It only requires a meeting of the International of | Labor for Peace to become a definite challenge to all | the Governments. Despite all the weapons employed by | the War Cabinets of Europe to frustrate working-class | agreement on a common basis of peace, that agreement has | been reached. The news is to hand that the memorandum | on war aims adopted by the third Inter-Allied Labor and | Socialist Conference held in London in February of this | year, has been substantially accepted by the Labor and | Socialist organisations of Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, | and both the Minority and Majority Sections of the | German movement. There is now established a common | ground upon which Universal Labor can proceed to end the | war.
|It is clear that relentless opposition is being | overcome for the hope of peace to have reached the stage | when an International Conference becomes possible. At | the end of May Branting, the Swedish Socialist leader | announced that six registered copies of the Entente's | Labor manifesto, addressed to German Socialist leaders, | were intercepted in Germany, and that all references to | the manifesto were suppressed rigorously. None the less | copies of the manifesto did reach the parties they were | intended for. Proof of this is furnished by the fact | that a reply was drawn up and entrusted to M. Troelstra, | the Dutch Socialist leader, to present to the British | Labor Conference held three weeks ago. The Lloyd-George | Government refused to allow Troelstra to land with the | document. Thus do the Governments frown on the | peacemakers. The truth is that the memorandum of war | aims formulated by Labor offers a peace policy which | only capitalists and trade hagglers can object to. That | there is nothing dividing the German Socialists from | Socialists anywhere is at last tocsined to the world. | The minority group in Germany, which consists of those | who have fought the war credits and the junkers from the | start, are ready to take part in an international | Socialist conversation on the basis of the proposals | which the neutral Stockholm Conference had drawn up. | They also accept practically all the general principles | of the Inter-Allied memorandum, and are ready to discuss | the responsibility for the war, though they do not | believe that any good will result from such a | discussion. In addition to this clear pronouncement we | have now the expressed agreement of the German majority | Socialists to discuss the question of Alsace-Lorraine, | believing that an amicable solution is possible. They | agree to the necessity of a complete restoration of | Belgium's independence, and declare that a league of | nations is necessary to destroy imperialism and prevent | aggression.
| This gives entire concurrence to the main principle
| of the Allied Conference proposition which demands
|
|
It
| is understandable that no caste of rulers would
| enthusiastically welcome peace postulating a new world
| on the Socialist basis. Almost simultaneously with the
| declaration of Mr Henderson that facilities should now
| be given for holding an international Socialist
| Conference comes the revival of the stupid
| Hughes-Carson-Northcliffe propaganda for a trade war
| after the war. How far this is in entire opposition to
| the proposals of Labor may be easily seen. The memorandum
| to which there is now given general adherence is clear
| in respect to this as well as territorial issues. It
| demands the establishment of a League of Nations, and
| deduces from that the main principles of the territorial
| settlement, as well as the absolute exclusion of any
| economic war after the war. It is further asserted in
| the document that, after the war, international
| arrangements ought to be made for distributing the
| world's supply of raw materials to all countries
| according to their needs. The gospel as preached by the
|
For these basic principles Labor stands. It makes | proclamation that they are the essence of a people's | peace. Any men who anywhere oppose their propagation or | adoption or who make it appear that the war must be | fought on until other ends are attained are out of step | with Labor. They cannot expect either Labor support or | participation in their programme. Labor is not only | hostile to the militarists of Prussia, it is opposed to | the militarists everywhere. There has been strong | complaint that the negotiations of secret treaties; the | entanglements in regard to territories and peoples; the | bellicose threats of post-war economic isolation, to say | nothing of the incidence of the "bitter-end" have gone | far towards naming the European solidarity of Labor | extremely difficult. The alignment of the democracy | upon the general formulae of "no annexations and no | indemnities" has been so far absolutely prevented by the | preposterous imperialist projects which the Governments | committed their populations to.
|From now on the momentum of the peace movement will | gather force. There is in every belligerent country a | definite challenge to the old diplomacy and the | yearnings after dominion by States, or even by peoples, | which brought Europe inevitably to the present | catastrophe. What is now, in effect, a united Socialist | declaration, declares it the duty of the workers | everywhere to suppress without hesitation the | imperialist designs which have led one government after | another to seek, by the triumph of sheer military | superiority, the kind of world in which it would be a | dominant factor.
| It is these principles and policy which the
| Australian Labor Congress subscribed to. There is no
| radical difference dividing the organised workers of the
| world in respect to peace terms. What has to be done is
| to enable the International Conference