At this juncture, then, all over Europe, when the classes are failing us and by their underhand machinations continually embroiling one nation with another, it is above all necessary that the mass-peoples should move and insist upon the representation of their great unitary and communal life and interests.  It is high time that they should open their eyes and see with clear vision what is going on over their heads, and more than high time that they should refuse to take part in the Quarrels of those who (professionally) live upon their labour.  It is indeed astonishing that the awakening has been so long in coming; but surely it cannot be greatly delayed now.  Underneath all the ambitions of certain individuals and groups; underneath all the greed and chicanery of others; underneath the widespread ignorance, mother of prejudice, which sunders folk of different race or colour-deep down the human heart beats practically the same in all lands, drawing us little mortals together.

Strangely enough—­and yet not strangely—­it beats strongest and clearest often in the simplest, the least sophisticated.  Those who live nearest the truth of their own hearts are nearest to the hearts of others.  Those who have known the realities of the world, and what Life is close to the earth—­they are the same in all lands—­they have at least the key to the understanding of each other.  The old needs of life, its destinies and fatalities, its sorrows and joys, its exaltations and depressions —­these are the same everywhere; and to the manual workers —­the peasant, the labourer, the sailor, the mechanic—­the world-old trades, pursuits, crafts, and callings with which they are so familiar supply a kind of freemasonry which ensures them even among strangers a kindly welcome and an easy admittance.  If you want to travel in foreign lands, you will find that to be skilled in one or two manual trades is better than a high official passport.

Among such people there is no natural hatred of each other.  Despite all the foam and fury of the Press over the present war, I doubt whether there is any really violent feeling of the working masses on either side between England and Germany.  There certainly is no great amount in England, either among the country-folk or the town artisans and mechanics; and if there be much in Germany (which is quite doubtful) it is fairly obviously due to the animus which has been aroused and the virus which has been propagated by political and social schemers.

We have had enough of Hatred and Jealousy.  For a century now commercial rivalry and competition, the perfectionment of the engines of war, and the science of destruction have sufficiently occupied the nations—­with results only of disaster and distress and ruin to all concerned.  To-day surely another epoch opens before us—­an epoch of intelligent helpfulness and fraternity, an epoch even of the simplest common sense.  We have rejoiced to tread and trample the other peoples underfoot, to malign and traduce them, to single out and magnify their defects, to boast ourselves over them.  And acting thus we have but made the more enemies.  Now surely comes an era of recognition and understanding, and with it the glad assurance that we have friends in all the ends of the earth.