BELGIAN SOCIALIST’S VIEWS

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 6 September 1917, Page 5

BELGIAN SOCIALIST’S VIEWS

The attitude of the Belgian Socialists towards the Stockholm Conference was recently stated by M. Yandervelde and M. de Brouckere, the delegates to the Conference. “The war apjmars to us to be less a Avar betAveen peoples than a struggle, probably decisive, betAveen tAvo political principles?’ ’ they stated. “It is in this sense that it has justly been called civil AA-ar Avithin the society of nations. The Ruslan Revolution and of nations. The Russian Revolution and had the effect of ranging on one side all the free nations, and on the other hand almost entirely isolated—the last three semi-feudal, semi-absolute PoAvers namely, the Empire of the German Emperor, that of the sovereign of Austro-Hungary, arid that of the Grand Turk. German Imperialism has been to carry out its plan, thanks to a popular passivity AA'hich Avould have been inconceivable in any other country. Attack and invasion have placed upon us the burden of the most crushing of tyrannies—the German military tyranny. Belgian socialism has not for one moment believed that it ought to boAv befoie external oppression when our villages AA-ere burnt, our women insulted, and our dearly-acquired liberties brutally oppressed. It has not admitted that it was ‘a simpe bourgeoise quarrel Avhich ought to leaA r e the proletariat indifferent. ’ If it had abandoned the struggle under the pretence that the soldiers of William II were too numerous and his guns too powerful, it Avould have been dishonoured in its oaaii oa es. at lias ncA 7 cr reckoned coAvardice among revolutionary virtues'? Defence against aggressive Imperialism implies for us something more than the mere repulse of the invader. The destruction of German Imperialism might have been the business of the Germans alone, if their Iperialism had stayed at home; but it crossed our frontiers, and we want to break the power of our tyrant. Our desire is as legitimate as that of the Russians, who haA-e broken the poAver of their tyrant, and the fact that our tyrant is enthroned at Berlin is not sufficient reason for changing our opinion.”