children who are being robbed of their bread-winners and who in consequence dwell in constant torment and fear as to the fate of their loved ones, threatened themselves, meanwhile, by the terrible sword of hunger.

Tens of thousands will be wounded or will return as invalids.

Let us regard it as our duty to assist these unfortunates, to mitigate their sufferings, and to minister to their indescribable need. But as far as concerns our people and its independence, much, if not everything, would be endangered by a triumph of Russian despotism, already weltering in the blood of her own noblest sons.

It devolves upon us, therefore, to avert this danger, to shelter the civilization and independence of our native land. Therefore, we must to-day justify what we have always said. In its hour of danger Germany may ever rely upon us.

We take our stand upon the doctrine basic to the international labor movement, which at all times has recognized the right of every people to national independence and national defense, and at the same time we condemn all war for conquest.

We hope that as soon as our opponents are ready for negotiations, an end will be made to the war and a state of peace induced which will make possible friendly relations with our neighbors.

We do not regard this in the light of a contradiction to our duty in connection with international solidarity to which we are just as firmly bound as to Germany itself. We hope that this fatal strife will prove a lesson to the millions who will come after us, a lesson which will fill them with lasting abhorrence for all warfare. May they be converted by this to the ideal of Social Democracy and international peace. And now, bearing these thoughts in mind, we give our sanction to the voting of those moneys demanded! (Applause from all parties.)

THE VOTE FOR THE WAR LOAN-MINORITY STATEMENT

Those Reichstag Socialists who were present at the session, in obedience to the decision of the party caucus, voted unanimously in favor of the war loan, but the

custom of the party allows the minority to be absent if they do not leave the Reichstag in a demonstrative man ner. (See Chapter XIX.) Some took advantage of this custom. Others voted with the party but only after the most strenuous opposition in the caucus. The strength of this opposition was variously estimated. It can be more accurately measured by those who voted against the second war loan on December 2d, when 15 of about 100 members in Berlin refused to vote with the party, to say nothing of other members who so voted after uttering their protest in the caucus.

Karl Liebknecht sent to the Bremen Bürgerzeitung, the local Socialist organ, a communication in which he explained:

'I understand that several members of the Social Democratic Party have written all sorts of things in the press with regard to the deliberations of the Social Democratic Party in the Reichstag on August 3d and 4th.

According to these reports, there were no serious differences of opinion in our party in regard to the political situation and our own position, and the decision to assent to the war credit is alleged to have been arrived at unanimously.

In order to prevent the origination of an inadmissible legend, I feel it my duty to put on record that the issues involved gave rise to diametrically opposite views within our parliamentary party, and that these opposing views found expression with a violence hitherto unknown in our deliberations. It is therefore entirely untrue to say that the assent to the war credits was given unanimously.

CHAPTER XI

AUSTRO-HUNGARY

THE Austrian Socialist Party, like that of Germany, is the largest in the country, with 1,081,000 votes in 1914, and 88 out of 516 members of the Reichsrath. Its influence is considerable, because most of the other parties are nationalistic, German, Bohemian, Polish, etc., while the Socialists of the various nationalities are comparatively united. It includes the majority of the working people of the cities and towns.

The German deputies of the Austrian Social Democratic Party issued a long manifesto at the beginning of the war with Servia, from which the following is taken:

We Social Democrats, the representatives of the working people, do not shut our eyes to the great injury which the Servian rulers have done to Austria. As we, true to our principles which repudiate vain deeds of force, condemn the assassination at Serajevo, so also do we condemn those who bear a share in the responsibility for it. We recognize that Austria-Hungary is within its rights in asking from the Servian Government the prosecution of the participants in that crime; we understand that Austria-Hungary demands that the underground agitation against the security and peace of the Austrian Federation of States shall be stopped, that the Servian rulers shall put an end to the encouraging toleration with which they have hitherto regarded this secessionist movement. But we are convinced that the Servian Government would not have been able to offer any opposition to these demands of Austria-Hungary, which are sanctioned by international law, and would, in fact, have offered none. We are convinced that all that Austria-Hungary asks could have been

obtained, and can still be obtained, by peaceful methods, and that no necessities of state, no consideration for its prestige, compels the great Power to depart from the paths of peaceful agreement. Therefore we declare, in the name of the working class, as the representatives of the German workers in Austria, that we cannot take the responsibility for this war, that we lay the responsibility for it, and for all the frightfully serious results that may follow, at the door of those who thought out, supported, and encouraged the fatal step which has brought us face to face with war. (Our italics.)

A considerable part of the above manifesto, however, was censored; and there can be no doubt that this censored part contained an even more radical attack on the war and the government than the part we have quoted. But we have quoted enough to show that the Austrian Socialists blame their own government for the war with Servia.

We are able to reproduce only a few valuable Austrian quotations because of the rigidity of the censorship. However, we give enough to prove that the Socialist parties of both Austria and Hungary regard the present war as being defensive. Of the Great Powers, they face the reactionary government of Russia alone, their armies being nowhere in conflict with those of semidemocratic England or France. Their position is, therefore, much simpler than that of the Germans, and their support of their government, whether defensible or not, is less frequently criticised by Socialists.

Even in its most bitter attack against the censorship the official party organ, the Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung, assumes an ultra-patriotic attitude:

If the press is to perform the task which in the present organization of society belongs to it, if it is to spur on the nation to risk its last man in the defense of its liberty and independence, mere clouds of words and artificial pathos will not suffice. Least of all, will it do to conceal in silence the

awful seriousness of war, and to gloss over its changing fortunes. (Our italics.)

The Arbeiter Zeitung further declared that all Austrian Socialists were unanimous in condemning Czarism and had no criticism to make of Germany's conduct in this war.

This organ had a special article in its number of August 23d, the day that was to have marked the opening of the International Socialist Congress, which clearly shows the attitude of the Austrian Party. We give its chief statements:

In all countries we Socialists, German, French, English, Belgian, Austrian, Servian, have done our duty as internationalists, as long as it was possible; we warned against the war, and with every drop of our blood have sought to hinder it; and we tried to make use of every possible chance of maintaining peace up to the very last minute.

But since fate has overtaken us and overcome us, the proletariat in all countries, which formerly did its international duty, now does its duty as sons of its people, who risk everything in order that the people shall not be conquered, in order that its soil will not be delivered to the horrors of a defeat. We all suffer wrong; we all do right to protect ourselves against it. . . . But even in this tragic moment we do not forget that we are International Social Democrats. Our heart bleeds because of the frightful necessity of this conflict, but we give to our people and to the state what belongs to the people and the state.

This article, it will be noticed, justifies the Socialists of all Continental countries in supporting their governments during the present war. It does not justify one nation over the other, but it does justify all.

The Hungarian government has no democratically elected parliament, even of the narrowly restricted kind that prevails in Austria. The government being more despotic than that of Austria, the Hungarian Socialists