Peace and happiness / by the Right Hon. Lord Avebury.

  • John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Peace and happiness / by the Right Hon. Lord Avebury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not come soon, not probably in our time, but come it will, and as sure as fate there will be an explosion such as the world has never seen. If the monarchs of Europe are to retain their thrones, and if we are to maintain peace, European statesmen must devise some means of fostering better feelings, and diminishing the burdens which now press so heavily on the springs of industry, and aggravate so terribly the unavoidable troubles of life. Many countries, again, attempt to make war on one another, almost as foolishly, by fiscal restrictions. Our poet Cowper observes that— Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, who had else, Like kindred drops, been mingled into one. But the worst barriers are those which nations have themselves raised against one another— barriers of duties and customs, and, worst of all, unfounded jealousies and suspicions or ill- will, each attributing to the other injurious designs, which neither of them, perhaps, in reality entertain.