* *

RESPONSIBILITY RESTS ON THE WHOLE CAPITALIST CLASS.

"Prussian militarism, as we have shown in previous issues, exists, as
all militarism does, to further and protect trade. The furtherance of
that trade meant territorial expansion, which in its turn was a menace
to Britain and her allies. Thus it is that this war, carefully
manoeuvred by the diplomats, is being fought to conserve to one set of
capitalists their right to exploit the peoples, and to check another set
from encroaching upon that right.

"Germany--or rather, the capitalists of Germany, for whom the Kaiser has
always been the "Publicity Agent"--has consistently worked toward the
objective of challenging the right of Britain to a world-wide Empire. To
the German capitalists this war is but the realization of their
philosophy, "Might is Right," and, reckless of human life and suffering,
a European war is to them the way to vaster fields of exploitation and
greater wealth. Their militarism was the machine, and the workers the
cogs of the wheels. British capitalists, on the other hand, determined
to maintain what they hold, forgetful of how it had been obtained, were
thus compelled to take up the cudgels for their own sakes; and here, as
in Germany, the workers are the tools used to save their fortunes and
conserve their rights."--"_The Voice of Labour," October_, 1914.

"And it is not unlikely that the present bloody catastrophe will at last
awaken the people from their indifference. The bitter pain and fearful
suffering will perhaps make a deeper impression than the words of the
revolutionaries. It is possible that the Social Revolution will be the
last act in the present tragedy; possible that murderous militarism will
be drowned in the blood of its numberless victims; that the people of
the different countries will unite against the bloody regime of modern
Capitalism and its institutions, and finally produce a new social
culture upon the basis of free Socialism."--"_Freedom," September 14._

In an American contemporary a quotation is given from an issue of
_Vorwaerts_ which was suppressed by the German Government. It reads:--

"The comrades abroad can be assured that the German working class
disapproves to-day of every piratical policy of State just as it has
always disapproved and that it is determined to resist the predatory
subjugation of foreign peoples as strongly as the circumstances permit.
The comrades in foreign lands can be