justified to expect peace from
the action of these socialists who stand by
governments in the war is, as far as my own
country is concerned, shown by the fact that the
big meetings now (and, I am willing to admit, it
is the intention of the initiators to hold them in
favour of peace) led by the leaders of the
majority of the social-democratic party, such as
Messrs. Scheidemann, David, Ebert and others, turn
out in practice as meetings in support of the
policy of the government in regard to the question
of war and peace. In order to defend their own
political attitude the speakers are compelled to
shift the responsibility for the war and its
continuation wholly on the shoulders of the
governments of the opposite countries and their
supporters, and by this they increase in the mind
of their hearers the conviction that nothing short
of a defeat of these countries will bring the war
to a desirable end. In England the majority of the
Labour Party and a considerable number of the best
known socialist leaders and in France the most
influential leaders of socialist party support
also the war policy of their respective
governments in all principal issues. The well
meant and praiseworthy attempts to convene a full
International Socialist Congress for the purpose
of settling these differences by finding a common
line of action are, I am sorry to say, under the
circumstances most likely to prove abortive. _They
will founder on the self-contradiction that the
Socialists of the Entente countries argue that
their governments hate the idea of German
militarism coming out unbeaten and unreduced out
of this war which in their opinion was provoked by
it, whilst the leaders of the German Socialists in
power would rather see this same militarism which
they in former years have so violently attacked
and denounced, come out victorious than have it
interfered with by outside influence._

In short, sections of the socialist movement will
assist other forces in the action for peace, but
the movement as a whole is incapable to act in the
matter as a force of compelling strength.

Help must in the main come from outside.
Consequently President Wilson's action in his note
to the belligerents of December 20th wo