John MacLean

“ Even supposing Germany is to blame, the motive force is not the ambitions of the Kaiser, nor the brute philosophy of the Prussian militarists, but the profit of the plundering class of Germany. Colonial expansion was denied the Germans because the British, the Russians, and the French had picked up most of the available parts of the world. What could the Germans do but build up an army and a navy that would hold its own against all comers? This it has done steadily for the last generation. It is mere cant to talk of German militarism when Britain has led the world in the navy business. ”

“ Capitalism has neither conscience nor morality when it is brought to bay.
Every interested person knew that Germany's easiest road of entry into France was by Belgium. Sir Edward Grey had only to wait till Belgium's neutrality had been broken to seize a "moral" excuse for Britain taking up arms. The real reason was, and is, that he and his class knew that war between British and German capitalism had to come sooner or later. Now was the day, and Britain struck. Plunderers versus plunderers, with the workers as pawns doing the murdering with right goodwill. ”

“ Our first business is to hate the British capitalist system that, with "business as usual," means the continued robbery of the workers. After that I, for one, will transfer the larger portion of my hate to Russian soil against the devilish autocracy that prevents the peaceful development of the workers' organisations by organised murder, torture, and scientific cruelty with a regularity and on a scale that would make the Kaiser with all his evils intensified a thousand-fold blush with shame. ”