BELGIAN SOCIALIST VIEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1756, 6 September 1917, Page 2

BELGIAN SOCIALIST VIEWS.

THE attitude of Belgian Socialists towards the Stockholm Conference was recently stated by M. Wandervilde and M. Ode Brouckore, the delegates to the conference. “The Avar appears to us to bo less a Avar between peoples than a struggle, probably decisive, betAvcen (wo political principles/ 7 they stated. “It is in this sense that it has been justly called civil Avar Avithin the society of nations. The Russian Revolution and the entry of the United States have had the effect of ranging on one side all the free nations, and on the other hand —almost entirely isolated —the last three semifeudal, semi - absolute PoAvers, namely, the Empire of the German Emperor, that of the Sovereign of Austria-Hungary, and that of the

Grand Turk. German Imperialism has been able to carry out its plan, thanks to a popular passivity Avhich Avould have been inconceivable in any other country. Attack and invasion have placed upon us the burden of the most crushing of tyrannies—(he German military tyranny Belgian Socialism hits not for one moment believed that it ought to lioav before external oppression Ayhen our villages were burnt, our women insulted, and our dearly- acquired liberties brutally oppressed. It hits not admitted that it av;is ‘a simple bourgeois quarrel Avhich ought to leave the proletariat indifferent.’ If it. laid abandoned the struggle under Hie pretence that the soldiers of William 11. Avcre too numerous and his guns too poAverfnl, it would have been dishonoured in its own eyes. It hits never reckoned cowardice among revolutionary virtues. Defence against aggressive Imperialism implies for us nothing more than the mere repulse of the invader. The destruction of German Imperialism might have been (he business of the Germans alotte, if their Imperialism had stayed at home; but it crossed our frontiers, and we Avant to break the poAver of our tyrant. Our desire is as legitimate as that of the Russians, avlio have broken the poAver of their tyrant, and the fact that our tyrant is enthroned at Berlin is not sufficient reason for changing our opinion.”