Letter from Gerard Collier to May Wright Sewall.

June 2 1904

Dear Mrs Sewall

Thank you very much for your letter and for your article that you sent me.

First as to the war; I do not know that I set much store by human life as such (except for certain lives owing to insufficiently controlled instincts). Theoretically I hold that life ought not to count as dust in the balance. And again if men decide to fight, I infinitly prefer to see it done wholeheartedly; by no means let men profess to fight and really run away.

Indeed I do not know that I am yet sufficiently civilized to condemn war in my heart of hearts, as I am happy to believe that you do; but I have seen visions of that frame of mind.

However I can condemn it theoretically as a flaring example of the working of the spirit of antagonism which is of the nature of evil I suppose; while the spirit of cooperation is I suppose of the nature of good.

However there is a practical point that had occured to me - indeed it is not very recondite - with regard to this war and any wars in which any state or any individual professes to remain netural. It is sufficiently obvious that our thanks are due to Mr. Hay who has worked to restrict the sphere of hostility. But it seems to me that this principle of restriction might be developed much further. Belligerants are generally very much affected by passion, but there is no reason why the neutrals should be in other than a normal state of mind, and so presumably more ameniable to sense than the belligerents. So on the supposition that normal men in normal conditions feel rightly on important subjects if they are given a good chance (and that supposition is I suppose one of the elements of optimism) it ought to be possible, if not on this occasion still on some future occasion, to raise a strong body of active opinion among the neutrals that it was wrong to encourage the war in question in any way, indeed that it must be discouraged in any safe way, and that therefore (this is the practical point) the foreign loans of the belligerents must not be subscribed to, and warlike stores and equipment must not be sent to them.

It may be objected that such behaviour would have the poorer & weaker states even more at the mercy of the rich and strong; but this hardly amounts to much it seems to me perhaps an unnecessary compliance with human weakness that a state should profess itself neutral and yet allow its individual citizens to help the belligerents; however one sees difficulties in the way of state action; for there might be an individual or individuals (indeed there very probably would be) in a neutral state who were honestly convinced that one of the belligerents was helping to fight the battle of righteousness; and it might be undesirable to bring the state into conflict with such.

So this is as far as I can see my way - that public opinion should be educated to forbid individuals or institutions of neutral states to subscribe to belligerent loans.

I was thinking that the war must be remarked upon in the Conference at Berlin, and I was wondering if you were going to bring forward this particular point.

I am sorry that I so crudely asked you about your feelings towards the Canadians - I meant perhaps something more like this. The Americans have come to stand alone, they attained to that position through much heroism, they now feel that it would be a sort of intolerable disloyalty to their fathers and themselves to do anything but maintain that they are better as they are; rather the reverse is the case with the Canadians. So it is rather like this - the real prosperity of Canada to the extend that it exists, is a living criticism of the American resolution, and the real prosperity of the United States, to the extent that it is exists, is a living criticism of the Canadian position.

So my question really comes to this - do you feel that it is weak spirited, uncourageous and unwise of the Canadians not to insist on standing alone.

Yours very sincerely

Gerard Collier.