Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/253

 we live it is otherwise. Nothing is entirely exempt from some mixture of its opposite. But in politics, so in all other domains of action, we must find out the leading characteristics without dwelling on the exceptions.

France of the Revolution, France whose effort to bring to triumph the cause of arbitration has been shown on every page of her International Annals, France who in August 1914 withdrew her troops to 10 kilometres from the frontiers and exposed her country to invasion to avoid even the appearance of provocation, is she less France because some financiers endeavoured to compromise her in Morocco?

Britain, who was arranging her naval vacations, who endeavoured with an energy and zeal unequal to the task to turn aside the catastrophe and find a juridicial solution to the conflict, is she less the old and strong democracy that has set so powerful an example to the world because a handful of landlords have