to furnish a large common body of thought and feeling, interests and aspirations which furnish a “soul” for internationalism.
The main economic conditions affecting the working life of the masses of the peoples, both in town and country, on the one hand, the matter and methods of education through the school, the church, the press upon the other, show features of similarity so much stronger and more numerous than those of difference as to make it a safe assertion that the “peoples” of Europe are far closer akin in actual interests than their governments, and that this common bond is already so strong as to furnish a solid and stable foundation for political federal institutions, if only the obstruction of class governments could be broken down and the real will of the peoples set in the seat of authority. To take the commonest of concrete instances, it is at least probable that the body of the workers in different countries who fight and pay for wars would refuse to fight and pay in the future if they were allowed to understand the real nature of the issues used to inflame them.