Page:The forerunners.djvu/76

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
74
THE FORERUNNERS

a frankly internationalist article by Jules Humbert-Droz entitled National Defence. Special mention must be made of a broad-minded lecture, Socialism and the War, delivered in February, 1917, by Ernest Gloor of Lausanne at the spring festival in Yverdon, and published in the "Centralblatt" for April and May. I must also refer to Gloor's lecture What is our Country?, delivered at Grütli in the canton of Lausanne. Another noteworthy lecture is that of Serge Bonhôte, delivered at Grütli in the canton of Neuchâtel, entitled Fatherland, and heralding the days to come. These lectures were respectively published in December, 1916, and January, 1917. I should have liked to give extracts from various appreciative articles upon The Russian Revolution. Above all, I should like to quote, from the April issue, Max Gerber's enthusiastic welcome to the revolution. But space is limited, and the best way of expounding the ideas of these young people will be to summarise a detailed discussion in which they have recently been engaged concerning The Imperialism of the Great Powers and the Role of Switzerland. The topic was suggested to the sections by Julius Schmidhauser of Zurich, "cand. jur.," president of the central section. Schmidhauser has edited the report of these discussions, bringing to the task a broad and tolerant synthetic spirit. The work is all the more remarkable seeing that it was penned during an arduous term of military service, when the man who signs himself "cand. jur." (law student) was playing the part of infantry lieutenant.

I shall merely follow his report, and shall allow the young men to speak for themselves. (Issues of March, April, and May, 1917).

The discussion comprises a preamble and six parts:

Preamble: How shall we envisage the Problem?
I. The Essence of Imperialism;
II. The Imperialism of the Great Powers to-day;
III. Can Imperialism be Justified?
IV. Opposition between the genuinely Swiss Outlook and the Imperialist Outlook.