saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint
labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens
to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others
necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas
of peace;

During one of the last international conferences at which I was
present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange
of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and
Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas
on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of
peace?" they inquired.

"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once
more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but
hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.

When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political
peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class
struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of
nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of
the country's greatness.

The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new
wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares
fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a _status
animae_ or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible
for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the
first to speak the language of peace.