Mr. Bernard Shaw's "Common Sense About the War" is the talk of the town, and it deserves to be. One of its greatest values is its courage, for in it Shaw says many things no one else would have dared to say. It therefore, by breaking the unearthly silence on certain aspects of the situation, perhaps inaugurates a new and healthier period of discussion and criticism on such subjects as recruiting, treatment of soldiers and sailors' dependents, secret diplomacy, militarism, Junkerism, churches, Russia, peace terms, and disarmament. It contains the most magnificent, brilliant, and convincing common sense that could possibly be uttered. No citizen, I think, could rise from the perusal of this tract with a mind unilluminated or opinions unmodified. Hence everybody ought to read it, though everybody will not be capable of appreciating the profoundest parts of it.

Mixed up with the tremendous common sense, however, is a considerable and unusual percentage of that perverseness, waywardness, and arlequinading which are apparently an essential element of Mr. Shaw's best work. This is a disastrous pity, having regard to the immense influence and vogue of Shaw, not only in Germany, but in America, and the pity is more tragic as Shaw has been most absurd about the very matter which most Englishmen regard as most important, namely, Great Britain's actual justification for going to war.

Shaw's Admitted Prejudice.

Mr. Shaw begins by conceiving the possibility of his being blinded by prejudice or perversity, and admits his capacity for criticising England with a certain slight malicious taste for taking the conceit out of her. Seemingly he belongs to that numerous class who think that to admit a fault is to excuse it. As a highwayman might say before taking your purse, "Now, I admit, I have a certain slight taste for thieving," and expect you to smile forgiveness of his depredation, Shaw's bias is evident wherever he discusses the action and qualities of Great Britain. Thus he contrasts Bernhardi's brilliant with our own very dull militarists' facts, the result being that the intense mediocrity of Bernhardi leaps to the eye on every page, and that events have thoroughly discredited all his political and many of his military ideas, whereas we possess militarists of first-class quality.

Naturally, Shaw calls England muddle-headed. Yet of late nothing has been less apparent than muddle-headednes. Of British policy, Shaw says that since

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the Continent generally regards us as hypocritical, we must be hypocritical. He omits to say that the Continent generally, and Germany in particular, regards our policy and our diplomacy as extremely able and clear-sighted. The unscrupulous cleverness of Britain is one of Germany's main themes.

These are minor samples of Mr. Shaw's caprices. In discussing the origin of the war Mr. Shaw's aim is to prove that all the great powers are equally to blame. He goes far back and accuses Great Britain of producing the first page of Bernhardian literature in the anonymous pamphlet "The Battle of Dorking." He admits in another passage that the note of this pamphlet was mainly defensive. He is constantly thus making intrenchments for himself in case of forced retirement, and there is in his article almost nothing unjust against Great Britain that is not ingeniously contradicted or mitigated elsewhere.

Great Britain's War Literature.

Beginning with "The Battle of Dorking" and ending with H.G. Well's "War in the Air," one of the most disturbing and effective warnings against militarism ever written, he sees simply that Great Britain has produced threatening and provocative militarist literature comparable to Germany's. No grounds exist for such a contention. There are militarists in all countries, but there are infinitely more in Germany than in any other country. The fact is notorious. The fact is also notorious that the most powerful, not the most numerous, party in Germany wanted the war. It would be as futile to try to prove that Ireland did not want home rule as that Germany did not want war. As for a war literature, bibliographical statistics show, I believe, that in the last ten years Germany has published seven thousand books or pamphlets about war. No one but a German or a Shaw, in a particularly mischievous mood, would seek to show that Great Britain is responsible for the war fever. It simply is not so.

Mr. Shaw urges that we all armed together. Of course we did. When one nation publicly turns bellicose the rest must copy her preparations. If Great Britain could live this century over again she would do over again what she actually did, because common sense would not permit her to do otherwise. The admitted fact that some Britons are militarists does not in the slightest degree impair the rightness or sagacity of our policy. If one member of a family happens to go to the bad and turn burglar, therein is no reason why the family mansion should not be insured against burglary.

Mr. Shaw proceeds to what he calls the diplomatic history of the war. His notion of historical veracity may be judged from his description of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia as an escapade of a dotard. He puts the whole blame of it on Franz Josef, and yet he must know quite well that Germany has admitted even to her own subjects that Austria asked Germany's opinion about her policy and obtained Germany's approval before delivering the ultimatum. [Official German pamphlet "Reasons for the War with Russia," August, 1914.] There is no word in Mr. Shaw's diplomatic history of the repeated efforts toward peace made by Great Britain and scotched by Germany. On the contrary, with astounding audacity and disingenuousness, he tries to make it appear that suggestions for peace were offered by Germany and rejected by Great Britain. Once more it simply was not so.

Defense of Sir Edward Grey.

Mr. Shaw's paraphrase of Document 17 in the British diplomatic dispatches is a staggering travesty. So far as I can see it bears no relation to the original. Further, he not only deplores that a liberal government should have an imperialist Foreign Secretary, but he accuses Sir Edward Grey of sacrificing his country's welfare to the interests of his party and committing a political crime in order not to incur the wrath of The Daily News and The Manchester Guardian. This is totally inexcusable. Let me not be misunderstood. I am not a liberal. I am an out-and-out radical. I foresee a cleavage in the Liberal Party, and when that cleavage comes I shall be on the extreme left wing. I entirely

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agree with Mr. Shaw's denunciation of secret diplomacy and undemocratic control of foreign policy. By every social tradition I should be in opposition to Sir Edward Grey, but I think Grey was the best Foreign Secretary that the Liberal Party could have chosen and that he worked well on the only possible plane, the plane of practicality. I am quite sure he is an honest man, and I strongly resent, as Englishmen of all opinions will resent, any imputation to the contrary.

As for the undemocratic control of foreign policy, a strong point about our policy on the eve of the war is that it was dictated by public opinion. [See Grey's dispatch to the British Ambassador at Berlin, No. 123.] Germany could have preserved peace by a single gesture addressed to Franz Josef. She did not want peace. Mr. Shaw said Sir Edward Grey ought to have shouted out at the start that if Germany fought we should fight. Sir Edward Grey had no authority to do so, and it would have been foolish to do so. Mr. Shaw also says Germany ought to have turned her whole army against Russia and left the western frontier to the care of the world's public opinion in spite of the military alliance by which France was bound to Russia. We have here an example of his aptitude for practical politics.

Was Belgium a Mere Excuse?

Let us now come to Belgium. Mr. Shaw protests needlessly that he holds no brief for small States as such, and he most vehemently denies that we are bound to knight errantry on their behalf. His objection to small States is that they are either incorrigibly bellicose or standing temptations to big powers. Outside the Balkans no small State is bellicose. All are eminently pacific. That they are a standing temptation to thieves is surely no reason for their destruction. If it is a reason Mr. Shaw ought to throw his watch down the drain.

Mr. Shaw states that Belgium was a mere excuse for our going to war. That there was a vast deal more in the pre-war diplomacy than appears in the printed dispatches, or in any dispatches, I am as convinced as Mr. Shaw is, but I am equally convinced that so far as we are concerned there was nothing in diplomacy, however secret, to contradict our public attitude. The chief item not superficially apparent is that the diplomats knew all along that Germany wanted war and was doing all she could to obtain war on terms most favorable to herself. That our own interest coincided with our duty to Belgium did not by any means render our duty a mere excuse for action. If a burglar is making his way upward in the house where Mr. Shaw lives and Mr. Shaw comes down and collars him in the flat of a defenseless invalid below and hands him over to the police Mr. Shaw would not expect the police to say, "You are a hypocrite; you only seized the burglar because you feared he would come to you next." I stick to the burglar simile, because a burglar is just what Germany is.

The "Infamous Proposal" Phrase.

Mr. Shaw characterizes Mr. Asquith's phrase, "Germany's infamous proposal," as the "obvious barrister's claptrap." Once more this is totally inexcusable. I do not always see eye to eye with Mr. Asquith, I agree with Mr. Shaw that he has more than once sinned against democratic principles, but what has that to do with the point? My general impression of Mr. Asquith and general impression of this country is that Mr. Asquith, in addition to being a pretty good Liberal, is an honest man. His memorable speech containing the "infamous proposal" phrase was most positively a genuine emotional expression of his conviction and of the conviction of the whole country, and Mr. Shaw, a finished master of barrister's claptrap when he likes, has been merely scurrilous about it. Germany's proposal was infamous. Supposing that we had taken the Belgium point at Mr. Shaw's valuation of it, the "nonsense about Belgium," as he calls it, and refrained from war, what would have been the result? The result would have been that today we could not have looked one another in the face as we passed down the street.

But Mr. Shaw is not content with ar-

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guing that the Belgium point was a mere excuse for us. He goes further and continually implies that there was no Belgium point. Every time he mentions the original treaty that established Belgian neutrality he puts after it in brackets, [date 1839,] an obvious barrister's device, sarcastically to discredit the treaty because of its age. He omits to say that the chief clause in the treaty contains the word "perpetually." What is worse, he infers that by the mere process of years, as Belgium gradually made herself, civilized herself, enriched herself, and increased her stake in the world, her moral right to independence and freedom instead of being strengthened was somehow mysteriously weakened. The theory is monstrous, but if he does not mean that he means nothing.

Further, he says that in 1870 Gladstone could not depend on the treaty of 1839 and resorted to a special temporary treaty not now in force, and that, therefore, technically the validity of the 1839 treaty is extremely doubtful. This twisting of facts throws a really sinister light upon the later developments of Mr. Shaw as a controversialist. The treaty of 1870 was, indeed, temporary, except in so far as it confirmed the treaty of 1839. Article 3 of the treaty of 1870 says it shall be binding on the contracting parties during the continuance of the war and for twelve months after, and then proceeds "and on the expiration of that time the independence and neutrality of Belgium will, so far as the high contracting parties are respectively concerned, continue to rest as heretofore on the quintuple treaty of 1839," (textual.)

