mselves into power by making
frothy speeches and fine promises. My Country!" he laughed again. "Look
at them. Can't you see their swelling paunches and their flabby faces?
Half a score of ambitious politicians, gouty old financiers, bald-headed
old toffs, with their waxed moustaches and false teeth. That's what we
mean when we talk about 'My Country': a pack of selfish, soulless, muddle-
headed old men. And whether they're right or whether they're wrong, our
duty is to fight at their bidding--to bleed for them, to die for them,
that they may grow more sleek and prosperous." He sank back on his
pillow with another laugh.

Sometimes they agreed it was the newspapers that made war--that fanned
every trivial difference into a vital question of national honour--that,
whenever there was any fear of peace, re-stoked the fires of hatred with
their never-failing stories of atrocities. At other times they decided
it was the capitalists, the traders, scenting profit for themselves. Some
held it was the politicians, dreaming of going down to history as
Richelieus or as Bismarcks. A popular theory was that cause for war was
always discovered by the ruling classes whenever there seemed danger that
the workers were getting out of hand. In war, you put the common people
back in their place, revived in them the habits of submission and
obedience. Napoleon the Little, it was argued, had started the war of
1870 with that idea. Russia had welcomed the present war as an answer to
the Revolution that was threatening Czardom. Others contended it was the
great munition industries, aided by the military party, the officers
impatient for opportunities of advancement, the strategists eager to put
their theories to the test. A few of the more philosophical shrugged
their shoulders. It was the thing itself that sooner or later was bound
to go off of its own accord. Half every country's energy, half every
country's time and money was spent in piling up explosives. In every
country envy and hatred of every other country was preached as a
religion. They called it patriotism. Sooner or later the spark fell.

A wizened little man had been listening to it all one day. He had a
curiously rat-like face, with round, red, twinkling eyes, and a long,
pointed nose that twitched as he talked.

"I'll tell you who makes all the wars," he said. "It's you and me, my
dears: we make the wars. We love them. That's why we open our mouths
and sw