The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/The Alien Peril
THE ALIEN PERIL
But out of this failure of logic on the part of
"deep-thinking Germany" a danger came to us
from nearer home than the battlefield. One
of the most vivid flashes as of lightning whereby
we have seen the drama of the past 365 days
was that which, immediately after the sinking
of the Lusitania, showed us the full depths of
the "alien peril." Before the war we had had
fifty thousand German-born persons living in
our midst. They had enjoyed the whole freedom
of our commerce, the whole justice of our law
courts, and the whole protection of our police.
Many of them had married our British women,
who had borne them British children. Most of
them had learned to speak our language, and
some of us had learned to understand their own.
A few had become British subjects, and many
had been honoured by our King. Our music,
literature, and art had become theirs. Shakespeare
had, in effect, become a German poet, and
Wagner a British composer. The barriers between
our races had seemed to break down, and even
such of us as had small hope of a golden age of
universal brotherhood had begun to believe
that marriage, mutual interest, education, and
environment were making us one with these
strangers within our gates.
Then came a startling awakening. We realized beyond possibility of doubt that many thousands of our German aliens had been keeping up a dual responsibility, and that the chief of their two duties had been duty to their own country. We found beyond question that a settled system of espionage was at work in Great Britain, under the direction of the German authorities; that information which could only be of use in the event of invasion had for many years been gathered up by some of the people whom we had called our friends, and that day by day and hour by hour, as the war went on, secrets valuable to our enemy had been filtering through to Germany from influential places in this country.
What a shock to our sense of security, our pride, and even our self-respect! The horror of the discovery reached its highest point at the time of the sinking of the great liner, for then it was realized that there could be no limit to the expression of German cruelty. It is one of the effects of the spirit of cruelty to strike its victims with moral blindness. If it were possible that the German conscience could justify murder on the sea, why should it not justify it on land? Why should not our German governesses burn down the houses in which our children lay asleep? Why should not a German secretary attempt to assassinate one of our public ministers? War was war, and whatever was necessary was right. "We are doing wrong, but it is necessary to do wrong, and necessity knows no law."