be betrayed the moment his back
is turned to his fellow-citizens and his face to the foe, is not
patriotism: it is the paralysis of mortal funk: it is the worst kind of
cowardice in the face of the enemy. Let us hear no more of it, but
contest our elections like men, and regain the ancient political
prestige of England at home as our expeditionary force has regained it
abroad.

The Labour Party, then, need have no hesitation in raising all the
standing controversies between Democracy and Junkerism in their acutest
form, and taking advantage of the war emergency to press them to a
series of parliamentary victories for Labour, whether in negotiations
with the Government whips, in divisions on the floor of the House, or in
strenuously contested bye-elections. No doubt our Junkers will try to
disarm their opponents by representing that it would be in the last
degree unfair, un-English, and ungentlemanly on the part of the Labour
members to seize any tactical advantage in parliamentary warfare, and
most treacherous and unpatriotic to attack their country (meaning the
Junker Party) when it is at war. Some Labour members will be easily
enough gulled in this way: it would be laughable, if the consequences
were not so tragic, to see how our parliamentary beginners from the
working class succumb to the charm of the Junker appeal. The Junkers
themselves are not to be coaxed in this manner: it is no use offering
tracts to a missionary, as the poor Kaiser found when he tried it on.
The Labour Party will soon learn the value of these polite
demonstrations that it is always its duty not to hamper the governing
classes in their very difficult and delicate and dangerous task of
safeguarding the interests of this great empire: in short, to let itself
be gammoned by elegant phrases and by adroit practisings on its personal
good-nature, its inveterate proletarian sentimentality, and its secret
misgivings as to the correctness of its manners. The Junkers have
already taken the fullest advantage of the war to paralyze democracy. If
the Labour members do not take a vigorous counter-offensive, and fight
every parliamentary trench to the last division, the Labour Movement
will be rushed back as precipitately as General von Kluck rushed the
Allies back from Namur to the gates of Paris. In truth, the importance
of the war to the immense majority of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Germans
lies in the possibility that when Junkers fall out common men ma