workers, though we do not understand their press—even making allowances for the censorship. And what we here say of the comrades in Germany, we feel also of the comrades in France and England, and especially in Austria. We seek to keep their confidence in us, even if we do not understand them. This speech certainly contains little of that critical attitude towards the German Party seen in the editorials of the Zurich and Bern papers above quoted. SWEDEN No Socialist has spoken more strongly for Belgium than Karl Branting, editor of the Swedish Social Demokraten, and founder of the Socialist Party in Sweden. We quote the following from that organ: Short-sighted wiseacres may calculate that Belgium ought to have yielded after a first resistance sufficient to mark her neutrality. No, in the midst of destruction and despair, it must be said: Only now, when the young Belgian nation has shown how thoroughly she has taken over from her ancestors the heritage of courage and power of sacrifice, only now is her liberty, her place in the chain of brother nations irrevocably secured for all time. The fact that the whole Belgian nation, her Socialistic working class not least, has staked so much more than feeble protests of words has made her cause sacred to all those men and women in the whole world who still value justice and liberty. Therefore: Hail to Belgium! And my sincerest wish as a Swede must be this: if in spite of the hope we cherish and the peace between the nations we are trying to prepare, the day should arrive when our own neutral country is threatened by violation, may we then unanimously follow the magnificent example of Belgium, securing victory in the midst of apparent ruin. "Rather die than become a slave," says a Frisian proverb. It is the same spirit as in the song from the fifteenth century by our Swedish Bishop Thomas: "Liberty is the best of all things That can be sought in the whole world, ROUMANIA In January the well-known Roumanian Socialist, Racovsky, the Roumanian member of the International Bureau, has an interesting letter on the situation in the Golos, the Socialist daily published in Paris by Russian Socialists, in which he writes: No power on earth will induce us to give up our Socialist position. We are fighting energetically against the bellicose temper. But the saddest thing is that our adversaries are taking the weapons they use against us from the Socialist arsenal of France and Germany. For instance, German Social Democratic representatives appear against us, and Hervé, as well as L'Humanité, is criticising us. In order to drive us into war, articles by Vaillant are translated for our benefit, in which he calls upon the Socialists of the neutral states (excepting those whose neutrality has been guaranteed by treaty, as that of Switzerland) to enter the war, and in which he characterizes us as pro-Germans if we should refuse to follow his un-Socialistic advice. We seek to explain to ourselves the blunder of a man like Vaillant, who is so devoted to Socialism, by the immense sorrow by which the French proletariat has been visited in consequence of the assassination of Jaurès and the invasion of the Ger mans. You can imagine the difficult situation in which the Socialist Parties of the neutral countries are placed if our comrades in the warring countries communicate with our ruling classes over our heads, incite our proletariat to war, shake hands with our jingoes and reactionaries, and openly countenance the apostate and renegade. . . The French comrades seek to convince us that the Allies, Russia among the rest, are fighting for the principle of nationality. We, the inhabitants of the east and immediate neighbors of the Muscovite Empire, would like to utter some doubts on that point. We recognize the desire of conquest characterizing Austria's Balkan policy all the more readily as we have criticised it more than once at International Congresses. But who is there to deny the danger that threatens both Roumania and Bulgaria, countries which occupy the road to the Dardanelles, from Russia? Why, therefore, are the proletarians of all countries pressed into an anti-Socialist and anti-national co-operation with Russian absolutism and their own bourgeoisie under the pretext that they are thus serving the interests of Socialism in the warring states? We appeal to our comrades in the countries at war, and ask them not to give way to the particular moods produced by war. While bearing in mind the distances and viewpoints that separate us, we might recommend to them our own attitude. After the terrible Balkan War the Socialists of the belligerent countries met again at their Congress. The Bulgarians visited the Servians, and these visited the Bulgarians; we, too, visited the Bulgarians, and they paid a visit to us, forgetting all the evil that our government (and in what manner!) had done them by taking the best province from Bulgaria. I am mentioning this in order to protest in advance against the attempts of some Socialist Parties in the belligerent countries that intend continuing in the future their opportunist policy, the policy of the present unhappy division. We have already pointed out that the Roumanian Socialists are able to speak for only a small part of the people of the country, and for a minority only of its town population. They were able, however, to continue their demonstrations in Bucharest as late as February. SPAIN Pablo Iglesias, who is the single Socialist in the Spanish Parliament, gives his views on Spanish neutrality in a Spanish newspaper, as follows: As a member of the Socialist Party, the general union of workers, and the Socialist-Republican Alliance, I am, like them, a partisan of neutrality, and, like them also, consider that Spain ought not to abandon the pacifist position so long as the integrity of her territory is respected. If this integrity should be violated, I think that it would be the duty of every Spaniard to defend it with arms in his hand. Being a partisan of neutrality does not prevent me, as it does not prevent the organizations mentioned, from desiring the triumph of the ideas of liberty and democracy which France and England represent, and, in consequence, the overthrow of Austro-German imperialism. But to shake our country from its neutrality would be a tremendous error amounting to a crime. |