originate, as the public is beginning to realise.[1] It is perfectly natural that the ideas of this or that social or political party, in one or other of the belligerent nations, should conflict with the ideas of this or that journal in a neutral land. No one need be surprised that such a neutral journal should openly express its dissent. Vigilant criticism would be equally in place. But it is not permissible that a neutral journal should ignore or distort everything of which it disapproves.
Is it not intolerable, for example, that we should know nothing about the Russian revolution except from news items issued from governmental sources (nonrussian for the most part), or from hostile partisans eager to calumniate all the forward groups? Is it not intolerable that the great Swiss periodicals should never give an open platform to the persons thus vilified, not even in the case of such a man as Maxim Gorki, whose genius and intellectual candour are the glory of European letters? Once more, is it not intolerable that the French socialist minority should be systematically left out of the picture, should be regarded as non-existent by the journals of French-speaking Switzerland? Is it not monstrous that these same journals, during the last three years, have maintained absolute silence concerning the British opposition, or, if they have referred to it at all, have done so in the most contemptuous terms? For we have to remember that those who voice this opposition bear some of the greatest names in British thought, such as Bertrand Russell, Bernard Shaw, Israel Zangwill, Norman Angell, and E. D. Morel; we have to remember that its views find expression in vigorous periodicals, in numerous pamphlets, and in books some of which excel
- ↑ This is shown by the recent establishment and the success of Swiss periodicals which embody a reaction against the tendencies described in the text. Moreover, regrets similar to those voiced above have been repeatedly expressed by Swiss writers of independent mind. I may mention H. Hodler ("La Voix de L'Humanité"); E. Platzhoff-Lejeune ("Coenobium" and the "Revue mensuelle"); Adolphe Ferrière ("Coenobium" for March and April, 1917, in an article entitled The Effect of the Press and of the Censorship in Promoting Mutual Hatred among the Nations).
