ty it is so utterly difficult to
find a solution for it, and there is little hope
that unless some outside force intervenes, it may
end otherwise than by absolute general
exhaustion._

Things would be otherwise if there were reasonable
hopes of a concerted action on the part of the
international union of the socialist parties. But
such hopes, if they ever could be entertained,
have by now become a thing of the past. In the
three countries named the majority of the leaders
of organised labour have taken sides in the war
alongside of their governments and have by this
more or less given up independency and lost the
confidence of their former comrades in the
opposite camp. Distrust, which in general has so
much contributed to bring about this war, prevails
also in the ranks of the socialists in regard to
the leaders of the movement on the other side of
the frontier. Minorities everywhere work for a
greater independency as a step to a better
international understanding. But they have as yet
nowhere succeeded in winning the majority of the
movement over to their views and policy, and even
if they did, all sorts of hindrances would by the
governments be put in the way of these Socialists
to assemble internationally in sufficient number
for work of this nature.

Nor is it to be expected that revolts of the
discontented masses will be vast enough to force
the governments into peace negotiations against
their will. The possibilities of centralised
governments against revolutionary upheavals as
long as these remain locally isolated, which in
the face of the enormous extent of the section of
the globe directly drawn into the war is most
probable, are too great to let these movements
have a great chance of changing the policy of the
rulers. This would only happen when at least some
of these classes or parties which at present
support the war come round to their opinion, of
which very few signs are at present to be seen.
The work of small minorities everywhere, the war
has got hold of the minds of the millions in all
countries and has filled nations against nations
with such distrust and spite as in the history of
civilised mankind never before have been
witnessed.

How little we are