78 HOW TO PAY FOR THE WAR

centrate all their strength and activity in theservice of the French community without whichthey would be nothing. It would be vain and evencriminal to conceal the fact that Germany 'smaterial power is one of the most formidable inthe world. The issue at stake is not merely theexistence of the nation, but our whole conceptionof life. . . . To-day it is to the France behindthe lines that I wish to speak. I wish to speakto it with candour and even brutality. ... Itis essential, in a word, that those of the interiorsucceed in making themselves respected by thoseat the front through work, renunciation anddiscipline." And in conclusion he summed upGerman propaganda which speaks like Satan, asfollows: "It says to the wealthy, 'You are goingto lose your money.' It says to the worker, ' Thiswar is the war of the wealthy.' It says to theintellectual and the artist, 'All that you love isthreatened by destruction.' It says to him wholoves the goods of this world, ' A few months moreand you will have to accept painful restriction'.It says to the believer, ' How can your faith acceptthis massacre ?' Finally it says to the adventurer,' A man like you can make something out of yourcountry's misfortunes.'"

It is well to conclude this pamphlet with theseeloquent words of the leader of a nation at war—even if it makes the careful humanitarian argu-ments and apologetically mild proposals of theprevious pages sound pitiful and weak.