m all parts of Europe, comes an
abundance of news, evidence, printed matter.

Yet the Swiss press makes little use of this abundance. With few
exceptions, Swiss periodicals are content to reproduce the official
bulletins from the armies, and the semi-official statements issued by
agencies that are open to suspicion, statements inspired by the
governments or by the occult forces which to-day have far more governing
power than the nominal heads of governments. Rarely do we find that the
Swiss papers subject these interested statements to critical discussion.
Hardly ever do we find contrasted views; hardly ever are we enabled to
listen to independent voices from the opposing trenches.[17] Thus
official truth, dictated by the powers that be, is imposed upon the
masses with the potency of a dogma. Thought concerning the war has a
catholicity which will not permit heresy to exist. Such a development is
strange in Switzerland, and above all in this republic of Geneva, whose
historic origins and whose reasons for existence were free opposition
and fertilising heresy.

I do not propose to study the psychological causes of the suppression of
thoughts which conflict with official dogma. I am inclined to think that
partisan feeling is of less effect in this matter than, in some,
ignorance of the facts and lack of critical faculty, and in others,
really well-informed persons, failure to verify alleged facts, or an
unwillingness to correct the errors of an overwrought public
opinion--errors which, quite unknown to themselves, they really desire
to believe. It is easier, and at the same time it is safer, to rest
content with the news supplied from house to house by the great
purveyors, rather than put oneself to the pains of going to the fountain
head in order to revise or to supplement current information.

These errors and these lacunae are serious, however they originate, as
the public is beginning to realise.[18] 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 Russ