w, beasts of
draught, even steam-ploughs with their attendants to help in the tillage
of departments devastated by the war! Only consult _La Croix Rouge_, by
Gustave Moynier, and you will be really struck by the immensity of the
work performed.

As to the prophets ever ready to deny other men's courage, good sense,
and intelligence, and believing themselves to be the only ones capable
of ruling the world with a rod, none of their predictions were realized.
The devotion of the Red Cross volunteers was beyond all praise. They
were only too eager to occupy the most dangerous posts; and whereas the
salaried doctors of the Napoleonic State fled with their staff when the
Prussians approached, the Red Cross volunteers continued their work
under fire, enduring the brutalities of Bismarck's and Napoleon's
officers, lavishing their care on the wounded of all nationalities.
Dutch, Italians, Swedes, Belgians, even Japanese and Chinese agreed
remarkably well. They distributed their hospitals and their ambulances
according to the needs of the occasion. They vied with one another
especially in the hygiene of their hospitals. And there is many a
Frenchman who still speaks with deep gratitude of the tender care he
received from the Dutch or German volunteers in the Red Cross
ambulances. But what is this to an authoritarian? His ideal is the
regiment doctor, salaried by the State. What does he care for the Red
Cross and its hygienic hospitals, if the nurses be not functionaries!

Here is then an organization, sprung up but yesterday, and which reckons
its members by hundreds of thousands; possesses ambulances, hospital
trains, elaborates new processes for treating wounds, and so on, and is
due to the spontaneous initiative of a few devoted men.

Perhaps we shall be told that the State has something to do with this
organization. Yes, States have laid hands on it to seize it. The
directing committees are presided over by those whom flunkeys call
princes of the blood. Emperors and queens lavishly patronize the
national committees. But it is not to this patronage that the success of
the organization is due. It is to the thousand local committees of each
nation; to the activity of individuals, to the devotion of all those who
try to help the victims of war. And this devotion would be far greater
if the State did not meddle with it.

In any case, it was not by the order of an International Directing
Committee that Englishmen and Japanese,