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Peaceless Europe by Francesco Saverio Nitti
page 26 of 286 (09%)
of other peoples. No civilized co-existence is possible where each
nation proposes to harm instead of helping its neighbour.

The spread of hatred among peoples has everywhere rendered more
difficult the internal relations between social classes and the
economic life of each country. Fearing a repetition of armed
conflicts, and owing to that spirit of unrest and intolerance
engendered everywhere by the War, workers are becoming every day more
exacting. They, too, claim their share of the spoils; they, too,
clamour for enemy indemnities. The same manifestations of hate, the
same violence of language, spread from people to people and from class
to class.

This tremendous War, which the peoples of Europe have fought and
suffered, has not only bled the losers almost to death, but it has
deeply perturbed the very life and existence of the victors. It
has not produced a single manifestation of art or a single moral
affirmation. For the last seven years the universities of Europe
appear to be stricken with paralysis: not one outstanding personality
has been revealed.

In almost every country the War has brought a sense of internal
dissolution: everywhere this disquieting phenomenon is more or less
noticeable. With the exception, perhaps, of Great Britain, whose
privileged insular situation, enormous mercantile navy and flourishing
trade in coal have enabled her to resume her pre-war economic
existence almost entirely, no country has emerged scatheless from
the War. The rates of exchange soar daily to fantastic heights, and
insuperable barriers to the commerce of European nations are being
created. People work less than they did in pre-war times, but
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