long time many continued to believe it. And the intellectuals were not by any means less ready to believe it than the rest of the country.
The really harmful beliefs are those which produce hatred of the enemy. The devastation and maltreatment of Belgium might naturally have aroused some qualms among humane Germans. But the instinct of self-protection produced a harvest of accusations against the Belgians: that they put out the eyes of wounded Germans, or cut off their hands; that they behaved brutally to German women in Belgium; and, generally, that they had shown such depravity as rendered them unworthy of consideration. At the very same time, innumerable German atrocities were reported in England. It cannot, unfortunately, be denied that many very shocking atrocities occurred, but not nearly so many as the English at first believed. Many men stated confidently that they knew people in England who had staying with them Belgian children whose hands had been cut off by German soldiers. Some such cases there were in Belgium, but I know of no evidence that any reached England. No effect whatever was produced by pointing out that if there were so many cases, at least one with a name and address would have been mentioned in the newspaper. Such arguments have no power against a belief which stimulates ferocity, and is on that account felt to be useful. No doubt atrocities have occurred on both sides. But it is certain that they have been far less numerous, and (for the most part) less unnatural, than they are almost universally believed to have been.
A correspondence in, the Labour Leader for March 18 will illustrate this point.
