor would the best of them claim one. But the essential thing is to set the penalty on a civilized footing, and to put an end to those relapses into sheer barbarism of which the conscientious objectors are at present the victims. We ought to do so in our own interest as well as theirs; for barbarism, like slavery, never fails to recoil on the head of a community which tolerates it.

The sharp crisis has passed, during which America seemed to be on the brink of the world-war, and it has left an ambiguous result behind it. The submarine controversy is, for the moment, settled, at least on paper, but it was only a symbol of the real issue. Most countries on the verge of war have passed through some decision comparable to this. There is a limited case which, by all the conventions of international politics, is held to justify war, but these limited and definite issues will rarely conduct a pacific democracy to war, unless there lies behind them a far broader conflict of principle. We just missed such an experience ourselves in those momentous days of July two years ago. A slightly different handling of the negotiations by both sides might have isolated the Belgian issue, and then confronted us with the further question whether, even if Belgium were left unviolated, we could stand aside from a conflict which must change the face of Europe. The decision with which America has been wrestling was even more difficult than that. The lawless and continued slaughter of its own

citizens in violation of international right has always been held by every civilized State a legitimate occasion for war. It is, however, an occasion which a humane democracy is slow to use. It may lose scores or hundreds of lives by outrage, but it knows that it must risk tens of thousands to avenge them. Mr. Wilson refused again and again to use such a pretext for a war on Mexico, and it is patent that he would not have used it for a war against Germany unless the American conscience had been disturbed by a sense of neglected duty as it watched the violation of Belgium, the peril of France and Serbia, and the whole colossal struggle for the shaping of the future Europe. He had missed the chance of intervening for the protection of Belgium, and all America and Mr. Roosevelt were then content that he should miss it. The old doctrine that Americans have no concern with the fate of the effete and king-ridden continent died hard, and the first instinct of most Americans was to thank the Providence which has stretched the Atlantic between their Republic and chaos. That mood has passed, and Mr. Wilson is today the butt of

furious philippics, not merely from Mr. Roosevelt, but even from the sober Mr. Root, which denounce neutrality as cowardice and a dereliction of duty. His own "preparedness" campaign said in effect, "We may sit safe on the rim of chaos today, but after the war we must be ready to enter it." With no definite foreign policy as yet in view, it implied that events might compel America to adopt a foreign policy with armaments behind it. The sinking of the "Sussex" brought the decision to the test of a gamble. The real feeling behind the Note was the growing sense that the interests of civilization required that America should play her part. But the decision depended on the chance that Germany would yield on the limited submarine issue. She has yielded, and America remains a neutral. But every American knows, none the less, that the interests of civilization are wider than the issue of "visit and search."

It is probable that the crucial moment has passed, and it may not return. Torpedo tubes, however, are as likely as cannon to "go off of themselves," and, even if Germany really means at length to keep her promise, there may be regrettable incidents, and cases which will have to be explained away. But when a nation's emotional clock-work has been wound up to war-point, and then allowed to run down, it does not readily repeat the process. The Presidential campaign absorbs the attention of voters and politicians. While Mr. Roosevelt attacks the President for his adherence to neutrality, the effect must be to throw on his side the German and Irish voters (the latter roused to something of their old attitude by the Dublin executions), and the more those muster behind him, the less likely is he to press any future controversy to the point of hostile intervention. He is a man of sympathies too large to wash his hands finally of any concern in our struggle. But there are two ways in

which the United States may play its part. It might become a belligerent, and this it would have done if the German Chancellor had returned a stiff answer to its Note. It might also intervene as a neutral (conceivably as an armed neutral) to counsel peace or even to call for it. There is no doubt that such an intervention as this would be in accord with all the deeper instincts of the American people. The difficulties of any hostile intervention were very real. To have been content merely with a formal breach of diplomatic relations would have seemed like weakness. A Great Power can hardly declare itself hostile to another, and yet refrain from action which would prove that its hostility is to be dreaded. It is clear from Mr. Wilson's pointed questions:

"Are you ready for the test? Have you the courage to go in? Have you the courage to come out according as the balance is disturbed or readjusted for the interests of humanity?" that he was contemplating a belligerent's share in the war. It is no less clear that he did not see himself simply taking his place beside the Entente Powers as one member of a coalition. Entering the war to defend the American doctrine of neutral rights at sea, he would not have subscribed to our Orders in Council, as France, for example, did. His reference to the "courage to come out" is a clear hint that he would not have signed the Pact of London, nor pledged himself to make no separate peace. His would have been a qualified intervention, and though it must have entailed, for a time at least, a close military co-operation with the Allies, the moment might have come when Mr. Wilson would have decided that the essential purposes of humanity had been served, and he would then have retired from the conflict, if he failed to dictate peace.

