I agree with you, my boy. Endless
discussion is all very well--forms 'public opinion,' they say; but I
wish a could be put to it when it has come round to where it began;
that one side could say to the other, 'You have heard all our logic,
and we have heard all yours;' now then, let us settle it. 'Who is
the strongest and best drilled?' I believe in insurrection.
Everlasting debate--and it is not genuine debate, for nobody really
ranges himself alongside his enemy's strongest points--demoralises us
all. It encourages all sorts of sophistry, becomes mere manoeuvring,
and saps people's faith in the truth. In half an hour, if two
persons were to sit opposite one another, they could muster every
single reason for and against Free Trade. What is the use of going
on after that? Moreover, insurrection strengthens the belief of men
in the right. A man who voluntarily incurs the risk of being shot
believes ever afterwards, if he escapes, a little more earnestly than
he did before. 'Who is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me,'
says the flag. Insurrection strengthens, too, the faith of others.
When a company of poor men meet together and declare that things have
got to such a pass that they will either kill their enemies or die
themselves, the world then thinks there must, after all, be SOME
difference between right and wrong.
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