Mr. Shaw's manifesto is lengthy and it will no doubt be reprinted in book form. I repeat what I said in my first paragraph as to the major part of it, but I assert that the objectionable part of the manifesto is so objectionable in its flippancy, in its perversity, in its injustice, and in its downright inexactitude as to amount to a scandal. Mr. Shaw has failed to realize either his own importance or the importance and very grave solemnity of the occasion. The present is no hour for that disingenuous, dialectical bravura which might excusably relieve a domestic altercation. Before reprinting Mr. Shaw should, I suggest; seriously reconsider his position and rewrite.

To The Daily News, Sir:

In justice to the enemy I am bound to admit that Mr. Bennett's case, which is the German case, is a very strong one and that his ironic comment on the case against Germany, "We have here an example of Mr. Shaw's aptitude for practical politics," is a comment that the Kaiser will probably make and that the average "practical man" will make, too.

Mr. Bennett, in saying that I am a simpleton to doubt that, if Germany had not attacked France, France would have attacked her, shows a much greater courage than he credits me with. That is Germany's contention, and if valid is her justification for dashing at any enemy who, as Mr. Bennett believes, was lying in wait to spring on her back when Russia had her by the throat. If Mr. Bennett is right, and I am a simpleton, there is nothing more to be said. The Imperial Chancellor's plea of "a state of necessity" is proved up to the hilt.

I did not omit to say that Germany regards our policy and our diplomacy as extremely able and clear-sighted. I expressly and elaborately pointed that out.

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Mr. Bennett, being an Englishman, is so flattered by the apparent compliment from those clever Germans that he insists it is deserved. I, being an Irishman and, therefore, untouched by flattery, see clearly that what the Germans mean by able and clear-sighted is crafty, ruthless, unscrupulous, and directed to the deliberate and intentional destruction of Germany by a masterly diplomatic combination of Russia, France and Great Britain against her, and I defend the English and Sir Edward Grey in particular on the ground, first, that the British nation at large was wholly innocent of the combination, and, second, that even among diplomatists, guilty as most of them unquestionably were and openly as our Junkers--like the German ones--clamored for war with Germany, there was more muddle than Machiavelli about them, and that Sir Edward never completely grasped the situation or found out what he really was doing and even had a democratic horror of war.

Shaw's Excuses Scorned.

But Mr. Bennett will not have any of my excuses for his unhappy country. He will have it that the Germans are right in admiring Sir Edward as a modern Caesar Bogia, and that our militarist writers are "of first class quality," as contrasted with the "intense mediocrity" of poor Gen. Bernhardi.

If Mr. Bennett had stopped there the Kaiser would send him the Iron Cross, but of course, like a true born Englishman, he goes on to deny indignantly that England has produced a militarist literature comparable to Germany and to affirm hotly that Mr. Asquith is an honest man whose bad arguments are "a genuine emotional expression of his convictions and that of the whole country," and that Sir Edward Grey is an honest man, and that he (Mr. Bennett) "strongly resents as Englishmen of all opinions will resent any imputation to the contrary"--just what I said he would say and that he entirely agrees with my denunciation of secret diplomacy and undemocratic control of foreign policy and that I am a perverse and wayward harlequin, mischievous, unveracious, scurrilous, monstrous, disingenuous, flippant, unjust, inexact, scandalous, and objectionable, and that on all points to which he takes exception and a good many more I am so magnificent, brilliant, and convincing that no citizen could rise from perusing me without being illuminated.

That is just a little what I meant by saying that Englishmen are muddle-headed, because they never have been forced by political adversity to mistrust their tempers and depend on a carefully stated case as Irishmen have been.

Showed Germany the Way.

I did with great pains what nobody else had done. I showed what Germany should have done, knowing that I had no right to reproach her for doing what she did until I was prepared to show that a better way had been open to her.

Bennett says, in effect, that nobody but a fool could suppose that my way was practicable and proceeds to call Germany a burglar. That does not get us much further. In fact, to me it seems a step backward. At all events it is now up to Mr. Bennett to show us what practical alternative Germany had except the one I described. If he cannot do that, can he not, at least, fight for his side? We, who are mouthpieces of many inarticulate citizens, who are fighting at home against the general tumult of scare and rancor and silly cinematograph heroics for a sane facing of facts and a stable settlement, are very few. We have to bring the whole continent of war-struck lunatics to reason if we can.

What chance is there of our succeeding if we begin by attacking one another because we do not like one another's style or confine ourselves to one another's pet points? I invite Mr. Bennett to pay me some more nice compliments and to reserve his fine old Staffordshire loathing for my intellectual nimbleness until the war is over.--G. BERNARD SHAW.

G.K. CHESTERTON. See Page 108

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. (Photo by Arnold Genthe) See Page 132

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To the Editor of The Daily News:

The controversy between men of peace as to the merits, demerits, causes, and possible results of the great war is becoming almost as dangerous and little less noisy than the real conflict now being waged in and around Ypres. The only difference between the two conflicts is that the combatants in Flanders only strive to kill the body. Those who fire paper bullets aim at the annihilation of the soul.

Literature is a nice thing in its way. It both passes and gives us many weary hours. It has its place. But I submit that at present it is mere dancing on a tight rope. Whether the war could have been avoided or not is without interest today. In fact, there is no controversy possible after Maximilian Harden's pronouncement. In it he throws away the scabbard and says boldly that Germany from the first was set on war. Hence it becomes a work of supererogation to find excuses for her, and hence, my old friend, Bernard Shaw, penned his long indictment of his hereditary enemy, England, all in vain.

We are a dull-witted race. Although the Continent has dubbed us "Perfidious Albion," it is hard for us to take in general ideas, and no man clearly sees the possibilities of the development of the original sin that lies dormant in him. Thus it becomes hard for us to understand the reason why, if Germany tore up a treaty three months ago we are certain to tear up another in three years' time.

All crystal gazing appeals but little to the average man on this side of the St. George's channel. It may be that we shall tear up many treaties, but the broad fact remains that hitherto we have torn up none.

The particular treaty that Germany tore up was signed by five powers in 1839, ratified again in 1870 by a special clause respected by King Frederick William in his war against the French, was often referred to in Parliament by Gladstone and by other Ministers, and was considered binding on its signatories. Germany tore it up for her own ends, thus showing that she was a stupid though learned people, for she at once at the same time prejudiced her case to the whole world and made a military mistake.

No human motives are without alloy, but at the same time honesty in our case has proved the better policy. Germany, no doubt, would have granted us almost anything for our assent to her march through Belgium. We refused her offers, no doubt from mixed motives, for every Englishman is not an orphan archangel, stupid, or dull or muddle-headed, or what not. The balance of the world is with us, not, perhaps, because they love us greatly, but because they see that we, perhaps by accident, have been forced into the right course and that all smaller nationalities such as Montenegro, Ireland, Poland, and the rest would disappear on our defeat.

CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM.

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Mr. G. Bernard Shaw thinks that "the time has now come to pluck up courage and begin to talk and write soberly about the war." Our readers will find in THE TIMES Sunday Magazine this morning some of the fruits of this auto-suggestion. They are very remarkable. While Mr. Shaw can hardly be called a representative of any considerable class, the fact that one prominent writer, always much read, can assume Mr. Shaw's attitude and make public Mr. Shaw's comments throws a strong light on the spirit of British society. It is true that he intimates that he ran the risk of "prompt lynching" at one time, but that was probably the suggestion of a certain timidity and vanity to which he pleads guilty. His safe and prosperous existence is really a striking evidence, on the one hand, of British good nature, and, on the other, of the indifferent estimate the British put on his influence.

Like Iago, Mr. Shaw is nothing if not critical, and in this crisis his criticism is for the most part bitter, extreme, and in purpose destructive. He particularly dislikes Sir Edward Grey and the Government of which he is a leading spirit, and the class which the Government represents. He singles out Sir Edward as the chief "Junker" and among the chief "militarists" who brought about this war. Mr. Shaw's attacks on the Foreign Secretary are savage, and, as often happens with savage attacks--they are far from consistent. For example, Mr. Shaw paraphrases at some length the interview between Sir Edward and the German Ambassador, in which the latter made four different propositions to secure the neutrality of Great Britain if Germany waged war on France, all of which Sir Edward refused. Mr. Shaw sees in this only evidence of determination to take arms against Germany in any case, carrying out a long-cherished plan formed by the Government of which Sir Edward Grey was, for this matter, the responsible member. He does not see--- though it is so plain that a wayfaring man though a professional satirist should not err therein--that what the Secretary intended to do--what, in fact, he did do--was to refuse to put a price on British perfidy, to accept any "bargain" offered to that end.

On the other hand, Mr. Shaw paraphrases at still greater length the report of the interview in which the Russian Foreign Minister and the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg tried to induce the British Government to commit itself in advance to war against Germany. Mr. Shaw thinks that thus the German "bluff" would have been called and war would have been prevented, and he is confident that Mr. Winston Churchill would have taken the Bismarck tone and dictated the result. He cannot see--what is really the essential fact in both cases--that Sir Edward Grey was striving in every honorable way to preserve peace, that his Government refused to stand idle and see France crushed in the same spirit that it refused to menace Germany until a definite and undeniable cause of war arose.

