Page:Patriotismchrist00tols.djvu/33

Rh One of them represented the class fed and maintained by the people's labour, who in return use up that people as "food for powder"; while the other was that very "food for powder" which feeds and maintains those who afterwards so dispose of it.

"But France has lost two provinces—children torn from a beloved mother. And Russia cannot permit Germany to make laws for her and rob her of her historical mission in the East, nor risk the chance of losing, like France, her Baltic provinces, Poland, or the Caucasus.

"And Germany cannot hear of the loss of those advantages which she has won at such a sacrifice. And England will yield to none her naval supremacy."

After such words it is generally supposed that a Frenchman, Russian, German, or Englishman should be ready to sacrifice anything, to regain his lost provinces, establish his influence in the East, secure national unity, or keep his control of the seas.

It is assumed that patriotism is, to start with, a sentiment natural to all men, and that secondly, it is so highly moral a sentiment that it should be induced in all who have it not.

But neither is one nor the other true. I have lived half-a-century amid the Russian people, and in the great mass of labourers, during that period, I have never once seen nor heard any manifestation or expression of this sentiment cf patriotism, unless one should count those patriotic phrases which are learned by heart in the army, and repeated from books by the more superficial and degraded of the populace. I have never heard from the people any expression of patriotism, but, on the contrary, I have often listened to expressions of indifference, and even contempt, for any kind of patriotism, by the most venerable and serious of working folk. I have observed the same thing amongst the labouring classes of other nations, and have received confirmation from educated Frenchmen, Germans and Englishmen, from observation of their respective working classes.

The working classes are too much occupied supporting the lives of themselves and of their families, which duty engrosses all their attention, to be able to take an interest in those political questions which are the chief motives of patriotism.

Questions as to the influence of Russia in the East, the unity of