E. D. Morel, the Man and His Work
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)rnia al ii*»: kThis book gives a detailed description of one of the most praised and most abused men of recent years. The work deals with Morel's earlier yea?s and shows j how his views on Free Trade and Native Rights in Africa were formed. "It gives the first detailed account of the Congo Reform Movement and of the great campaign2 which lifted the yoke of slavery from millions of Natives in tropical Africa; and also describes l\V)rePs fight against Secret Diplomacy and Militarism; and his attitude towards the recent war. UUSB LiBRARt $eU** X- 363^/ dp E. D. MOREL THE MAN AND HIS WORK * ** • E. D. MOREL, 1918. E. D. MOREL THE MAN AND HIS WORK F. SEYMOUR COCKS Author of "The Secret Treaties" WITH AN INTRODUCTION COLONEL WEDGWOOD, D.S.O., M.P. LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 " There is all Africa and her prodigies in us." Sir Thomas Beowne. INTRODUCTION By COLONEL WEDGWOOD, D.S.O., M.P. A not inconsiderable part of this volume is taken up with appreciations of the work of E. D. Morel, laudatory appreciations coming from the heads of Church and State and Commerce. They read curiously. Those who made them think otherwise, now. The story of E. D. Morel is like a play by one of the great Greek Tragedians, and can only be fully brought out by the dramatic con- trasts. In 1911 the Morning Post hardly got ahead of a press and public pouring forth peans of praise ; and within a few short year^even his friends were glad to see Morel safe in gaol, lest press and public should assassinate him ! The man himself never » changed at all, neither his ideals, nor his weapons, nor his , enthusiasms, nor his almost childlike faith in human nature. He is left at the end a little puzzled and bewildered at the four prison walls he found confining him. As he never knew of any reason why truth and logic should not prevail in his own case (for he never could " play the hypocrite amongst you "), so he supposed that truth and logic should be enough for ail men always. It was on this supposition that he had carried to a successful close the emancipation of the Congo, perhaps the greatest single-handed £ght that any man has ever won. And then with the same sword he went up against Armageddon, and the marvel 4 INTRODUCTION is that the man is still alive. Perhaps this faith came from underestimating the vested interests in the world or from ignorance of psychology. Or perhaps there was a grain of truth in the Address from the African Chiefs. is Morel in some ways very like a little child ; and like all little children he may have come " from God." As the Africans have had presumably no reason to suppose that Morel is paid by German gold (for they do not know one exploiter from another), and as on simple matters like liberty they may not have had their minds changed by the war, their Address of thanks may stand. A fight against your own people for aliens, not even of the same race, ... at the risk of losing the goodwill of your own brethren, is humanly speaking unnatural. Hence we take it to be from God. And we class you among the few whom He has at all times reserved for Himself to carry out His purpose and maintain His honour among the nations of the world. E. D. Morel is not a saint. It is true that he does not take life lightly or relax with ease.* He sets a hard, a very hard pace, in racing towards the stars. But he does not wear his hair )ong, nor go bare-footed in Tolstoyan smock. What people think of him matters. He does like recognition, and his hard work is partly to deserve that recognition. It did not please him to be sent to prison " for the Cause." His smile is somewhat sour when he is turned down by an Archbishop. This goes to show that E. D. Morel is not all saint, nor all fanatic. It indicates that the child may grow into a man, in practical politics,—and a very formidable man it will be. No one ever ridiculed Morel. Few know the capacity of this man. When he touches a subject he masters it, till there i6 nothing more to be said. He knows how to get it into the press in the most INTRODUCTION 5 palatable form. On his own subjects I class him with Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Devlin or Mr. Philip Snowden, as a superb platform orator. And withal he has the basic ideas of Liberty that move the spirit of England. One day he discovered that to take their land from the 1 native cultivators was to enslave them, to establish exploitation ; and in that sign he conquered, and swept away the horrors of the Congo. A clerk in a Liverpool shipping office, without money or connections, by sheer force of character and ability, rose to the eminence of a Wilberforce, and did his work in shorter time. Some day he will discover that the age-long process of taking their land from Englishmen has had the same results, and then there will be more trouble, for others beside himself. The first phase in the life of Morel came to an end in 1911 and left him victorious, without a rival, without an enemy who dared show his teeth. The second phase is ending now. He turned his attention to Diplomacy, showed it up, exposed the ignorance and arid priestcraft of it, and held J;o the exposure through the war, that apotheosis of diplomacy. It has left, him against the ropes, bloody, execrated, but not knocked out. The third phase is still to come ; but it will be well to consider more closely Morel in war, and the ferocious hatred to r which he gave rise in the governing and middle classes ; for the second phase must be understood. Our foreign policy is conducted by a few governing personages, not necessarily by the Cabinet, still less by the sentiments of the governing Party. The powerful ones, ensconced in the Foreign Office, use or cast out such instruments as passing gusts of Party send to be their 1 He was never refused a hearing by a working-class audience. That class seems to have a monopoly both of patience and tolera- tion. 6 INTRODUCTION nominal chiefs. Sir Edward Grey suited them. Morel discovered this ; and he did not like their foreign policy. No man was ever more intent on hunting down what he did not like than Morel. War made no difference to him. It merely proved the more completely to his satisfaction that Grey and the policy were wrong. Everybody else might say that it was a war made in Germany. Morel knew better. It was Grey and the arch-priests of the Foreign Office using Grey who had helped ; it must be so. We all like to make our theories fit, and no man can ladle out blacking quite impartially. But in a war, the safety of the State makes it quite vital that everyone should believe that the other side is the aggressor. In no other way can the morale of a nation be stiffened through the horrors of war. The Govern- ment that fails to convince its people of this is destroyed, and revolution supervenes. Morel must have glimpsed this (though none of us saw it so clearly in 1914 as in 1919), and yet he went on adjusting the crime of the origin of the war. But Morel saw also, and far more clearly, that what he was doing was, unpopular. He saw what he believed to be the truth. He said to himself, " I must either be a coward and swim with the tide in silence or speak out. Ought a man to cease to speak the truth, because it is unpopular ? No. Ought a man to cease to speak the truth, because it is dangerous—to himself? No. —to the State? (And here I think he thought a long time and finally again said :) No. More- over what I am urging is really in the interest of the com- munity, for a policy built on lies and shams must eventually be disastrous to the people." Those of us who think, know full well that in ordinary times at least, the safety of the State does not come firstT in our rules of conduct. Justice comes first. We INTRODUCTION 7 know instinctively that we ought to do Justice though the heavens should fall ; we know that, in the long run, that which is unjust can never be expedient for the State. But ought we to tell a lie in the interests of the State ? Or live a lie by not telling the truth ? Many moralists will agree with Morel, that a man must just say what he thinks right, be the result to the State what it may. Otherwise we should have had no Christian Era, no Protestant Reformation, no representative or responsible government. The State would have remained stationary. Are all these principles altered by war ? Most people think they are. Morel thought not. Does what you believe to be the truth, or your country's victory^ come first ? If a man of Morel's standing and ability puts truth first, what are those who are responsible for the country's fate to do ? There was an E.