That cause came with Germany's violation of its pledge to observe the neutrality of Belgium, and England's response excites Mr. Shaw's most furious contempt. He adopts with zest the judgment of the German Chancellor. The pledge for all who signed it was but a scrap of paper, of no more binding force than others that had gone their way to dusty death in the diplomatic waste baskets. To observe the obligation it imposed was hypocrisy. To fight in order to compel Germany to observe it was crass militarism. Plainly, Mr. Shaw is a little difficult.

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The Government under which he lives is either too bellicose or not bellicose enough; too ready to help France if France is attacked or not ready enough to bully Germany, and especially it is all wrong about Belgium and its treaty, since treaties have several times been broken, and so on through a bewildering circle of contradictory statements and notions.

Mr. Shaw finds little to choose between the groups of combatants. He distinctly prides himself on his impartiality, not to say indifference. On account of his Irish birth he claims something of the detachment of a foreigner, but admits a touch of Irish malice in taking the conceit out of the English. Add to this his professed many-sidedness as a dramatist and playwright and we get as good an explanation as can be given of this noted writer's attitude toward the tremendous struggle now waging. But Mr. Shaw's assumption of even-handed scorn for every one concerned, of "six of one and a half dozen of the other," does not hold out. He feels profoundly that such fighting as Germany does, for such a purpose as inspires Germany, must be met by force, and that England could not in the long run, no matter by whom guided or governed, have shirked the task laid upon her. That being the case, one wonders a little why it was worth while to cover every one with ridicule and to present a picture of Great Britain so essentially grotesque and distorted.

Bernard Shaw on the End of the War.

From The New York Sun, Nov. 15, 1914.

In the midst of a good deal of untimely gibing, George Bernard Shaw, as reported in a London dispatch to The Sun of yesterday, says one or two very wise and appropriate things about the end of the war and the times to come after it. His warnings are a useful check to the current loose talk of the fire-eaters and preachers of the gospel of vengeance.

"We and France have to live with Germany after the war," Mr. Shaw points out. Even to embarrass her financially would be a blow to England herself, Germany being one of England's best customers and one of her most frequently visited neighbors. The truth of this is unanswerable. The great object must be to effect a peace with as little rancor as possible.

Mr. Shaw does not say it, but there are going to be overwhelming political reasons why the pride of Germany and Austria and still more why their military power shall not be too much impaired in case of their defeat.

Perhaps in the final settlement the Western Allies may be found to have more in common with Berlin than with St. Petersburg. Germany has pointed this out with much force.

Mr. Shaw's position is not admirable when he chooses their days of tribulation for sticking pins into his own people, even though some of the things he says may be unpleasantly true. But it cannot be denied that he has some sane views on the situation. The pity is that he must always impair the force of the useful things he has to say by flippancies, impertinences, and out-of-place girdings at those whose courage he should help to maintain. He reminds one of a man who insists on wrangling over the mistaken construction of a chimney while the house is burning down.

Bernard Shaw as a Patriot.

From The New York World, Nov. 17, 1914.

Bernard Shaw has written for our neighbor THE TIMES an elaborate three-page thesis to maintain:

1. That Great Britain was abundantly justified in making war with Germany.

2. That the explanation given by the British Government for making war against Germany was stupid, hypocritical, mendacious, and disgraceful.

3. That he alone is capable of interpreting the moral purpose of the British people in undertaking this necessary work of civilization.

4. That the reason the British Government's justification of the war is so inadequate is because no British Government is ever so clever as Bernard Shaw.

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5. That even in the midst of the most horrible calamity known to human history it pays to advertise.

Various patriots have various ways of serving their country. Some go to the firing line to be shot and others stay at home to be a source of innocent merriment to the survivors.

His reputation for perversity and contrariety is fully maintained by George Bernard Shaw in the ineptly-named article, "Common Sense About the War." At home in Britain we all know that it is Mr. Shaw's habit to oppose where he might be expected to support, and vice versa. For example, should he speak at a prohibition meeting he would most likely extol strong drink, or if asked to defend the sale of liquor declare dramatically for prohibition.

He sees himself as the critic of everything and everybody--the one and only man who knows what to do and how to do it.

Mr. Shaw charges his compatriots with intellectual laziness, but they are not so lazy as to leave him to do their thinking for them. That he sometimes--and oftener in the past than now--says illuminating things is true, but firm reliance cannot be placed upon his freakish mental processes, exemplified in his writings about the war. He has played with effect the part of jester to the British public, but when, as now, his jests are empty of the kernel of good sense, the matter gets beyond a joke.

The truth is that in face of this great and tragic reality of war the men of mere words, the literary theorists, are in danger of missing their way. Certainly women of deeds are more likely to see things aright than are men of words, and it is as a woman of deeds that I, a suffragette, make answer to my irresponsible compatriot, Mr. Bernard Shaw. And yet not a compatriot, for Mr. Shaw disclaims those feelings of loyalty and enthusiasm for the national cause that fill the mass of us who live under the British flag!

"Until Home Rule emerges from its present suspended animation," says Mr. Shaw, "I shall retain my Irish capacity for criticising England with something of the detachment of a foreigner." Now, these words are not a little surprising, because Mr. Shaw's interest in the Home Rule cause has hitherto been of a most restrained and well-nigh secret character, and any one who imagines that Mr. Shaw is a strenuous campaigner for Home Rule is greatly mistaken. If in the years preceding the war the Horne Rule cause had depended upon Mr. Shaw's activities, it would have been in a bad way. It is now, when a foreign enemy menaces our nation as a whole, that Mr. Shaw manifests this enhanced interest in Home Rule.

The suffragettes, who have fought and suffered for their cause as no living man reformer in the British Isles has fought and suffered for his, have during the present crisis subordinated their claim to the urgent claims of national honor and safety. So Mr. Shaw, whose campaigning is done generally in the armchair, and never in any place more dangerous than the rostrum, ought surely to refrain from his frivolous, inconsistent, destructive, and unprofitable criticism of our country.

As for the question of lynching, Mr. Shaw is, the American public may be assured, in no danger whatever of being lynched. He is in far more danger of having the Iron Cross conferred upon

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him by the Kaiser in recognition of his attempt to supplement the activities of the official German Press Bureau. But if he were a German subject, writing on certain points of German policy as he does upon certain points of British policy, his fate can well be imagined. The only retribution that will come upon this man, who exploits the freedom of speech and pen that England gives him, is that his words lose now and henceforth the weight they used to have. Oh, the conceit of the man, who in this dark hour, when the English are dying on the battlefield, writes of "taking the conceit out of England" by a stroke of his inconsequent pen!

Admits England's Cause Is Just.

But with all his will to "take the conceit" out of this England, so fiercely menaced, her sons killed, her daughters widowed--yet needing, so he thinks, his castigation into the bargain--the critic is constrained to admit that our country is playing the part of "the responsible policeman of the West" and that "for England to have refrained from hurling herself into the fray, horse, foot, and artillery, was impossible from every point of view." Then why preface these statements by a series of attacks upon the country which is admitted to be justly fighting in a just cause?

The sole importance of Mr. Shaw's criticism comes from this. He unwarrantably indorses statements made by Germany in her attempt to put the Allies in the wrong. Because he is known to the German people by his dramatic work, extracts from his article will be circulated among them as an expression of the views of a representative British citizen. And how are the Germans to know that this is false, deprived as they are of news of what is happening in the outside world and ignorant as they must be of Mr. Shaw's real lack of influence at this serious time?

That their traffic in mere words disables some literary men from comprehending facts is shown by Mr. Shaw's play upon the word "Junkerism." He points to the dictionary definition of the word instead of to the fact it represents, and by this verbal juggling tries to convince his readers that the military autocracy that dominates and misdirects Germany has its counterpart and equal in Great Britain. Whereas, the conditions in the two countries are wholly different, and it is this very difference that Germany has regarded as one of the signs of British inferiority.

Mr. Shaw's suggestion that the British are posing as "Injured Innocence" and as "Mild Gazelles" is neither funny nor true. We are simply a people defending ourselves, resisting conquest and military despotism, and fighting for the ideal of freedom and self-government. When our country is no longer in danger we suffragettes, if it be still necessary, are prepared to fight on and wage our civil war that we may win freedom and self-government for women as well as men. But, in the meantime, we support the men--yes, and even the Government do we in a sense support--in fighting the common enemy who menaces the freedom of men and women alike. Although the Government in the past have erred gravely in their dealing with the woman question, they are for the purpose of this war the instrument of the nation.

Facts Belie Him.

Mr. Shaw would seem to hold Britain responsible for German militarism, but the facts he cites are against him there. "I am old enough," says he, "to remember the beginnings of the anti-German phase of military propaganda in England. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 left England very much taken aback. Up to that date nobody was much afraid that Prussia--suddenly Prussia beat France right down in the dust." Precisely! It was this war on France, deliberately engineered by Bismarck, and it was the defeat and despoilment of France that fed Germany's militarism and encouraged Germany to make those plans of military aggression which, after long and deliberate preparation, are being carried into effect in the present war. Germany's plans of military aggression have compelled other countries to prepare,

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however inadequately, to defend themselves.

Mr. Shaw gives support to the Germans' contention that they are not the aggressors but are menaced by Russia. Yet he does not explain why, if that is so, Germany took French gold and territory in 1870 and has since continued to alienate France; nor why Germany has chosen Britain as her enemy of enemies to be supplanted and surpassed in power.

If Germany is simply on the defensive against Russia and has no desire to attack and cripple France and Britain, then why has she antagonized these countries and driven one after the other into a Russian alliance?

When he affects to criticise Germany for not having "entrusted the security of her western frontier to the public opinion of Western Europe and to America and fought Russia, if attacked, with her rear not otherwise defended," Mr. Shaw burkes the fact that Germany's object is to seize Belgium and to make it part of the German Empire, also to seize at least the northern coast of France and to make this seizure the means of dominating Britain.

