of the means of communication, of situation, and
production, as well as of a reform of right, of a complete renewal
of the principle of existence, especially of the principle of
community and of the relations of men among one another.

The Report here quoted is, however, inaccurate in one important
particular. No English delegates were present at the Geneva Congress or
on any other occasion of the kind. There was a delegate from Adelaide
who spoke a good deal, but the Chairman specifically mentioned England
as taking no part in the movement. Later on, in a Report of the Board of
General Purposes to Grand Lodge on March 2, 1921, a letter from Lord
Ampthill, pro Grand Master, appears, declining an invitation from the
Swiss Grand Lodge Alpina to British Freemasons to attend an
International Masonic Congress in Geneva and quoting the following
letter from the Grand Secretary as an earlier precedent for this
refusal:

I am directed to state, in reply to the invitation to attend an
International Masonic Conference in Switzerland during the coming
autumn, that the United Grand Lodge of England will be unable to
send representatives on the occasion. It never participates in a
Masonic gathering in which are treated as an open question what it
has always held to be ancient and essential Landmarks of the Craft,
these being an express belief in the Great Architect of the
Universe, and an obligatory recognition of the Volume of the Sacred
Law. Its refusal to remain in fraternal association with such
Sovereign Jurisdictions as have repudiated or made light of these
Landmarks has long been upon record, and its resolve in this regard
remains unshaken.

Lord Ampthill then went on to say:

A further consequence of certain happenings of the war is to make
more firm our resolve to keep, as far as in us lies, Freemasonry
strictly away from participation in politics, either national or
international. This attitude of aloofness from necessarily
controversial affairs of State, on which Brethren can legitimately
and most properly differ, has ever been maintained by our Grand
Lodge since it was first convened in 1717. Because of this, it held
aloof from such international conferences as were summoned during
the war; and never more than now has the necessity for the
maintenance of this attitude been felt by British Free