The speculations on these lines, in

which the abler American publicists indulged at the moment when they seemed to be on the brink of war, have even now something more than an academic interest. The conditions of American intervention are worked out with detailed foresight in "The New Republic," a journal which combines the advocacy of an Anglo-American Alliance with candor and the absence of partisanship. It boldly calls on the President to intervene, but it lays down for him "an international program" which really seems to be implicit in his questions. It refuses to regard the entry of America into the war as the mere addition of a new Ally to the forces of the Entente. America does not want to see herself "pledged to Russia and Italy and Japan," or "entangled in the ambitions of Italy for the control of Trieste and the Dalmatian Coast, in the ambitions of Russia to obtain Constantinople." It shrinks from the prospect that, having "begun for the purpose of vindicating our right to travel at sea, we shall end by fighting to change the political control of the Near East."

The Nation.

It would none the less abandon without hesitation the old doctrine of neutrality. Neutrality, where any nation has suffered aggression, is a dereliction of duty. "A common defense of rights is the only way individual rights can be maintained. . . . Only in a world where Belgium is safe can the United States be safe." These are the true principles of international duty, and they could hardly be better put.

America has not entered the war, and we are not sure that if she had entered it this lofty and well-reasoned program would have expressed her mass-mind, even at her entry, or that, if it did, the passions of war might not thereafter have obscured it. It is worth quoting, none the less, because it defines very ably from the standpoint of a friendly neutral, ready to renounce his safe neutrality for the common good, what are the essential purposes of the war. For the moment, the League of Peace remains a vision. It will be a fact, if ever, in obedience to its principle, America should enter the war on some such terms as these.

How far the Gates of Death have been opened from within is a question which has exercised the minds of men through many generations.

Evidence that has been multiplying during recent years points to a probability that this is both possible and actual. If this be so, it throws light not only on the condition of those who have gone before, but on the Resurrection itself. For, to quote the well-known words of Myers: "If our own friends, men like ourselves, can sometimes return to tell us of love and hope, a mightier Spirit may well have used the eternal laws with a more commanding power."

All that is told us of the Risen Life in the Gospels is contained in a few fragments, pieced together, and coming at the end. What message of hope and encouragement these scenes may have for us today, how far they have survived the searching criticism of science and scholarship, whether they convey to us an authentic message from one Who has passed beyond the grave, and has returned to tell us that all is well, how far they help us to face death ourselves, or to bear the loss of those we lovethese are questions which call for some answer. Yet a completely satisfying answer is hard to find. To try to put the unspoken question into words, to

point the direction where, to many, the answer seems to lie, is all that is possible within the limits of a brief discussion.

These accounts have been handed down to us in three Gospels and in a letter of St. Paul's. The second Gospel ends abruptly in the earliest manuscript, as though a page had been lost, just at the point where it enters upon the resurrection scene. Their precise evidential value is hard to gauge. It is strong, and yet peculiarly open to attack. It might be, apparently, demolished with ease. Yet it has survived the assaults of nineteen centuries. Its chief difficulty lies in the fact that it tells a story the like of which has never been heard before, and which lies outside our present human experience. Yet the difficulties of any destructive criticism are found to be greater than those which follow its acceptance, and they increase as one proceeds rather than diminish. Nevertheless, it is probable that historical criticism of these scenes will less and less interest us. Many already who have, perhaps, known them longest and treasured them most deeply, and who owe to them their final conviction of resurrection, have long ceased to criticise them, or to insist on their acceptance. The proof of the Resurrection, when it comes, they feel, will come on other, stronger lines than these. Its strongest hold upon us is found to be moral and spiritual. corresponds to the deepest wants and aspirations of man. Supposing these

scenes

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were proved not historically true, "something like them" would be needed to fulfil the spiritual needs of man, and to give the measure of his spiritual stature.

At first most of us accepted the Resurrection on account of the scenes; later we believe quite apart from them. Could these stories be disproved it would leave us unmoved. Certainty comes to us with an immovable con

viction that He who lived his life in such close communion with the Father was not deceived as to the life beyond death; that He did not sink into nothingness. The story of the Resurrection is the casket which has preserved the truth of "life after death" safe through centuries of dark groping. By this story and probably by no other means could it have been preserved unharmed; men needed something tangible, literal, material, to lay hold of. "Life after death" is too tremendous a conception for men to grasp without assistance. They need to see it through the medium of a story, as we look at the sun through a darkened lens. Thus each generation can go to it and learn from it what it is ready to receive. But we must beware lest, if we pin our faith entirely on the historical proof of these scenes, we again incur the reproof of seeking the living among the dead.

That He appeared after His death, and gave his disciples full assurance that it was He himself and none other, we may be fully assured. Underlying all these scenes we can see the touch of the Christ, dead yet living, on his followers, so real, so intense, so unlike anything that has ever been known before or since, that the whole world has been thrilled by it through those who first experienced it. That is what makes the story so vivid to us. Yet when we come to examine the details we must not expect to find them of equal value or of equal verisimilitude. It would indeed be surprising if, in the disciples' sudden rebound from sorrow to joy, in their overwhelming surprise and awe, in the quick succession of events and their astounding nature, some errors had not crept in, some events become misplaced, partially understood, or misinterpreted.

In St. John's Gospel we have a perfect lesson of the way to approach the study of the Risen Life. It is not an isolated event, but long prepared for; so that the nearer we approach to