Indeed, the point at which German ambition for conquest ceases would be hard to fix. And yet Mr. Shaw pictures for us an injured-innocent, mild-gazelle Germany on the defensive! Quite in this picture is his assertion that "the ultimatum to Servia was the escapade of a dotard," whereas, everybody knows that the ultimatum was dictated at Berlin. It is plain as a pikestaff that in order to bring on the Great War of conquest for which her rulers thought The Day had arrived. Germany dictated the issue and terms of the ultimatum to Servia and then urged Austria to refuse any compromise and arbitration which might have averted war.

Mr. Shaw has assumed the impossible task of trying to blind the American public to these and other facts that prove Germany to be the aggressor in this war, but he will fail in his attempt at white-washing German policy because it is one of the characteristics of the American people that they have a strong feeling for reality and that no twisting and combining of words can prevent them from getting at the facts beneath.

Bernhardi's writings are generally believed to be an inspiration, and in part a statement of German policy. But Mr. Shaw differs. In trying to prove that Bernhardism has nothing to do with the case, he maintains that Germany has neglected the Bernhardi programme, and says:

"He warned Germany to make an alliance with Italy, Austria, Turkey, and America before undertaking the subjugation of France, then of England."

Mr. Shaw then asserts that Germany disregarded this advice and allowed herself to be caught between Russia and a Franco-British combination with no ally save Austria. But here again facts are against him. For Germany has followed with marvelous precision the line drawn by Bernhardi.

She is actually fighting in partnership with Austria. She allied herself with Italy--though Italy has refused to fight with her in this present war of aggression. Germany has also bent Turkey to her purpose, and has dragged the Turks into the war. An alliance with America! Well, to have gained the help of America in crushing France and crippling England, and ravaging and conquering Belgium was quite beyond the power of German diplomacy and intrigue! Still Germany's attempts to win at least America's moral support in this war are vigorous, if unsuccessful.

And with what quotable matter Mr. Shaw provides the German rulers for the further deluding of their subjects when he writes of the German people being "stirred to their depths by the apparent treachery and duplicity of the attack made upon them in their extrernest peril from France and Russia," when he writes of the Kaiser doing "all a Kaiser could do without unbearable ignominy to induce the British not to fight him and give him fair play with Russia," and when he writes of "taking the Kaiser at a disadvantage." As though we ought meekly to have agreed to the Kaiser's plan of defeating France

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and using her defeat as a bridge to England and a means of conquering England! Uncommon nonsense about the war--so we must rename Mr. Shaw's production!

And what is all this that flows from the pen of Mr. Shaw about Belgium and "obsolete treaties," "rights of way," "necessities that know no international law," "circumstances that alter treaties"? Made in Germany such statements are, and yet even the Imperial German Chancellor is not so contemptuous as Bernard Shaw is of Belgium's charter of existence, the treaty now violated by Germany.

That is a treaty that cannot become obsolete until the powers who made it release Belgium from the restrictions and obligations which the treaty imposes. Germany pleads guilty in this matter of the violation of Belgian neutrality, though Mr. Shaw attempts to show her innocent, for the German Chancellor has said: "This is an infraction of international law--we are compelled to overrule the legitimate protests of the Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall repair the wrong we are doing as soon as our military aims have been achieved." And again the Chancellor said the invasion of Belgium "is contrary to the law of nature." To Mr. Bernard Shaw's peculiar sense of international morality such dealing is not, however, repugnant.

No "Right of Way" in Belgium.

In his letter to President Wilson Mr. Shaw, either willfully or ignorantly, seeks to confuse the neutrality of a neutralized State such as Belgium and the neutrality of an ordinary State such as Italy, and he pretends that violation of the first sort of neutrality creates a situation in no way different from that created by the violation of the second and normal sort of neutrality. I would refer Mr. Shaw to "The Case for Belgium" issued by the Belgian delegates to the United States wherein they point out that "the peculiarity about Belgian neutrality is that it has been imposed upon her by the powers as the one condition upon which they recognized her national existence."

The consequence of this is that whereas Italy and the United States and other powers having a similar status can, subject to the risk of attack from an affronted belligerent, please themselves whether or not they condone a violation of their neutrality, Belgium and the other neutralized States cannot condone such violation, but must either resist all breaches of their neutrality or surrender their right to existence. And further a neutralized State, putting faith in the treaty that guarantees its existence and its neutrality, refrains naturally from that preparation for war which would be deemed necessary in the absence of such a treaty.

There is no such thing as the "right of way" through neutralized Belgium which Mr. Shaw claims on behalf of belligerent Germany. Far from exercising a right of way Germany has violently committed a trespass, offering a German promise, a mere "scrap of paper," as reparation. "A right of way," argues Bernard Shaw, "is not a right of conquest"; but the truth is that in passing through Belgium Germany assumed dominion over Belgium, which dominion she has since formally asserted and is seeking forcibly to maintain.

A New Shavian Theory.

No comprehension does Mr. Shaw display of the hurt to the Belgians' sense of honor involved in Germany's use of their territory for purposes hostile to their friendly neighbor, France. To be forced into injuring a friend is an outrage, indeed, and Mr. Shaw surely knows too much of matters military to be unaware that to permit a right of way to one combatant amounts to making an attack upon the other, and that Germany, by the very fact of crossing Belgium soil, was forcing Belgium to be the enemy of France. Only by their great heroism were the Belgians able to escape this infamy that had been planned for them.

To be conquered does not really matter! There we have another Shavian

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theory. How grateful would the would-be world-ruling Kaiser feel to Mr. Shaw were he to succeed in inoculating the peoples of Europe and of America with that theory! So would the task of putting the peoples under the German yoke (otherwise known as German culture) be made easier--and cheaper. But the spirit of national freedom, which is as precious to humanity as is the spirit of individual freedom, cannot be driven out by words any more than it can be driven out by blows. The most unlettered Belgian soldier, fighting for a truth that is at the very heart and depth of all things true, puts the mere wordmonger to shame.

That Great Britain does not fight only for Belgium is certainly a fact, though Belgium's plight alone would have been enough to bring us into the conflict. We fight also for France, because she is wrongfully attacked, and because she is by her civilization and culture one of the world's treasures. We fight for the all-sufficient reason of self-defense.

There is the case for Britain, and despite his special pleading for Germany, Mr. Shaw can show no flaw in it. He does say, however, that the British Government, instead of first seeking a mild way of preserving peace, ought to have said point blank to Germany: "If you attack France we shall attack you." I also think that such a declaration would have been the right one. To me and to many others the thought that our country might stand by and watch inactively an attack upon France was intolerable. Great was our relief when this apprehension was removed by the British Government's declaration of war. Why did not the British Government say to Germany before the war cloud burst that Britain would fight to defend France, and why did the Government delay so long in declaring war? Mr. Shaw does not give the reason, but I will give it.

It was that the Government feared opposition to our entering into the war would come from a Radico-Socialist literary clique in London, from a section of the Liberal press, and from certain Liberal and Labor politicians who had been deceived by German professors and other missionaries of the Kaiser into thinking the German peril did not exist. When Belgium was invaded most of these misguided ones were unable to cling any longer to their "keep out of it" policy, and then the Government felt free to act. Yet the Government need not have waited, because with the facts before them the people as a whole would perfectly have understood the necessity of fighting even had Belgium not been invaded.

Henceforward the general public must be kept informed of what is happening in the international world. Foreign politics must be conducted with greater publicity. There, at least, Bernard Shaw is right, but this is a reform which he and his fellow-men have failed to effect, whereas women, had they been voters, would have demanded and secured it long ago.

Now, although undue diplomatic secrecy, always wrong, will be especially wrong when the terms of peace come to be made, sentimentality will certainly be more mischievous still. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Bernard Shaw's writings on the war are intended as an appeal to sentimentality--an appeal that Germany at the close of the war shall have treatment which, by being more than just to her, would be less than just to the countries whom she has attacked, and would mean a recurrence of this appalling war in after years.

Before the war specious words were used to cloak the German policy of aggression which has plunged the world in horror and is martyrizing peoples. In view of the coming victory of the Allies, the same tactics will be adopted by the German militarists, and it behooves Bernard Shaw to beware lest even without intent he serve as their tool. Men such as he who believe that while they can never be in the wrong, their country can never be in the right, are just the men who are in danger of stumbling at this time.

CHRISTABEL PANKHURST. Photo (C) by Underwood & Underwood. See Page 68.

JAMES M. BARRIE. See Page 100.

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Shaw Has Made Minister von Jagow's Remark on a "Scrap of Paper" Understandable.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Most hearty thanks for that masterly "common-sense" article of Bernard Shaw. How clearly he expresses the much that many of us have felt way down inside and have not been able to formulate even to ourselves!

He has made at least one woman--and one of German parentage at that--understand what reams of public and private communications from all over the Fatherland could not make clear: just why the blunt, impetuous, shocked, and astounded Kaiser dared give utterance to that disgraceful "scrap of paper" remark--inexcusable but also very understandable in the light of his knowledge of and confidence in a more astute miscreant; why France and Germany have always considered England more or less of a Tartuffe and a "Scheinheilige" (one who seems holy); and why every German--man, woman and child--so execrates Sir Edward Grey and colleagues.

Nothing in all the sickening present conditions, the future long-lasting woe and misery, the barbarous neutrality violations has so made me blush for my mother's country as the "scrap of paper" incident; and it has been most bitter to listen to the extravagant, fantastic eulogies on England, with which we've been so favored without feeling honestly able to make any excuses whatever for Germany.

