Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/191



charge of rashness is made, that the people have never been currently informed of the develop- ment of international dangers, but usually at a critical time shreds of information have been flashed on them, designed or at least apt to stir up all their atavistic love of fight and fear of at- tack. Even thus, the greatest noise is made usually by those who do not in the event of hos- tilities actually have to risk their blood and bones. It stands to reason that if honestly kept in- formed about international relationships, the peo- ple would be far less prone to sudden excitement. Very few people indeed appear to doubt that had the decision of war or no war been laid before the peoples of Europe in 1914, with a full knowledge of the facts, the terrible catastrophe would never have come about. As Mr. Lowes Dickinson has said, if the people had been allowed to share the apprehension and precautions of the diplomats before 1914, there would have been quite a sim- ple and clear question before the English people, for one. It could have decided whether it would pursue a policy that might lead at any moment to a general European war, or to take the alterna- tive which Sir Edward Grey later spoke of, namely, "to promote some arrangement, to which Germany could be a party by which she could be