men's passions, raises preblems and suggests solutions which are so many   
more problems, disseminates hatred, sows terror, and by spreading false   
news and half-truths creates an atmosphere of war, with the purpose in   
some cases certainly of solving internal problems, but in others with no   
         purpose apparently but that of war itself.         
 
                                                            
 
 
These practices and excesses have given rise to a great evil  
in Europe, an evil aggravated by the visible decay of moral sensibility,   
the evil of distrust. Statements, guarantees, promises, agreements,   
except in the rare cases when they are clearly based in mutual interests   
or in friendship of long standing, are not believed in by others because   
it is sufficiently clear that the interested parties themselves do not   
believe in them. On more than one occasion a conflict between immediate   
interests and standing obligations has ended in the victory of the former   
and the sacrifice of morality. As a crowning instance, during the Spanish   
tragedy, blindly or with deluded minds, we have sufficiently shown that we   
could not distinguish between truth and error, virtue and vice, political   
ideals and a criminal mentality, surely a deplorable attitude in those who   
           claim to set an example to the world.            
 
                                                            
 
 
Europe as she is to-day, by virtue of her geographical position and long   
historical evolution, cannot by herself and in herself solve the   
fundamental problems of her life and culture;  she needs the assistance of   
other regions, of the world.    Sovereignties may be displaced (an event   
practically limited to unsettled countries and peoples), populations may   
be butchered; but peoples, races, nations, their energies and desire for   
independence, when independence is justified by an advanced state of   
social life, these cannot be destroyed. The help of Africa is not enough,   
Africa which Europe dominates to such an extent that it has become   
customary to solve African problems in Europe; she requires the   
assitance of Asia, where her dominion is but partial, and of America,   
          where her dominion has entirely ceased.           
 
                                                            
 
 
War may or may not, many think that it will, overthrow the   
institutions of Europe and destroy her civilization and culture; but it   
will certainly ruin her economically. . . . . . . . . The senseless   
expenditure . . . for war, mutually imposed or provoked by the nations of   
Europe, is the main cause of the restrictions on her life, of her   
financial crises, bankruptcies, debased and unstable currencies, in a   
word, of her failure to meet her liabilities and engagements, so that, at   
the very time when co-operation is most essential, she is condemned to   
                         isolation.                         
 
                                                            
 
 
It would appear that the great force of social and political