But now--thanks to that article--I can understand what I may not condone, and, though abhorring the Kaiser and my mother's compatriots for their share in that horror going on abroad, I can also pity the hot-headed, imperfect mere man going to war under a carefully incited and fostered misapprehension, and need no longer glorify the cool-headed, sapient policy which so cleverly duped ruler and people.

Not since the war began have I felt so undepressed, so free to sympathize where I so love, so free from having to commend those for whom I feel no love whatever. For all of which accept the warmest thanks of

KATE HUDSON.

New York, Nov. 17.

Shaw Article Work of "Farceur."

To the Editor of The New York Times:

"Common sense and Shaw!" Shaw begins his article by saying, "I am giving my views for what they are worth, with a malicious bias." Later on he says: "I am writing history." Toward the end, after having obscured with words many things which had hitherto been clear to most people, he says: "Now that we begin to see where we really are, &c." How Shavian!

There are at least two sides to all questions, and so long as they are reasonably presented one is glad to hear them even if they fail to convince, but when a farceur is allowed to occupy three whole pages usually filled by serious and interesting writers it seems time to protest. The subject itself is not one for easy paradox or false and flippant epigram.

Mr. Shaw says he does not hold his tongue easily. He certainly does not, and when it wags it wags foolishly, and, as he admits, maliciously, albeit sometimes amusingly, and with superficial brilliance. He says the Irish do not consider England their country yet. Of course they do not. Why should the Irish consider themselves English? Neither do the Scots, nor the Welsh, nor the Canadians, nor will they ever so think. But they are all British, and so, despite all Mr. Shaw says to the contrary, Kitchener was right.

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Mr. Shaw falls into a common and regrettable error when he continually writes England when he really means the British Empire. It is the British Empire that is at war, for which, though a citizen, Mr. Shaw has no authority to speak or to be considered a representative, for, as he unnecessarily admits, he is not a "British patriot"; neither is he a "Junker," for I have looked through all his definitions of the word, and none applies to him.

In what way is the "Battle of Dorking" like Bernhardi? The one he says had as a moral: "To arms! or the Germans will besiege London!" The other said: "To arms! so that the Germans may besiege London, or any other country that does not want compulsory culture!" The one was defensive, the other offensive.

He says of the war: "We" began it. Since he says he is not English, and that it is an English war, whom does he mean by "We"? If he means the British, then, should a policeman see a small boy being ill-treated by a large man and go to the help of that boy, he, the policeman, must be said to have begun the fight which would probably ensue between him and said man, notwithstanding that the policeman is only fulfilling what he has sworn to do.

Monaco, he says, "seems to be, on the whole, the most prosperous and comfortable State in Europe." If this is buffoonery it is singularly out of place. But even Monaco has an "army," has had recently a small revolution, and the Monegasques do not consider themselves ideally comfortable, and they have many "injustices." Does he hold the principality up as a model administration and the source of its prosperity as above reproach?

Mr. Shaw represents no one but himself, and, like all small men, he reviles others greater than he, such as Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith, but it does not become him, looking at his own life's history, to cast cheap sneers at anonymous journalists in cheap newspapers, who, though they may lack his literary style, possess, at least, one virtue which he boasts that he has not--patriotism! Yours very truly,

LAWRENCE GRANT.

New York, Nov. 18.

Antidote to "Long Infliction of Dreary Stuff."

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Hail to Bernard Shaw! Could anything be more refreshing? After the long infliction upon us of the flood of dreary stuff from London and Paris, and all the talk of German militarism, and what is to become of it at the hands of such immaculately unmilitary apostles of peace and international righteousness and treaty observances as Russia, France, and England, and all the maudlin denunciations of the German Nietzsche and Bernhardi, and the terrible Kaiser, could anything be more refreshing than Shaw's advent in the field of current war history?

Though an Anglo-Saxon of American birth and long descent, and no believer in militarism of any sort of itself, yet I see in that no reason to distort ancient history by an attempt to make it appear that German militarism is at all the chief sinner, or, for that matter, not a very necessary and desirable thing in order that Germany may have her rightful place in the world, or any place at all.

V.A.W. Warwick, N.Y., Nov. 16.

False Assumptions Basis of Shaw's Attack.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

The article on the European war by Mr. G.B. Shaw in THE TIMES of Sunday appeals to me as a noteworthy specimen of what an artful literary genius can do in the way of argumentative cantankerousness. His chief grievance is British diplomacy as represented by Sir Edward Grey, upon whose devoted head he empties the vials of his splenetic humor.

Underlying his argument are two glaringly false assumptions, and on these the whole fabric rests. The first is that a certain undefined but presumably mul-

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titudinous body, which he designates as "Socialist," "Democratic," and "Social Democratic," is better qualified to determine the policy and conduct the correspondence of the Foreign Office than trained and experienced statesmen.

The second is that Sir Edward Grey should have followed the suggestion of Sazonof and threatened Germany with war at a certain stage of the correspondence. This can now be only a matter of opinion, but it may be confidently affirmed that of all nations the Germany of this day would be the last to back down in face of a threat. It may be also said generally that an open threat is about the surest way to bring on a war. Austria threatened Servia and war ensued. Germany threatened Russia and war ensued. Germany threatened Belgium--in the form of a notification that she intended to invade her territory--and war ensued.

Mr. Shaw's contentions are grotesque.

Flushing, Nov. 16. SAM TEST.

"Junkers" Controlled Old World Ages Before Shaw.

To the Editor of The New York Times:

With regard to the article by Mr. Bernard Shaw, the gist of the matter can be compressed in fewer words. The ideas expressed are not the exclusive property of Mr. Shaw. The Old World for indefinite ages has been controlled and directed by what he calls the "Junker" class, the rich and idle aristocrats who want for nothing, and, being born to rule, do not find it worth while to exert themselves mentally, and for whom there is no suitable profession but the army and diplomacy.

The mass of the people are to them the great unwashed, and those a little higher in the scale "cads and bounders," or the German equivalent, in fact the canaille of the French who at the time of the Revolution took things into their own hands to the great surprise of everybody. This substratum is not considered in the scheme of the "Junker's" existence, though the lower orders alone are the workers and producers and make ease and luxury possible.

Mr. Shaw. I believe, intends to intimate that there might be a use for the intellectual class, the thinkers and writers with the imagination that can put them mentally in the place of the individuals who make up the masses, think the thoughts and live the lives vicariously of the people who are the nation, and if the "Junker" class of England and Germany and kindred nations who govern and dictate its policies were leavened with the brains and broad-mindedness of the thinkers there might be found a better use for men than killing each other and a brighter outlook for the world which is now filled with widows and orphans.

Mrs. F.B. WILLIAMSON.

Elizabeth, N.J., Nov, 16.

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Sir: I petition you to invite the neutral powers to confer with the United States of America for the purpose of requesting Britain, France, and Germany to withdraw from the soil of Belgium and fight out their quarrel on their own territories. However the sympathies of the neutral States may be divided, and whatever points now at issue between the belligerent powers may be doubtful, there is one point on which there can be neither division nor doubt, and that is that the belligerent armies have no right to be in Belgium, much less to fight in Belgium, and involve the innocent inhabitants of that country in their reciprocal slaughter. You will not question my right to address this petition to you. You are the official head of the nation that is beyond all question or comparison the chief of the neutral powers, marked out from all the rest by commanding magnitude, by modern democratic constitution, and by freedom from the complication of monarchy and its traditions, which have led Europe into the quaint absurdity of a war waged formally between the German Kaiser, the German Czar, the German King of the Belgians, the German King of England, the German Emperor of Austria, and a gentleman who shares with you the distinction of not being related to any of them, and is therefore describable monarchically as one Poincaré, a Frenchman.

I make this petition on its merits, without claiming any representative character except such as attaches to me as a human being. Nobody here has asked me to do it. Except among the large class of constitutional beggars, the normal English feeling is that it is no use asking for a thing if you feel certain that it will be refused, and are not in a position to enforce compliance. Also, that the party whose request is refused

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and not enforced looks ridiculous. Many Englishmen will say that a request to the belligerents to evacuate Belgium forthwith would be refused; could not be enforced; and would make the asker ridiculous. We are, in short, not a prayerful nation. But to you it will be clear that even the strongest power, or even allied group of powers, can have its position completely changed by an expression of the public opinion of the rest of the world. In your clear western atmosphere and in your peculiarly responsible position as the head centre of western democracy, you, when the European situation became threatening three months ago, must have been acutely aware of the fact to which Europe was so fatally blinded--namely, that the simple solution of the difficulty in which the menace of the Franco-Russo-British Entente placed Germany was for the German Emperor to leave his western frontier under the safeguard of the neighborliness and good faith of American, British, and French democracy, and then await quite calmly any action that Russia might take against his country on the east. Had he done so, we could not have attacked him from behind; and had France made such an attack--and it is in the extremest degree improbable that French public opinion would have permitted such a hazardous and unjustifiable adventure--he would at worst have confronted it with the fullest sympathy of Britain and the United States, and at best with their active assistance. Unhappily, German Kings do not allow democracy to interfere in their foreign policy; do not believe in neighborliness; and do believe in cannon and cannon fodder. The Kaiser never dreamed of confiding his frontier to you and to the humanity of his neighbors. And the diplomatists of Europe never thought of that easy and right policy, and could not suggest any substitute for it, with the hideous result which is before you.

The State of Belgium.

Now that this mischief has been done, and the two European thunderclouds have met and are discharging their lightnings, it is not for me to meddle with the question whether the United States should take a side in their warfare as far as it concerns themselves alone. But I may plead for a perfectly innocent neutral State, the State of Belgium, which is being ravaged in a horrible manner by the belligerents. Her surviving population is flying into all the neighboring countries to escape from the incessant hail of shrapnel and howitzer shells from British cannon, French cannon, German cannon, and, most tragic of all, Belgian cannon; for the Belgian Army is being forced to devastate its own country in its own defense.

