they pretend not to have noticed it, or, if they cannot help noticing it, they gravely shrug their shoulders and express their pity for those uneducated and unreasonable men who adopt such an ineffectual silly method, when such a good one exists—namely, to sprinkle salt on the tail of the bird one wishes to catch, i.e., to persuade the governments, who only exist by violence and deceit, to forsake both the one and the other.
They tell us that the misunderstandings which arise between governments will be settled by tribunals or by arbitration. But the governments do not at all desire the settlement of misunderstandings. On the contrary, if there be none they invent some, it being only by such misunderstanding with other governments that they are afforded a pretext for keeping up the army upon which their power is based. Thus the enlightened friends of peace strive to divert the attention of the working, suffering masses from the only method that can deliver them from the slavery in which they are held (from their youth upward), first by patriotism, next by oaths administered by the mercenary priests of a perverted Christianity, and, lastly, by the fear of punishment.
In our days of close and peaceful relations between the people of different nationalities and countries, the deceit called patriotism (which always claims the preeminence of one State or nationality over the rest, and which is therefore
