people have made which we do not like. In all states, we
can show our disapproval of what our law-makers have done by voting
against them at the next election. Such is the government of a
republic, a "government of the people, by the people, and for the
people," as Abraham Lincoln called it. In the leading British
colonies, the people rule. Australian citizens voted against forcing
men to serve in the army. The result was very close and the vote of
the women helped to decide it. Canada, on the contrary, voted to
compel her men to go. How is it in Europe? Have the people of Germany
or Austria the right to vote on war? Were they consulted before their
governments called them to arms and sent them to fight each other? It
is plain that in order to understand what this war is about, we must
look into the story of how the different governments of Europe came to
be and learn why their peoples obey them so unquestioningly.

We must remember that government by the people is a very new thing.
One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United States only about
one-fourth of the men had the right to vote. These were citizens of
property and wealth. They did not think a poor man was worth
considering. In England, a country which allows its people more voice
in the government than almost any other nation in Europe, it is only
within the last thirty years that all men could vote. There are some
European countries, like Turkey, where the people have practically no
power at all and others, like Austria, where they have very little
voice in how they shall be governed.

For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without
thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up their
weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known nothing of
the causes of the conflict or of what they were fighting for. A famous
English writer has written a poem which illustrates how little the
average citizen has ever known concerning the cause of war, and shows
the difference between the way in which war was looked upon by the men
of old and the way in which one should regard it. The poem runs as
follows:

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM

It was a summer evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
In playing the