For this there can be no excuse; and at such a horror the rest of the world cannot look on in silence without incurring the guilt of the bystander who witnesses a crime without even giving the alarm. I grant that Belgium, in her extreme peril, made one mistake. She called to her aid the powers of the Entente alone instead of calling on the whole world of kindly men. She should have called on America, too; and it is hard to see how you could in honor have disregarded that call. But if Belgium says nothing, but only turns her eyes dumbly toward you while you look at the red ruin in which her villages, her heaps of slain, her monuments and treasures are being hurled by her friends and enemies alike, are you any the less bound to speak out than if Belgium had asked you to send her a million soldiers?

Not for a moment do I suggest that your intervention should be an intervention on behalf of either the Allies or the Entente. If you consider both sides equally guilty, we know that you can find reasons for that verdict. But Belgium is innocent; and it is on behalf of Belgium that so much of the world as is still at peace is waiting for a lead from you. No other question need be prejudged. If Germany maintains her claim to a right of way through Belgium on a matter which she believed (however erroneously) to be one of life and death to her as a nation, nobody, not even China, now pretends that such rights of way have not their place among those common human rights which are su-

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perior to the more artificial rights of nationality. I think, for example, that if Russia made a descent on your continent under circumstances which made it essential to the maintenance of your national freedom that you should move an army through Canada, you would ask our leave to do so, and take it by force if we did not grant it. You may reasonably suspect, even if all our statesmen raise a shriek of denial, that we should take a similar liberty under similar circumstances in the teeth of all the scraps of paper in our Foreign Office dustbin. You see, I am frank with you, and fair, I hope, to Germany. But a right of way is not a right of conquest; and even the right of way was not, as the Imperial Chancellor imagined, a matter of life and death at all, but a militarist hallucination, and one that has turned out, so far, a military mistake. In short, there was no such case of overwhelming necessity as would have made the denial of a right of way to the German Army equivalent to a refusal to save German independence from destruction, and therefore to an act of war against her, justifying a German conquest of Belgium. You can therefore leave the abstract question of international rights of way quite unprejudiced by your action. You can leave every question between the belligerents fully open, and yet, in the common interest of the world, ask Germany to clear out of Belgium, into France or across the Channel, if she can, back home if she can force no other passage, but at all events out of Belgium. A like request would, of course, be addressed to Britain and to France at the same time. The technical correctness of our diplomatic position as to Belgium may be unimpeachable; but as the effect of our shells on Belgium is precisely the same as that of the German shells, and as by fighting on Belgian soil we are doing her exactly the same injury that we should have done her if the violation of her neutrality had been initiated by us instead of by Germany, we could not decently refuse to fall in with a general evacuation.

A Certain Result of Intervention.

At all events, your intervention could not fail to produce at least the result that even if the belligerents refused to comply, your request would leave them in an entirely new and very unpleasant relation to public opinion. No matter how powerful a State is, it is not above feeling the vast difference between doing something that nobody condemns and something that everybody condemns except the interested parties.

That difference alone would be well worth your pains. But it is by no means a foregone conclusion that a blank refusal would be persisted in. Germany must be aware that the honor of England is now so bound up with the complete redemption of Belgium from the German occupation that to keep Antwerp and Brussels she must take Portsmouth and London. France is no less deeply engaged. You can judge better than I what chance Germany now has, or can persuade herself she has, of exhausting or overwhelming her western enemies without ruining herself in the attempt. Whatever else the war and its horrors may have done or not done, you will agree with me that it has made an end of the dreams of military and naval steam-rollering in which the whole wretched business began. At a cost which the conquest of a whole continent would hardly justify, these terrible armaments and the heroic hosts which wield them push one another a few miles back and forward in a month, and take and retake some miserable village three times over in less than a week. Can you doubt that though we have lost all fear of being beaten, (our darkened towns, and the panics of our papers, with their endless scares and silly inventions, are mere metropolitan hysteria,) we are getting very tired of a war in which, having now re-established our old military reputation, and taught the Germans that there is no future for their empire without our friendship and that of France, we have nothing more to gain? In London and Paris and Berlin nobody at present dares say "Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to an-

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other?"; for the slightest disposition toward a Christian view of things is regarded as a shooting matter in these capitals; but Washington is still privileged to talk common humanity to the nations.

An Advantage of Aloofness.

Finally, I may remind you of another advantage which your aloofness from the conflict gives you. Here, in England and in France, men are going to the front every day; their women and children are all within earshot; and no man is hard-hearted enough to say the worst that might be said of what is going on in Belgium now. We talk to you of Louvain and Rheims in the hope of enlisting you on our side or prejudicing you against the Germans, forgetting how sorely you must be tempted to say as you look on at what we are doing, "Well, if European literature, as represented by the library of Louvain, and European religion, as represented by the Cathedral of Rheims, have not got us beyond this, in God's name let them perish." I am thinking of other things--of the honest Belgians, whom I have seen nursing their wounds, and whom I recognize at a glance as plain men, innocent of all warlike intentions, trusting to the wisdom and honesty of the rulers and diplomatists who have betrayed them, taken from their farms and their businesses to destroy and be destroyed for no good purpose that might not have been achieved better and sooner by neighborly means. I am thinking of the authentic news that no papers dare publish, not of the lies that they all publish to divert attention from the truth. In America these things can be said without driving American mothers and wives mad; here, we have to set our teeth and go forward. We cannot be just; we cannot see beyond the range of our guns. The roar of the shrapnel deafens us; the black smoke of the howitzer blinds us; and what these do to our bodily senses our passions do to our imaginations. For justice, we must do as the mediaeval cities did--call in a stranger. You are not altogether that to us; but you can look at all of us impartially. And you are the spokesman of Western democracy. That is why I appeal to you.

G. BERNARD SHAW.

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The following letter from the noted German playwright Eulenberg, whose plays of a decided modern tendency have been presented extensively in Germany and in Vienna, was made public by the German Press Bureau of New York in October, 1914.

Bernard Shaw: You have addressed us Germans several times of late without receiving a reply from us. The reason for this was probably the momentary bitterness against your country of our people's intellectual representatives. Indeed, our best scholars and artists, Ernst Haeckel at 81 years, leading the rest, stripped themselves during these past weeks of all the honors which England had apportioned them. Permit me as one who had the opportunity to do much for the propagation of your dramatic works, especially of your finest drama, "Candida," in Western Germany and in Holland, to present as quiet and as moderate a retort as is possible.

Your appeal to intellectual Germany we reciprocate with a question to intellectual England. It is as follows: How is it possible for you to witness your country's present unheard of policy (so opposed to culture) without rising as one man against it? Do you believe that we thinking Germans would ever, without saying or doing anything, observe an alliance of our Government, whose goal was the strengthening of imperialism and the subjugation and destruction of a cultured power, such as France or England? Never! Among your people only a very small number of brave scholars protested against this criminal alliance of your Government at the beginning of the war. You others, you poets, painters, and musicians of present-day England were silent and permitted Sir Edward Grey to continue to sin against a people related to you by blood and intellect. You raised your voice a little, Bernard Shaw! But what did you propose to us: "Refrain from your militarism, my dear Germans, and become again the congenial, complacent poets and thinkers, the people of Goethe and Beethoven, whom no one hated! Then we will surely help you against the bad Russians!"

Is not this proposal a bit too naïve for you, Bernard Shaw? We are situated in the midst of Russians and Frenchmen, who have formed an open alliance against us for more than twenty years. Our neighbors in the East denounce nothing more than us, and our neighbors in the West denounce us and plan against us, who have for nearly half a century evinced nothing but friendliness toward them. When such enemies surround us, does not your friendly counsel, Bernard Shaw, seem as if you said to us: "Just let yourself be massacred, Germans! Afterward your British cousins will vouchsafe you their protection."

Germany Not Isolated.

Do you think that we would carry on our militarism and our expensive drilling if we lived on an island as you do? We would not think of it. We would speedily dispatch a blood-thirsty butcher, like your Lord Kitchener, from our island to our most unhealthy colony. We could not even reconcile our worthy Dr. Karl Peters, who had dealt a little unscrupulously with a few negro women, with our conceptions of culture, and had to pass him over to you! But the thought shall not come to me or to us, as it does to your Prime Ministers, to pose as angels of light, a fact about which you have yourself told your compatriots the bitter truth to our great joy. We admit having injured Belgium's neutrality, but we have only done it because of dire necessity, because we could not otherwise reach France and take up the fight against two sides forced upon us. Belgium's independence and freedom, which is suddenly of the utmost importance to your King and your Ministers, we have not touched. Even after the expeditious capture of Liége we asked Belgium for the second time: "Let us pass quickly through your country. We will make good every damage, and will not take away a square foot of your country! Do destroyers of liberty and Huns and vandals, or whatever other defamatory names your English papers now heap upon us, who at the time of Beethoven and Schopenhauer formed the Areopagus of culture, conduct themselves in such a way? Does not one of your living spirits in England cry aloud at the reprehensible alliance which your Government has made over your heads with Russia and Japan? On the most shameful day in English history, on the day when Mongolian Japan gave the German people her ultimatum at the instigation of your politicians, on this, I repeat it, most shameful day in the entire English history, I believed that the great dead in Westminster Abbey would rise from their graves horrified at the shameful deed which their grandsons and great-grandsons imposed upon old England.

The Land of Shakespeare.

