ense of its immense costs, the
slowly maturing sympathy between individual members of hostile nations
form the substantial groundwork upon which an opposition to war _in
general_ is based. Added to these are the waning of the romanticism of
war and the growth of a sense of its mechanical (rather than human)
quality. The present war has immensely increased this opposition. It
has disenchanted the world. In all countries millions of men now
realise that wars must be fought not alone by adventurous youths, who
do not put a high value upon life, but by husbands and fathers and
middle-aged men, who are somewhat less susceptible to the glamorous
appeal of battle. They are beginning to recognise that wars are not
won by courage alone {239} but by numbers, by money, by intimidation,
by intrigue, by mendacity and all manner of baseness. The lies spread
broadcast throughout the world and the money spent by Germans and
Allies to bribe Bulgarian patriots are quite as great factors in
deciding the issue of the war as the valour of the _poilus_ at Verdun.
In a moral sense war has committed suicide.

This increasing comprehension of war's real nature and of war's new
manifestations is leading the peoples to demand the right to decide for
themselves when and how war is to be declared and to take part in
negotiations which may lead up to war. The power to provoke wars is
the last bulwark of autocracy; when the nation is in danger (and in
present circumstances it is always in danger), democracy goes by the
board. Let the Socialists and Liberals in all countries declaim as
they will against armies, navies, imperialism, colonialism, and
international friction, let Members of Parliament ask awkward questions
in the House, the answer is always the same, "It is a matter of
national safety. To reply to the question of the honourable gentleman
is not in the public interest." Against this stone wall the efforts of
organisations like the British "Union of Democratic Control" break
ineffectually.

The Socialists have also failed, at least externally. Identifying the
war-makers and imperialists with those classes to which they were
already opposed in internal politics, the Socialists sought to make
good their democratic antagonism to war. They opposed armies and
proposed disarmament; they threatened national strikes in case
aggressive wars were declared; they fought with a sure democratic
instinct against every manifestation of milita