with
long-established masonic tradition ... it follows from this that Masonry
must not be used for any personal or party purpose in connexion with an
election." It further emphasized the distinct caution "that any attempt
to bring the Craft into the electioneering arena would be treated as a
serious masonic offence."

At the same time a fresh injunction was made with regard to the Grand
Orient of France:

As recognition was withdrawn from that body by the United Grand
Lodge of England in 1878, ... it is considered necessary to warn
all members of our lodges that they cannot visit any lodge under
the obedience of a jurisdiction unrecognized by the United Grand
Lodge of England; and further that under Rule 150 of the Book of
Constitutions, they cannot admit visitors therefrom.

For the reasons given at the beginning of this section British Masonry
stands rigidly aloof from all attempts to create an international system
of Masonry. The idea was first suggested at the Masonic Congress of
Paris in 1889, convened to celebrate the centenary of the first French
Revolution, but led to nothing very definite until the Congress of
Geneva in September 1902, at which the delegates of thirty-four lodges,
Grand Lodges, Grand Orients, and Supreme Councils were present, and a
proposal was unanimously adopted "tending towards the creation of an
International Bureau for Masonic Affairs," to which twenty Powers,
mostly Europeans, gave their adherence. Brother Desmons, of the Grand
Orient of France, in an after-dinner speech declared it to have been
always "the dream of his life" that "all democracies should meet and
understand one another in such a way as one day to form the Universal
Republic."[691]

According to the official report of the proceedings, "the
representatives of Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, England, Spain,
Italy, and Switzerland greeted with much feeling the dawn of this new
era." The same Report goes on to observe that--

It is altogether a mistake ... to believe that Freemasonry does not
attack the defects of such and such a State, and that consequently
it remains a stranger to party-strife and the tendencies of the
times.

And again:

Freemasonry has imposed upon itself a task--a mission. It is a
question of nothing less than the rebuilding of society on an
entirely new basis, which shall be more in accordance with the
present conditions