ties for combination which render possible and even easy the solution of many problems.

BERNARD SHAW

Shaw's views, on the whole, seem more nearly to resemble Bernstein's than Kautsky's. On the subject of Belgian indemnity he is almost pro-German.

He feels the danger that peace may be postponed if a large indemnity is asked for Belgium, and proposes to compromise. He demands an indemnity for property destroyed in Belgium, but claims that lives destroyed cannot be paid for. This overlooks widows and orphans and disabled people, for whom financial assistance is a very important consideration indeed-as we see in the British Socialists' demands for soldiers in the following section. And a double indemnity covering both life and property would undoubtedly be a colossal one.

Shaw's central argument-in asking President Wilson to demand the evacuation of Belgium by Germany (and the Allies)—was that "there was no such case of overwhelming necessity as would have made the denial of a right of way to the German army equivalent to a refusal to save German independence from destruction, and therefore to an act of war against her, justifying a German conquest of Belgium."

Shaw, the humanitarian, is chiefly concerned with the redemption of Belgium from the German occupation, and believes that a settlement may be accepted by the Allies on that basis:

It is by no means a foregone conclusion that a blank refusal would be persisted in. Germany must be aware that the honor of England is now so bound up with the complete redemption of Belgium from the German occupation that to keep Antwerp and Brussels she must take Portsmouth and, London. France is no less deeply engaged. You [President

Wilson] can judge better than I what chance Germany now has, or can persuade herself she has, of exhausting or overwhelming her western enemies without ruining herself in the attempt.

In the following passages, in attacking vindictive indemnities, Shaw makes no exception for Belgium's widows, orphans, and invalids.

The blackmail levied recently by the Prussian generals on the Belgian and French towns they have occupied must, I suppose, be let pass as ransom, not as ordinary criminal looting. But if the penalty of looting be thus spared, the Germans can hardly complain if they are themselves held to ransom when the fortunes of war go against them. Liège and Lille and Antwerp and the rest must be paid their money back with interest; and there will be a big builder's bill at Rheims. But we should ourselves refrain strictly from blackmail. We should sell neither our blood nor our If we sell either we are as much brigands as

mercy. Blucher.

And we must not let ourselves be tempted to soil our hands under pretext of vindictive damages. The man who thinks that all the money in Germany could pay for the life of a single British drummer boy ought to be shot merely as an expression of the feeling that he is unfit to live. stake our blood as the Germans stake theirs.

We

There could be no greater contrast than that between the views of Kautsky and Shaw as to Russia. Kautsky believes the war, if long continued, will establish democracy there either from above or from below and that Germany's democracy will come largely from democratic Russia (see Chapter XIX). Shaw believes that neither liberalism nor democracy is to be expected in Russia.

Shaw here expresses a widespread Socialist view. A large majority of Continental Socialists, however, disagree with his view as to the hopelessness of a Russian

revolution; on the contrary, they confidently expect one. Shaw writes as follows:

When all is said that can be said for Russia, the fact remains that a forcibly Russianized German province would be just such another open sore in Europe as Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, Macedonia, or Ireland. It is useless to dream of guarantees: if Russia undertook to govern democratically she would not be able to redeem her promise: she would do better with primitive Communism. Her city populations may be as capable of democracy as our own (it is, alas! not saying much); but the overwhelming mass of peasants to whom the Czar is a personal god will for a long time to come make his bureaucracy irresistible. As against Russian civilization German and Austrian civilization is our civilization: there is no getting over that. A constitutional kingship of Poland and a sort of caliphate of the Slavs in remapped southeastern Europe, with that access to warm sea water which is Russia's common human right, valid against all balances of power and keys to India and the like, must be her reward for her share in the war, even if we have to nationalize Constantinople to secure it to her. . . . Until Russia becomes a federation of several separate democratic states, and the Czar is either promoted to the honorable position of hereditary President or else totally abolished, the eastern boundary of the League of Peace must be the eastern boundary of Swedish, German, and Italian civilization. . . . Meanwhile, we must trust to the march of democracy to de-Russianize Berlin and de-Prussianize Petrograd.

The conclusion is that the Russian danger is such as to demand the earliest possible conclusion of the war.

As to the possible effect of the war in furthering the progress of the democracy Kautsky said, in his first article after the war, that he had great hopes but could not speak because of the censorship. Shaw takes advantage of the absence of any such political censorship in England to argue that a democratization of governments should be demanded at the peace negotiations. This is a distinct addition to the Kautsky policy, since

it regards democratization as an item of the immediate peace programme:

The simplest solution would be to take the sooner or later inevitable step into the democratic republican form of government to which Europe is visibly tending. Or, continues Shaw, a democratic monarchy, such as that of England or of Holland, is a fairly acceptable working substitute for a formal republic in old civilizations with inveterate monarchical traditions, absurd as it is in new and essentially democratic states. At any rate, it is conceivable that the western Allies might demand the introduction of some such political constitution in Germany and Austria as a guarantee; for though the demand would not please Russia, some of Russia's demands will not please us; and there must be some give and take in the business:

"Let us consider this possibility for a moment. First, it must be firmly postulated that civilized nations cannot have their political constitutions imposed on them from without if the object of the arrangement is peace and stability. . . Nevertheless, we need not go to the opposite extreme and conclude that a political constitution must fit a country so accurately that it must be home-made to measure. . . . It is therefore quite possible that a reach-me-down constitution proposed, not by the conquerors, but by an international congress with no interest to serve but the interests of peace, might prove acceptable enough to a nation thoroughly disgusted with its tyrants." (See Note 2, p. 478.)

THE PEACE PROGRAMME OF THE INDEPENDENT LABOR PARTY

The British Independent Labor Party, in formulating its peace policy, says nothing about indemnities either for Belgium or for France, though its demand for autonomy for subject races, as a part of the terms, would mean the partial or complete liberation of AlsaceLorraine, and perhaps of Prussian Poland and a part of Schleswig-Holstein, measures which would meet with even more vigorous resistance from the German Government and a part of the German Socialists than would

the most colossal Belgian indemnity. Here is the I. L. P. programme (as given by the Labor Leader):

(1) Frontiers should represent nationalities and should be determined not by military conquests, but by the natural divisions of race, religion, language, and custom.

(2) Subject peoples should be granted self-government and should be allowed to decide by plebiscite whether they desire to be under the suzerainty of any Power.

(3) The policy of the balance of power by which the nations of Europe have been divided into antagonistic camps should be superseded by a League of Europe, of which all nations should be members and uniting whom there should be an international body to judge all quarrels and differences.

(4) The constitution of each nation should be democratized. The people should be given full control of the legislature, and women's claim to citizenship should be recognized. Secret diplomacy should be entirely abolished and foreign policy placed under the jurisdiction of parliament.

(5) The armament industries of the different nations should be taken out of private hands and placed under state control, so that syndicates may no longer be tempted to exploit national jealousies for profit.

(6) The ideal towards which we should move is a United States of Europe in which national armies and navies are replaced by an international police force.

This programme differs from Kautsky's by its demand for the democratization of governments as a feature of the coming peace-though there is no reason to suppose that Kautsky or the radical wing of the Germans would object to this. The nationalization of armament industries would probably be favored by all Socialists— though many consider it of secondary importance. Points 3 and 4 would probably be objected to by Kautsky and his group, but only because they would hold them to be impracticable. They also want a League or a United States of Europe, but they say Socialism is and always has been based on economic principles,