Page:Above the battle.djvu/131

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For Europe (Holland)

energy, lack of penetration to the mass of the people. The problem is to discover if this internal defect cannot be remedied. "Will the world-wide tragedy of rivalry continue even inside the pacifist movement, or will this war teach those who are fighting against it the necessity of an energetic organization and preparation?"

To this task the N.A.O.R. is devoting itself. Founded on October 8, 1914, it had succeeded by January 15th in securing the adhesion of 350 Dutch societies (official, political, of all parties, religious, intellectual, labour), and its manifestoes brought together the signatures of more than a hundred of the most illustrious names of the Netherlands—statesmen, prelates, officers, writers, professors, artists, business men, etc. It therefore represents a considerable moral force.

Let it be said at once that the N.A.O.R. does not look for an immediate end of the war by a peace at any price. On the one hand, it declares itself "it has formed no presumptuous idea of its strength; it has no naïve confidence in vague peace formulæ, nor even in well-defined mutual obligations. The universal war of to-day has, alas! taught it much in this respect also." And, moreover, it is quite aware that a peace at any price, under present conditions, would only be a conse-

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