They are now looking
across the Atlantic for leadership. In France M. Albert Thomas declared
that Woodrow Wilson had given voice to the aspirations of his party,
while a prominent Liberal in England announced in a speech that it had
remained for the American President to express the will and purpose of
the British people. The new British Labour Party and the Inter-Allied
Labour and Socialist Conferences have adopted Mr. Wilson's program and
have made use of his striking phrases. But we have between America and
Britain this difference: in America the President stands virtually alone,
without a party behind him representing his views; in Britain the general
democratic will of the nation is now being organized, but has obtained as
yet no spokesman in the government.
Extraordinary symptomatic phenomena have occurred in Russia as well as in
Britain. In Russia the rebellion of an awakening people against an
age-long tyranny has almost at once leaped to the issue of the day, taken
on the complexion of a struggle for industrial democracy. Whether the
Germans shall be able to exploit the country, bring about a reaction and
restore for a time monarchical institutions depends largely upon the
fortunes of the war. In Russia there is revolution, with concomitant
chaos; but in Britain there is evolution, an orderly attempt of a people
long accustomed to progress in self-government to establish a new social
order, peacefully and scientifically, and in accordance with a
traditional political procedure.
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