It would be difficult to pack a more dangerous untruth into so few lines. What are the facts? If "Germany" means the bulk of the German people, Mr. Blatchford is perfectly aware that he is not telling the truth. It is not true to say of the bulk of the German people that they are deliberately preparing to destroy the British Empire. The bulk of the German people, if they are represented by any one party at all, are represented by the Social Democrats, who have stood from the first resolutely against any such intention. Now the facts have to be misstated in this way in order to produce that temper which makes for war. If the facts are correctly stated, no such temper arises.
What has a particularly competent German to say to Mr. Blatchford's generalization? Mr. Fried, the editor of Die Friedenswarte, writes:
There is no one German people, no single Germany.... There are more abrupt contrasts between Germans and Germans than between Germans and Indians. Nay, the contradistinctions within Germany are greater than those between Germans and the units of any other foreign nation whatever. It might be possible to make efforts to promote good understanding between Germans and Englishmen, between Germans and Frenchmen, to organize visits between nation and nation; but it will be forever impossible to set on foot any such efforts at an understanding between German Social Democrats and Prussian Junkers, between German Anti-Semites and German Jews.[108]
The disappearance of most international hostility depends upon nothing more intricate than the realization of facts which are little more complex than the geographical knowledge which enables us to see that the anger of the yokel is absurd when he pummels a Frenchman because an Italian has swindled him.
It may be argued that there never has existed in the past this identification between a people and the acts of its Government which rendered the hatred of one country for another logical, yet that hatred has arisen. That is true; but certain new factors have entered recently to modify this problem. One is that never in the history of the world have nations been so complex as they are to-day; and the second is that never before have the dominating interests of mankind so completely cut across State divisions as they do to-day. The third factor is that never before has it been possible, as it is possible by our means of communication to-day, to offset a solidarity of classes and ideas against a presumed State solidarity.
Never at any stage of the world's development has there existed, as exists to-day, the machinery for embodying these interests and class ideas and ideals which cut across frontiers. It is not generally understood how many of our activities have become international. Two great forces have become internationalized: Capital on the one hand, Labor and Socialism on the other.
The Labor and Socialist movements have always been international, and become more so every year. Few considerable strikes take place in any one country without the labor organizations of other countries furnishing help, and very large sums have been contributed by the labor organizations of various countries in this way.
With reference to capital, it may almost be said that it is organized so naturally internationally that formal organization is not necessary. When the Bank of England is in danger, it is the Bank of France which comes automatically to its aid, even in a time of acute political hostility. It has been my good fortune in the last ten years to discuss these matters with financiers on one side and labor leaders on the other, and I have always been particularly struck by the fact that I have found in these two classes precisely the same attitude of internationalization. In no department of human activity is internationalization so complete as in finance. The capitalist has no country, and he knows, if he be of the modern type, that arms and conquests and jugglery with frontiers serve no ends of his, and may very well defeat them. But employers, as apart from capitalists, are also developing a strong international cohesive organization. Among the Berlin despatches in the London Times of April 18, 1910, I find the following concerning a big strike in the building trade, in which nearly a quarter of a million men went out. Quoting a writer in the North German Gazette, the correspondent says:
The writer lays stress upon the efficiency of the employers' arrangements. He says, in particular, that it will probably be possible to extend the lock-out to industries associated with the building industry, especially the cement industry, and that the employers are completing a ring of cartel treaties, which will prevent German workmen from finding employment in neighboring countries, and will insure for German employers all possible support from abroad. It is said that Switzerland and Austria were to conclude treaties yesterday on the same conditions as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and France, and that Belgium and Italy would come in, so that there will be complete co-operation on the part of all Germany's neighbors except Russia. In the circumstances the men's organs rather overlabor the point when they produce elaborate evidence of premeditation. The Vorwärts proves that the employers have long been preparing for "a trial of strength," but that is admitted. The official organ of the employers says, in so many words, that any intervention is useless until "the forces have been measured in open battle."