s burdens cannot be borne for
ever, and even to-day the nations are collapsing under them. Modern
conditions are unbearable; out of them spring ever-increasing armaments,
and at last a time will come when war must break out, because the state
of modern armed peace will one day have become impossible."

Another authoritative pronouncement from the report[63] of the Social
Democratic Congress in Erfurt, 1891, deserves mention. It is a passage
from a speech delivered by the elder Liebknecht in the Reichstag: "As
regards the defence of the Fatherland all parties will be united when it
is necessary to meet an outside enemy. In that moment no party will
shirk its duty."

[Footnote 63: "Protokoll ueber die Verhandlungen des Parteitags der Soz.
Dem. Partei Deutschlands zu Erfurt, 1891."]

This is an instance of what Germans call _Rueckversicherung_, or a
covering insurance. Having pledged themselves never to leave the
Fatherland in the lurch--and the pledge was repeated on many
occasions--they were free to babble to French, English and Italian
Socialists about the blessings of internationalism, general strikes, and
eternal peace. But there is no single instance on record to show that
German Socialists considered any other benefits of internationalism,
except those which served the purposes of their own nationalism.

At Halle, 1890, Liebknecht said: "These ideas are indisputably correct.
Nobody,[64] no matter how enthusiastic he may be for the international
cause, will dare to maintain that we have no national duties. National
and international are not opposing principles. The word 'national' must
be rightly understood. It includes only a certain, limited portion of
international humanity. The part belongs to the whole, and international
merely means going beyond the boundary-posts of the nation, the narrower
limits of the native land; to extend one's horizon to include the whole;
to consider humanity as one family and the world as a home."

[Footnote 64: Liebknecht was wrong. There are dupes who hold that their
international obligations come before their national duties, and
unfortunately in the ranks of these traitors, English M.P.'s may be
found, who receive L400 per annum from the British State, presumably to
aid them in injuring the British cause.]

The error into which British Socialists have fallen--or been led--is
their attitude towards militarism. German Democrats have never denounced
the bearing of arms; they hav