ithout reproof in the names of law and order, and commercial
economics. On one side human life is a splendid fabric of cloth of
gold embroidered with priceless gems, and on the other it is a mass
of filthy, festering rags, swarming with vermin.

"We think that such a Society--a Society which permits considerably
more than the half of humanity to be sunk in poverty and misery while
a very small portion of it fools away its life in perfectly
ridiculous luxury--does not deserve to exist, and ought to be
destroyed.

"We also know that sooner or later it will destroy itself, as every
similar Society has done before it. For nearly forty years there has
now been almost perfect peace in Europe. At the same time, over
twenty millions of men are standing ready to take the field in a
week.

"War--universal war that will shake the world to its foundations--is
only a matter of a little more delay and a few diplomatic hitches.
Russia and England are within rifleshot of each other in Afghanistan,
and France and Germany are flinging defiances at each other across
the Rhine.

"Some one must soon fire the shot that will set the world in a blaze,
and meanwhile the toilers of the earth are weary of these dreadful
military and naval burdens, and would care very little if the
inevitable happened to-morrow.

"It is in the power of the Terrorists to delay or precipitate that
war to a certain extent. Hitherto all our efforts have been devoted
to the preservation of peace, and many of the so-called outrages
which have taken place in different parts of Europe, and especially
in Russia, during the last few years, have been accomplished simply
for the purpose of forcing the attention of the administrations to
internal affairs for the time, and so putting off what would have led
to a declaration of war.

"This policy has not been dictated by any hope of avoiding war
altogether, for that would have been sheer insanity. We have simply
delayed war as long as possible, because we have not felt that we
have been strong enough to turn the tide of battle at the right
moment in favour of the oppressed ones of the earth and against their
oppressors.

"But this invention of yours puts a completely different aspect on
the European situation. Armed with such a tremendous engine of
destruction as a navigable air-ship must necessarily be, when used in
conjunction with the explosives already at our disposal, we could
make war impossible to our enemies b