Editorial: Birds of a Feather
It is an old saying—”Birds of a feather flock together.” It is also a true one—which is more than can be said for many old sayings. So it causes not the least surprise to find the Constitutional monarch of “free and enlightened” England hobnobbing with the frowning lump of crowned conceit of Germany, and the neurotic butcher of Russia. The capitalist newspapers, which spoil our breakfasts by presenting to us these ugly “royal” portraits, like snapshots in the chamber of horrors, make it their business to pretend that these foregatherings of the vultures-in-chief are of immense value in furthering peace and in “drawing the nations together.”
The truth is, however, that these occasions are seized upon and made the most of—given the utmost prominence an unscrupulous and prostitute Press can give—for exactly the opposite purpose to that which is pretended.
These ghouls fear nothing so much as the drawing together of the people of the nations. They are well enough aware that when it dawns upon the workers of the world that their interests are everywhere identical—the first great step in the realisation of international working-class unity—they will have learnt also that everywhere those interests are opposed to those of the master class, and then the reign of working-class robbery will be very near its close.
For this reason alone our capitalist rulers so jealously maintain their kings and emperors. They are valuable as instruments for preserving that spirit of nationalism which is such a barrier to the spread of class consciousness among the workers, and therefore to the true “drawing together” of the nations.
It is quite obvious, to those who understand all this, what object our masters’ newspapers have in trying to convince us that international unity rests with kings.