SHAM SOCIALISTS AND A CONFERENCE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 14, 16 July 1918, Page 6

SHAM SOCIALISTS AND A CONFERENCE

The renewed advocacy of an International Socialist Conference by Mr. Artnur Henderson, British Labour leader, is one of the most important war events of the day. In order to get down to the bedrock of the issue, it is neces-

sary to consider an international' conference of Socialists from two points of view: (1) As a gathering of men of differing nationalities, but all sound on the question of national freedom; (2) as a gathering of men destitute of any guarantee of soundness on tho question of national freedom. To begin the argument, consider, in the first place, hypothesis No. 1. Such a gathering of men could not fail to condemn, inter alia, Germany's initiation of the war j her law - .less and conscienceless attacks on Belgium and France; and treaties of despoliation like the peace treaties forced upon Russia and Rumania. That condemnation, coming from International Socialists, would have undoubtedly a moral weight; but in practical politics it would weigh little or nothing, because military autocracies like Germany and Austria-Hungary can be overthrown only by military defeat, not by Socialist resolutions. Therefore the sort of International Socialist Conference we have postulated—and it is the best possible sort—would not turn aside the mailed fist, and would only reaffirm moral principles already admitted by everybody except those who are wilfully blind or irreconcilably anarchic. But the sort of International Socialist Conference contemplated by Mr. Arthur Henderson is not of this well-meaning temper at all. Since he evidently means to-include the German Majority Socialists, Mr. Henderson at once places the Conference in category No. 2—a gathering of men destitute of any guarantee of soundness on the question of national freedom. The Gorman Majority Socialists are not only without guarantee of soundness; they are, as a matter of plain fact, self-convicted of unsoundness. They did not oppose—and therefore, in effect, thay supported—the Rumanian peace treaty, a direct breach of the principle of no annexation. Also,' they maintained the same attitude to the Treaty of Brest Litovsk and to the Budgets introduced m the Reichstag, and they have sup-

ported, with little or no criticism, the policy of successive German Governments. Against these facts, Mr. Henderson's statement that the German Majority Socialists- have promised to " accept practically all the general principles " of the war aims of the Allied Socialists, drawn up last February, avails nothing. Surely a German Socialist must be judged by what he actually does in the Reichstag, not by what he promises to advocate at an International Socialist Conference. Therefore the conclusion is irresistible that such a Conference, though branded with Socialism, would not be hall-marked with Freedom. It would embrace cowardly and shameless aiders and abettors of the worst form of militarism, illegality, and inhumanity. No amount of protestation or of whitewashing can cleanse the German Majority Socialists of their fellowship with Prussian militarism and all that it connotes. To this, advocates of the Conference will reply: "Very well. Let the German Majority Socialists come to the Conference, and then let the Conference discredit them by adopting a genuinely Socialistic platform." In the matter of principle, this anticipation may- be realised, But the drafting of a war settlement is • a matter highly complicated, and principle may become side-tracked in the confusion of detail surrounding the questions of Alsace-Lorraine, Italia Irridenta, Poland, the other Russian Slavic States, the Austro-Hungarian Slavs, Finland, Caucasia and Persia, the Balkan States, Asiatic Turkey, the African territories, Germany's Pacific colonies, etc., etc. If the game of negotiation is carried into all these highways and byways, will not a German delegation, acting as the servile agent of the Pan-Germans, be able to do a lot of mischief, especially by working on the feelings of those neutral Socialists who fear to be themselves drawn into the war, and of-those Social-

ists to whom national rights have no meaning .and whoso sole desire is to end tho confliot? On the question of principle, an International Socialist Conference wouW perhaps overrule and discountenance the German Majority- Socialists ; but they in their limi would be destitute oE tho German genius if they did not, in process of contention, leave their evil impress deep upoft the \rork of the Coiileveuee. This is the dajig^r Ui*i

attends any attempt to confer in an altruistic -way with acknowledged tools of tho German Government. Germany would be placed in a position to make capital out of any favourable points the Conference might register for her, and would be utterly unbound by anything she did not approve. And this menace would not be removed if the Conference were to abstain, as Mr. Henderson suggests, from binding decision's. It would still be a cross-purpose debate between people who, because of their common designation as Socialists, would be presumed to stand upon a common ground of political freedom; and yet* that presumption, so far as it concerns the German Majority Socialists, is utterly untenable. ft