We Germans venerated the old England almost as a fatherland. We have recognized, understood, and studied Shakespeare, whom you, Bernard Shaw, so dislike, more than any other people, even more than the English nation itself. Lord Byron received more benefits from Goethe alone than from all of England put together. Newton, Darwin, and Adam Smith found in Germany their best supporters and interpreters. The dramatic writers of latter-day England, most worthy of mention, from Oscar Wilde to you, Galsworthy and Knoblauch, are recognized by us and their plays performed numberless times. We have always endeavored to understand the English character. "Nowhere did we feel so much at home as in Germany," all your compatriots will tell you who have been guests here.

In "gratitude" for this our merchants were persecuted for years by your merchants, because of a wild hatred for Germans, which, by the way, had a most disagreeable effect upon the races of other colors. In "gratitude," with but few exceptions which we will not forget, we are now abused and belittled by your press before all of Europe and America as if we were assassins, vagabonds, enemies of culture and murderers, far worse than the Russians. As thanks for that you have entered upon a war against us, for which even Sir Edward Grey could not at first give a good reason until the injury of Belgium neutrality luckily came to his assistance.

Our people are, therefore, now rightly embittered against England because through your groundless participation you have made more difficult the war against Russia and France, for which one alone, the Czar of Russia, bears the blame. But despite this great bitterness they would never approve the demolition of your country and your nation, because of their respect for your great past and your share in the development of culture in Europe. You, however, joined an alliance as a third great power, whose only purpose is our dissolution and destruction. Merely for reasons of justice and of moral courage a Pitt, a Burke, a Disraeli would have withdrawn their participation in such an alliance, which--Oh, heroic deed--falls upon the Germans by threes, no, by fours or fives. Your present-day statesmen, wholly unworthy of representing a people with your past and your inheritance, incite the Mongolians and blacks against us, your brother nation. They steal and permit our small and insufficiently protected colonies to be stolen and no not care a jot for all considerations of Europeans' culture and morals.

An Unnatural Russian Alliance.

England, once the home and the refuge for all free spirits from the days of the Inquisition, from Rousseau until Freiligrath and Karl Marx, England has allied herself with Russia--the prison and the horror of all friends of liberty! Hear ye, hear ye illustrious dead, who lived and struggled for the freedom and the greatest possible joy of mankind, and

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shake in your tombs with disgust and with horror! But you living ones, and you, Bernard Shaw, the foremost of all English artists, do everything in your power to break this terrible alliance and make it powerless for England. Much more lies in the balance for her than is understood by your present nearsighted politicians, who have in mind only the momentary advantages. The destruction of the German power is not the only thing in question here; no, it concerns a great part of civilized Europe in regard to the suspension of their hard-won political liberty; and England, the people of the Magna Charta, the first free Constitution, can never be a party to that. That is why we call to you, Bernard Shaw, in the name of Europe, and ask you for your voice in the struggle.

It is a splendid thing that this serious time has also aroused the poets, the thinkers and artists as political and diplomatic advisers, and we should not let ourselves be crowded out of this profession, for which, thanks to our minds, we are not less fitted than the high-brow Lords and Counts. Men of our guild from Thucydides and Herodotus to Petrarch and Rubens, and our Humboldt and your Beaconsfield have ever shown themselves to be good intermediaries and peace advocates. And that, believe me, Bernard Shaw, is of more importance to our people, as well as to our Kaiser, who for over twenty-five years has avoided war like a poison, than all other bloody laurels. Here's to a decent, honorable and "eternal" peace.

HERBERT EULENBERG.

One of the most interesting documents brought forth about the war was issued Sept. 17 in London. It was signed by fifty-three of the leading British writers. Herewith are presented the text of their defense of England and their autograph signatures in facsimile.

The undersigned writers, comprising among them men of the most divergent political and social views, some of them having been for years ardent champions of good-will toward Germany, and many of them extreme advocates of peace, are nevertheless agreed that Great Britain could not without dishonor have refused to take part in the present war. No one can read the full diplomatic correspondence published in the "White Paper" without seeing that the British representatives were throughout laboring whole-heartedly to preserve the peace of Europe, and that their conciliatory efforts were cordially received by both France and Russia.

When these efforts failed Great Britain had still no direct quarrel with any power. She was eventually compelled to take up arms because, together with France, Germany, and Austria, she had solemnly pledged herself to maintain the neutrality of Belgium. As soon as danger to that neutrality arose she questioned both France and Germany as to their intentions. France immediately renewed her pledge not to violate Belgian neutrality; Germany refused to answer, and soon made all answer needless by her actions. Without even the pretense of a grievance against Belgium she made war on the weak and unoffending country she had undertaken to protect, and has since carried out her invasion with a calculated and ingenious ferocity which has raised questions other and no less grave than that of the willful disregard of treaties.

When Belgium in her dire need appealed to Great Britain to carry out her pledge, that country's course was clear. She had either to break faith, letting the

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sanctity of treaties and the rights of small nations count for nothing before the threat of naked force, or she had to fight. She did not hesitate, and we trust she will not lay down arms till Belgium's integrity is restored and her wrongs redressed.

The treaty with Belgium made our duty clear, but many of us feel that, even if Belgium had not been involved, it would have been impossible for Great Britain to stand aside while France was dragged into war and destroyed. To permit the ruin of France would be a crime against liberty and civilization. Even those of us who question the wisdom of a policy of Continental ententes or alliances refuse to see France struck down by a foul blow dealt in violation of a treaty.

We observe that various German apologists, official and semi-official, admit that their country had been false to its pledged word, and dwell almost with pride on the "frightfulness" of the examples by which it has sought to spread terror in Belgium, but they excuse all these proceedings by a strange and novel plea. German culture and civilization are so superior to those of other nations that all steps taken to assert them are more than justified, and the destiny of Germany to be the dominating force in Europe and the world is so manifest that ordinary rules of morality do not hold in her case, but actions are good or bad simply as they help or hinder the accomplishment of that destiny.

These views, inculcated upon the present generation of Germans by many celebrated historians and teachers, seem to us both dangerous and insane. Many of us have dear friends in Germany, many of us regard German culture with the highest respect and gratitude; but we cannot admit that any nation has the right by brute force to impose its culture upon other nations, nor that the iron military bureaucracy of Prussia represents a higher form of human society than the free Constitutions of Western Europe.

Whatever the world destiny of Germany may be, we in Great Britain are ourselves conscious of a destiny and a duty. That destiny and duty, alike for us and for all the English-speaking race, call upon us to uphold the rule of common justice between civilized peoples, to defend the rights of small nations, and to maintain the free and law-abiding ideals of Western Europe against the rule of "Blood and Iron" and the domination of the whole Continent by a military caste.

For these reasons and others the undersigned feel bound to support the cause of the Allies with all their strength, with a full conviction of its righteousness, and with a deep sense of its vital import to the future of the world.

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WILLIAM ARCHER, dramatic critic and editor of Ibsen's works, author of "Life of Macready," "Real Conversations," "The Great Analysis," and (with Granville Barker) "A National Theatre."

H. GRANVILLE BARKER, actor, dramatist, and manager, shares with his wife management of the Kingsway Theatre, London; author of "The Voysey Inheritance," and (with Laurence Housman) "Prunella."

SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, creator of "Sentimental Tommy" and "Peter Pan," famous for his sympathetic studies of Scotch life and his fantastic comedies.

HILAIRE BELLOC, best known as a writer on history, politics, and economics; a recognized authority on the French Revolution.

ARNOLD BENNETT, author of many popular realistic studies of English provincial life, including "Clayhanger" and "Hilda Lessways."

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON, chiefly known for "From a College Window," "Beside Still Waters," and other volumes of essays.

EDWARD FREDERIC BENSON, brother of the preceding, author of many novels of modern life, including "Dodo."

VERY REV. MONSIGNOR ROBERT HUGH BENSON, the youngest of the three famous Benson brothers. Besides numerous devotional and theological works, Monsignor Benson has written several widely appreciated historical novels.

LAWRENCE BINYON, author of many lyrics and poetic dramas, Assistant Keeper in the British Museum, in charge of Oriental Prints and Drawings.

ANDREW CECIL BRADLEY, critic, sometime Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, author of a standard work on Shakespeare.

ROBERT BRIDGES, Poet-Laureate. Prominent as a physician before his poetry brought him the high honor he now enjoys.

HALL CAINE, one of the most popular of contemporary novelists.

R.C. CARTON, dramatist, author of "Lord and Lady Algy" and "A White Elephant."

CHARLES HADDON CHAMBERS, dramatist, author of "John a Dreams," part author of "The Fatal Card."

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON, essayist, novelist, poet; defender of orthodox thought by unorthodox methods.

HUBERT HENRY DAVIES, dramatist, author of "The Mollusc" and "A Single Man."

SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, creator of "Sherlock Holmes."

HERBERT ALBERT LAURENS FISHER, Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University, author of "The Mediaeval Empire," "Napoleon Bonaparte," and other historical works.

JOHN GALSWORTHY, a novelist and dramatist who has come into great prominence during the last five years, his plays, "Strife" and "Justice," and his novel, "The Dark Flower," being widely known.

ANSTEY GUTHRIE, (F. ANSTEY,) author of "The Brass Bottle," "The Talking Horse," and other fantastic and humorous tales.

SIR HENRY RIDER HAGGARD, author of many widely read romances, among them being "She."

THOMAS HARDY, generally considered to be the greatest living English novelist.

JANE ELLEN HARRISON, sometime Fellow and Lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge University; writer of many standard works on classical religion, literature, and life.

ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS, (ANTHONY HOPE,) author of popular historical romance and sketches of modern society, including "The Prisoner of Zenda."

MAURICE HEWLETT, poet and romantic novelist, author of "Earthworks Out of Tuscany" and other mediaeval tales.

ROBERT HICHENS, novelist, author of "The Garden of Allah," "Bella Donna," and other stories.

