Page:Tyranny of Shams (1916).djvu/38

 CHAPTER II

THE MILITARY SHAM

the original conception of this work militarism was selected as the first sham to be assailed because it is at once the most costly and the least excusable. The way to remove many of the blots on our civilisation is by no means plain. A dozen conflicting theories confront you, and each has a sufficiently large body of adherents to entitle it to consideration. But there are others in regard to which a large and practical measure of agreement has been reached. Here we do not need so much the subtle dissection of arguments and proposals as the kindling of that ardent and imperious sentiment which spurs a man or a race to action. The evil is recognised: the way to remedy it is sufficiently clear. What we need is, in the mass of the people, that fiery resentment of a hated tyranny which will shake the lie from its throne.

The first, the gravest, the most flagrant and most vivid in our minds at the moment of these obvious shams is war, with the military system which it involves. Here there is no sacred legend of a divine origin to confuse the minds of the ignorant. There