It is an old saying that if you only throw enough mud some of it ick. Similarly the Ger-evidently believe if only they repeat often enough that a British battleship and two destroyers—today a third added—were sunk in the North Sea some one will believe them. The amazing effrontery of German lies is sufficiently shown in one of to-day's telegrams. Apart, of course, from the Admiralty report of the North Sea fight, beyond which no further discussion as to facts is necessary, a correspondent to-day reveals the essential absurdity of these latest specimens of German falsity. But the untrue story seems to have done its work in Germany where, we are told, the fight is regarded '"everywhere as one with which Germans can be satisfied." That is all the German Government desires. Has it ever reckoned the reaction that A good deal has been written lately about various leaders of Ger-the present war. ever, has received very little attention, that of Karl Marx. He cannot be accused of any responsibility for the war, nevertheless his theories greatly facilitated the sye tem of militarism against which Europe is fighting. He argued that the iron law of economic necessity grinds the workman down to the bare essentials on which life and strength can be supported. Therefore, he concluded, the means of creating wealth, the mechanism of manufacture, of commerce and of exchange must be placed in the hands of the State. This doctrine captivated the working class of Germany at the very time when Prussia, under the leadership of Bismarck, began to weld Germany together. The working classes were lured into thinking that they could in the end get more out of the State, even though based on militarism, than from the slower and more devious road of non-militarist, decentralized liberty. Accordingly they submitted themselves to the military yoke, not because they admired militarism, but because it promised what Marx had taught them was essential, an extension of State control to industry.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.