British Hesitate At War For Servia.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 27, 1912:
Ask Whether They Ought to be Bound to Engage in a Great War Over a Small Question.
GARVIN SAYS THEY MUST
Declares They Cannot "Have It Both Ways" — Must Be Loyal to Allies If they Want Aid Against Germany.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Wednesday, Nov. 27.— Once again the question whether British interests primarily, and the interests of the world secondarily, are best served by a compact which ranges this empire in one of the two camps into which the great powers of Continental Europe are divided is brought into the foreground by the developments in the Near Eastern situation.
    As The Westminster Gazette puts it, "It is a wild absurdity that on such a question as the access of Servia to the Adriatic we should even have to dream of Russia coming to blows with Austria and of either or both dragging their partners in the Alliance and the Entente after them into a European Armageddon."
    Such a possibility, it is argued, could not arise were it not for the policy which has divided Europe into two camps. The Westminster Gazette proceeds:
    "The logic of the matter is this: If Servia is obdurate and Austria threatens her, guns may go off, and if the guns once go off anything may happen. The Russian people may get excited over the coercion of the Serbs and compel their Government to go in. Then, if Russia goes in, Germany must follow, and if Germany, then France, and if France and Germany then Great Britain. So eventually on an issue on which the powers profess to be unanimous and about which no one in Western Europe has either emotions, interests, or parti pris, millions of men are to fly at each others' throats and the whole world is to be impoverished for a generation.
    "If that were really to be the result of the Alliance and the Entente and of the pledges which the two groups were supposed to have made to each other, it would be the obvious duty of the sensible people of all countries to assert themselves without delay and make a clean sweep of all existing combinations and entanglements."
    This "clean sweep" is urged by both The Westminster Gazette and The Daily News, among Liberal journals. England, they declare, should make it quire clear that she is not going to be entangled. She has been loyal to her engagements in Europe and has gone beyond the letter of the law in supporting her friends when they had a fair claim upon her, but she is under no obligation to plunge into the racial rivalries of the Near East or pledge support to one group or the other if they are foolish enough to let the Austro-Servian quarrel spread.
    On the other hand, another Liberal paper, The Daily Chronicle, considers that the interests oí peace can be best served if Great Britain presents a united front with France and Russia to the Triple Alliance, while J. L. Garvin in The Pall Mall Gazette (Unionist) argues that for England now to repudiate her obligations would be to court destruction.
    "We cannot have it both ways," writes Mr. Garvin. "We cannot play fast and loose in Europe, asserting the privilege of detachment when we like and claiming the benefits of partnership when it suits us. We must choose between the fatal dangers of renewed isolation and the responsibilities imposed upon us, as upon France, by loyal combination.
    "If England cannot make up her mind she will drive Russia into the arms of Germany, she will lose the Balkan League and the Turks alike, and she will well deserve her fate."
    What that fate will be Mr. Garvin leaves to the imagination of his readers, who can safely be counted upon to complete his argument by a mental picture of the day when Great Britain is left alone to face Germany in that death struggle which many Englishmen believe to be inevitable.