each other.  Racial and religious wars will no doubt for long continue; but wars to satisfy the ambitions of a military clique or a personal ruler, or the ambitions of a commercial group, or the schemes of financiers, or the engineering of the Press—­wars from these all too fruitful causes will, under a sensible Democracy, cease.  If Britain, during the last twenty years, had really favoured the cause of the People and their international understanding, there would have been no war now, for her espousal of the mass-peoples’ cause would have made her so strong that it would have been too risky for any Government to attack her.  But of course that could not have happened, for the simple reason that Conservatism and Liberalism are not Democracy.  Conservatism is Feudalism, Liberalism is Commercialism, and Socialism only is in its essence Democracy.  It is no good scolding at Sir Edward Grey for making friends with the Russian Government; for his only alternative would have been to join the “International”—­which he certainly could not do, being essentially a creature of the commercial regime.  The “Balance of Power” and the ententes and alliances of Figure-head Governments had to go on, till the day—­which we hope is at hand—­when Figure-heads will be no more needed.

FOOTNOTES: 

[2] Reprinted by kind permission from the English Review for December, 1914.

[3] As an example of this belief, read the manifesto of Professor Eucken, who represents such a large section of German opinion, and note the absolute sincerity of its tone—­as well as its simplicity.

[4] Wars and Capitalism, by P. Kropotkin. (Freedom Press.)

[5] See Nash’s Magazine for October, 1914, article by “Diplomatist.”

[6] Ibid.

[7] In order to realize how easy such a process is, we have only to remember the steps by which the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899 was engineered.

[8] Of course we must remember that there has been all along and is now in Germany a very large party, Socialist and other, which has not been thus carried away; but for the moment its mouth is closed and it cannot make itself heard.

[9] See Kropotkin’s War and Capitalism, p. 12.

[10] See note infra on “Commercial Prosperity,” p. 167.  (Chapter XI below)

IV

THE CASE AGAINST GERMANY;

November, 1914.

With every wish to do justice to Germany, to whose literature I feel I owe such a debt, and among whose people I have so many personal friends; allowing also the utmost for the general causes in Europe which have been for years leading up towards war—­and some of which I have indicated already in the pages above—­I still feel it is impossible not to throw on her the immediate blame for the present catastrophe.