answer to the question. Here, for the last twenty years, have these
so-called Great Powers been standing round, all professing that their
one desire is peace, and all meanwhile arming to the teeth; each
accusing the others of militant intentions, and all lamenting that "war
is inevitable." Here they have been forming their _Ententes_ and
Alliances, carrying on their diplomatic cabals and intrigues, studying
the map and adjusting the Balance of Power--all, of course, with the
best intentions--and lo! with the present result! What nonsense! What
humbug! What an utter bankruptcy of so-called diplomacy! When will the
peoples themselves arise and put a stop to this fooling--the people who
give their lives and pay the cost of it all? If the present-day,
diplomats and Foreign Ministers have sincerely striven for peace, then
their utter incapacity and futility have been proved to the hilt, and
they must be swept away. If they have not sincerely striven for peace,
but only pretended to so strive, then also they must be swept away, for
deceit in such a matter is unpardonable.

And no doubt the latter alternative is the true one. There has been a
pretence of the Governments all round--a pretence of deep concern for
humanity and the welfare of the mass-peoples committed to their charge;
but the real moving power beneath has been _class_-interest--the
interest of the great commercial class in each nation, with its acolyte
and attendant, the military or aristocratic. It is this class, with its
greeds and vanities and suspicions and jealousies, which is the cause of
strife; the working-masses of the various nations have no desire to
quarrel with each other. Nay, they are animated by a very different
spirit.

In an interesting article published by the German Socialist paper
_Vorwärts_, on September 27, 1914, and reproduced in our Press, occurred