3.  Arbitration, conciliation, all the means already provided for amicable adjustment, and if possible for the prevention of international conflicts, should be organized on a more solid and more definite basis than in the past, with the sanction, or at least the maximum of necessary precautions, of a federated Europe.  All which we have done at The Hague, far from being lost, will serve as a foundation for the building of a pacific federation.

On these three points one may prophesy a unanimity almost complete; but the division will begin when it comes to distinguishing between Germany and the empire, between the German people who have a right to live and the German Empire which opposed the right to live; the division will begin when some demand the humiliation of Germany, others the ruin of her colonies, and of her very life.  France, who has defended peace, will, I am sure, also defend justice; but justice will not triumph without difficulty.  And it is here that the United States will render great service, if the United States has preserved, as one can see so clearly in the Mexican crisis, her moral authority and disinterestedness.

In the cuttings from the American papers which you have sent me I have read with great disquietude an article which says that, after all, the United States “will be the beneficiary of the European war.”  This article claims that the United States may profit very easily by this war to take away from Germany her commerce in the three Americas, &c.  It is a dangerous form of reasoning, which, however, is not new.

If war has attracted ardent partisans it is because it appeals to the temperament of many people, it flatters their self-pride, but also it serves their interests.  I have never understood it as I do at present.  I see, for example, the town of Mons enriching itself through the war; cafes, restaurants, the hotels, are unable to accommodate all who come to them; the farmers are seen disputing about their products.  There are also the military requisitions by which one can profit in getting rid of an old horse, of a wagon, an automobile, &c.; there are the butchers, the bakers, the dealers in cutlery, &c., who have never had so many purchasers; the furnishers of materials for the hospitals, pharmacists, orthopedists, &c.

Add to these an immense number of furnishers of military supplies, not only those who sell cannon, arms, and ammunition, but the accessories, the uniforms, material for the transports, and for the administrative work, &c.  They are legion.  Add to these all the combatants who have been promised positions as officers, Colonels, Generals. * * * Napoleon I. gave titles and honors. * * * You will understand that after the war, if there is an infinite number of unfortunates who mourn and who are ruined by the war, there are others, on the contrary, who have profited very well, who have enriched themselves and been raised to a privileged, fortunate class, who will find it quite natural to demand war or whose children will demand it later; while the mass of unfortunates, without strength, without resources, without protection, will need years to reconquer in peace the rights which they legally enjoyed before the war, and which the war suddenly took from them.