CHAPTER XXII.
The Great Combine.
"Your war has ended at last," said Wilbrid, after a long pause. "Ours is but beginning; and our conquest will not be limited by an empire's boundaries, or even by those of a continent. It will embrace the earth." Having spoken he turned to the window and peered at the blood-red sunset contemplatively.
I surveyed his tall, spare figure, his steel grey hair and sharply-cut features, the latter pinked by the evening glow.
Here is a new Kaiser, I thought.
"You said a 'world conquest,'" I remarked to him. "Don't you think the days have gone when persons should 'talk big'? The great war should henceforth limit the ambitions of those who dream of world's dominion by conquest."
"Do not misunderstand me," he said. "We shall conquer the world because of the human appeal of our creed. Its basis is that the strength of a nation lies in the welfare of its producers—the working class, and not in its mighty armaments or individual wealth. There is not an atom of national strength in the accumulation of much money by any individual. Where wealth is in the hands of the few, misery stalks among the many; and, where the masses are ill-fed and hopeless, moral and physical strength cannot exist."
Then he walked from the window to his desk and back again; his arms still behind him, flinging his phrases at us as he passed to and fro.
"Great things can only be achieved by combination," he went on. "The victory of the Allies is proof of that. We are going to combine all workers, and, in order to make our combination supreme, we will not only organise those at work, but, also, those out of work. It is going to be a combination of all who can labor," he snapped out.