human
The 'Governments' will never initiate such institutions until compelled by public opinion and by the inevitable pressure of circumstances, nor is any nation in the world yet ripe to put forth such pressure; otherwise it would not be difficult to devise a supreme court, or rather jury, which would put a totally new moral aspect on war.
gpt
; and when the King of France wanted to make peace with him, he would do nothing in the matter until his _Parliament_ had told him
human
It is the singular disgrace of modern England, [Footnote: _Deliberations before War_, Francis Newman, 1859.] to have allowed the solemn responsibility of war to be tampered with by the arbitrary judgment of executive officers; ... the nation permits war to be made, lives by the twenty thousand or fifty thousand to be sacrificed, provinces to be confiscated, and permanent empire over foreign subjects established, at the secret advice of a Cabinet, _all of one party, acting collectively for party objects_, no one outside knowing how each has voted. Yet
gpt
; and all the time,
human
Then, when the Board of Control was formed in 1784,
gpt
The fatal war with Afghanistan in the eighteen-thirties which cost us so dear in the matter of men and fame, was settled in England by
human
It is necessary to remember, when thinking of the barbarisms which war brought in its train, not a hundred years ago, that what Newman calls, very justly,
gpt
No one can wonder at the rise and progress of an opinion that war is essentially an immoral state.
human
And of course, undoubtedly, that _is_ the crux of the whole matter. But there is no one in England to-day but will agree that some change in our prison system is imperatively needed. Only the other day a woman, thoroughly qualified to judge, declared that the inevitable effect of prison life on women was to make them lose their self-respect. It was a degradation and nothing else. Now a punishment practically loses its whole point if it is simply a lowering, without any building up; while apart from any other considerations, to herd, without due specialization, a number of criminals and misdemeanants (for that last is the true description of very many who are punished by this system of incarceration) tends, in many instances, to increase, by
gpt
the numbers of those who are in for a first offence only, and would not, but for the enforced bad influence of others in prison, offend again. Newman's conclusion of the whole matter as regards prisons is irrefragable:
human
In order to _prevent_ crime, the institutions which generate crime must be remodelled.