in London and inspired by indignation against this European war, and by the firm determination to render it impossible for the diplomatists and militarists to inaugurate another. I am having the programmes and the first publications sent you.[1] This Union, whose general committee contains members of Parliament, and authors like Norman Angell and Israel Zangwill, has already got twenty branches in towns in Great Britain.
Let us try and unite permanently all such organizations, though each has its racial characteristics and peculiarities, for all aim at re-establishing the peace of Europe as best they may. With them let us take stock of our united resources. Then we can act.
What shall we do? Try to put an end to the struggle? It is no use thinking of that now. The brute is loose; and the governments have succeeded so well spreading hatred and violence abroad that even if they wished they could not bring it back again into control. The damage is irreparable. It is possible that the neutral countries of Europe and the United States of America may decide one day to interfere, and endeavour to put an end to a war which, if it continued indefinitely, would threaten to ruin them as well as the belligerents. But I do not know what one must expect from this too tardy intervention.
In any case I see another outlet for our activity. We cannot prevent now this war being what it is, but at least we must try to make the scourge productive of as little evil and as much good as possible. And in order to do this we must get public opinion all the world over to see to it that the peace of the future shall be just, that the greed of the conqueror (whoever it may be) and the intrigues of diplomacy, do not make it the seed of a new war of revenge; and that the moral crimes committed in the past are not repeated or allowed to stain yet darker the record of humanity. That is why I hold the first article of the “Union of Democratic Control” as a sacred principle:—“No Province shall be
- ↑ No. I., The Morrow of the War, explaining the Policy of the Union. No. II., Shall this War end German Militarism? by Norman Angell. No. III., War—The Offspring of Fear, by Hon. Bertrand Russell. No. IV., The Origins of the Great War, by H. N. Brailsford. No. V., Parliament and Foreign Policy, by Arthur Ponsonby, M.P. No. VI. The National Policy as set forth by Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, etc. Price one penny each from the U.D.C., 37, Norfolk Street, Strand, W.C.
