lack of co-operation, wastage of energy, lack of pen-
etration to the mass of the people. The problem is
to discover if this internal defect cannot be
remedied. "Will the world-wide tragedy of rivalry
continue even inside the pacifist movement, or will
this war teach those who are fighting against it the
necessity of an energetic organization and prepara-
tion?"

To this task the N.A.O.R. is devoting itself.
Founded on October 8, 1914, it had succeeded by
January 15th in securing the adhesion of 350 Dutch
societies (official, political, of all parties, religious,
intellectual, labor), and its manifestoes brought to-
gether the signatures of more than a hundred of
the most illustrious names of the Netherlands--
statesmen, prelates, officers, writers, professors,
artists, business men, etc. It therefore represents a
considerable moral force.

Let it be said at once that the N.A.O.R. does
not look for an immediate end of the war by a
peace at any price. On the one hand it declares
itself "it has formed no presumptuous idea of its
strength; it has no naïve confidence in vague peace
formulæ, nor even in well-defined mutual obliga-
tions. The universal war of today has, alas! taught
it much in this respect also." And, moreover, it is

-128-