JEROME K. JEROME, humorist, famous for "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" and the "Three Men" series, and for his play "The Passing of the Third Floor Back."

HENRY ARTHUR JONES, dramatist, author of "The Silver King," "The Hypocrites," and other plays.

RUDYARD KIPLING needs no introduction to people who read the English language.

WILLIAM J. LOCKE, author of "The Morals of Marcus," "Septimus," and "The Beloved Vagabond," which have been made into successful plays.

EDWARD VERRAL LUCAS, associate editor of Punch and editor of several popular anthologies, author of "A Wanderer in Holland."

JOHN WILLIAM MACKAIL, Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, author and editor of many volumes dealing with ancient Greek and Roman literature.

JOHN MASEFIELD, known chiefly for his long poems of life among the British poor.

ALFRED EDWARD WOODLEY MASON, writer of romantic novels, of which "The Four Feathers" and "The Turnstile" are perhaps the best known, and of several popular dramas.

GILBERT MURRAY, Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University since 1908, editor and translator of Greek classics, perhaps the greatest Greek scholar now living.

HENRY NEWBOLT, "laureate of the British Navy," author of "Drake's Drum" and many other songs.

BARRY PAIN, author of "Eliza" and other novels and short stories of adventure, of many well-known parodies and poems.

SIR GILBERT PARKER, of Canadian birth, poet and author of romantic novels, including "The Judgment House," and "The Right of Way."

EDEN PHILLPOTTS, realistic novelist, noted for his exact portraits of the English rustic, author of "Down Dartmoor Way."

SIR ARTHUR WING PINERO, one of the most popular of living dramatists. His plays include "Sweet Lavender" and "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray."

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SIR OWEN SEAMAN, since 1906 editor of Punch, writer of parodies and light verse.

GEORGE R. SIMS, journalist, poet, and author of many popular dramas, including "The Lights of London," "Two Little Vagabonds," and "Harbour Lights."

MAY SINCLAIR, writer of novels dealing with modern moral problems, "The Divine Fire" and "The Combined Maze" being best known.

FLORA ANNIE STEEL, author of "Tales from the Punjab," "On the Face of the Waters," "A Prince of Dreamers," and other novels and short stories, most of which deal with life in India.

ALFRED SUTRO, dramatist, author of "The Walls of Jericho," "The Barrier," and other plays of modern society."

GEORGE MACAULAY TREVELYAN, late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; author of "England Under the Stuarts," and other historical and biographical works.

RT. HON. GEORGE OTTO TREVELYAN, historian, biographer of Macaulay, and author of a four-volume work on the American Revolution.

HUMPHRY WARD, journalist and author, sometime Fellow of Brasenose College, editor of several biographical and historical works.

MARY A. WARD, (Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD,) best known of contemporary women novelists; her first success was "Robert Elsmere."

H.G. WELLS, novelist, author of "Tono Bungay" and "Ann Veronica."

MARGARET L. WOODS, poet; her "Wild Justice" and "The Invader" have placed her in the front rank.

ISRAEL ZANGWILL, novelist, poet, dramatist, interpreter of the modern Jewish spirit.

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Europe is at war!

The monstrous vanity that was begotten by the easy victories of '70 and '71 has challenged the world, and Germany prepares to reap the harvest Bismarck sowed. That trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of Europe, that has arrested civilization and darkened the hopes of mankind for forty years. German imperialism, German militarism, has struck its inevitable blow. The victory of Germany will mean the permanent enthronement of the War God over all human affairs. The defeat of Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth.

To those who love peace there can be no other hope in the present conflict than the defeat, the utter discrediting of the German legend, the ending for good and all of the blood and iron superstition, of Krupp, flag-wagging Teutonic Kiplingism, and all that criminal, sham efficiency that centres in Berlin. Never was war so righteous as war against Germany now. Never has any State in the world so clamored for punishment.

But be it remembered that Europe's quarrel is with the German State, not with the German people; with a system, and not with a race. The older tradition of Germany is a pacific and civilizing tradition. The temperament of the mass of German people is kindly, sane, and amiable. Disaster to the German Army, if it is unaccompanied by any such memorable wrong as dismemberment or intolerable indignity, will mean the restoration of the greatest people in Europe to the fellowship of Western nations. The role of England in this huge struggle is plain as daylight. We have to fight. If only on account of the Luxemburg outrage, we have to fight. If we do not fight, England will cease to be a country to be proud of; it will be a dirt-bath to escape from. But it is inconceivable that we should not fight. And having fought, then in the hour of victory it will be for us to save the liberated Germans from vindictive treatment, to secure for this great people their right, as one united German-speaking State, to a place in the sun.

First we have to save ourselves and Europe, and then we have to stand between German on the one hand and the Cossack and revenge on the other.

For my own part, I do not doubt that Germany and Austria are doomed to defeat in this war. It may not be catastrophic defeat, though even that is possible, but it is defeat. There is no destiny in the stars and every sign is false if this is not so.

They have provoked an overwhelming combination of enemies. They have underrated France. They are hampered by a bad social and military tradition. The German is not naturally a good soldier; he is orderly and obedient, but he is not nimble nor quick-witted; since his sole considerable military achievement, his not very lengthy march to Paris in '70 and '71, the conditions of modern warfare have been almost completely revolutionized and in a direction that subordinates the massed fighting of unintelligent men to the rapid initiative of individualized soldiers. And, on the other hand, since those years of disaster, the Frenchman has learned the lesson of humility; he is prepared now sombrely for a sombre struggle; his is the gravity that precedes astonishing victories. In the air, in the open field, with guns and machines, it is doubtful if any one fully realizes the superiority of his

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quality to the German. This sudden attack may take him aback for a week or so, though I doubt even that, but in the end I think he will hold his own; even without us he will hold his own, and with us then I venture to prophesy that within three months from now his tricolor will be over the Rhine. And even suppose his line gets broken by the first rush. Even then I do not see how the Germans are to get to Paris or anywhere near Paris. I do not see how against the strength of the modern defensive and the stinging power of an intelligent enemy in retreat, of which we had a little foretaste in South Africa, the exploit of Sedan can be repeated. A retiring German army, on the other hand, will be far less formidable than a retiring French army, because it has less "devil" in it, because it is made up of men taught to obey in masses, because its intelligence is concentrated in its aristocratic officers, because it is dismayed when it breaks ranks. The German Army is everything the conscriptionists dreamed of making our people; it is, in fact, an army about twenty years behind the requirements of contemporary conditions.

On the eastern frontier the issue is more doubtful because of the uncertainty of Russian things. The peculiar military strength of Russia, a strength it was not able to display in Manchuria, lies in its vast resources of mounted men. A set invasion of Prussia may be a matter of many weeks, but the raiding possibilities in Eastern Germany are enormous. It is difficult to guess how far the Russian attack will be guided by intelligence, and how far Russia will blunder, but Russia will have to blunder very disastrously indeed before she can be put upon the defensive. A Russian raid is far more likely to threaten Berlin than a German to reach Paris.

Meanwhile there is the struggle on the sea. In that I am prepared for some rude shocks. The Germans have devoted an amount of energy to the creation of an aggressive navy that would have been spent more wisely in consolidating their European position. It is probably a thoroughly good navy and ship for ship the equal of our own. But the same lack of invention, the same relative uncreativeness that has kept the German behind the Frenchman in things aerial has made him, regardless of his shallow seas, follow our lead in naval matters, and if we have erred, and I believe we have erred, in overrating the importance of the big battleship, the German has at least very obligingly fallen in with our error. The safest, most effective place for the German fleet at the present time is the Baltic Sea. On this side of the Kiel Canal, unless I overrate the powers of the waterplane, there is no safe harbor for it. If it goes into port anywhere that port can be ruined, and the bottled-up ships can be destroyed at leisure by aerial bombs. So that if they are on this side of the Kiel Canal they must keep the sea and fight, if we let them, before their coal runs short. Battle in the open sea in this case is their only chance. They will fight against odds, and with every prospect of a smashing, albeit we shall certainly have to pay for that victory in ships and men. In the Baltic we shall not be able to get at them without the participation of Denmark, and they may have a considerable use against Russia. But in the end even there mine and aeroplane and destroyer should do their work.

So I reckon that Germany will be held east and west, and that she will get her fleet practically destroyed. We ought also to be able to sweep her shipping off the seas, and lower her flag forever in Africa and Asia and the Pacific. All the probabilities, it seems to me, point to that. There is no reason why Italy should not stick to her present neutrality, and there is considerable inducement close at hand for both Denmark and Japan to join in, directly they are convinced of the failure of the first big rush on the part of Germany. All these issues will be more or less definitely decided within the next two or three months. By that time I believe German imperialism will be shattered, and it may be possible to anticipate the

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end of the armaments phase of European history. France, Italy, England, and all the smaller powers of Europe are now pacific countries; Russia, after this huge war, will be too exhausted for further adventure; a shattered Germany will be a revolutionary Germany, as sick of uniforms and the imperialist idea as France was in 1871, as disillusioned about predominance as Bulgaria is today. The way will be open at last for all these western powers to organize peace. That is why I, with my declared horror of war, have not signed any of these "stop-the-war" appeals and declarations that have appeared in the last few days. Every sword that is drawn against Germany now is a sword drawn for peace.

To the Editor of The [London] Times:

Sir: At the outset of the war I made a suggestion in your columns for the enrollment of all that surplus of manhood and patriotic feeling which remains after every man available for systematic military operations has been taken. My idea was that comparatively undrilled boys and older men, not sound enough for campaigning, armed with rifles, able to shoot straight with them, and using local means of transport, bicycles, cars, and so forth, would be a quite effective check upon an enemy's scouting, a danger to his supplies, and even a force capable of holding up a raiding advance--more particularly if that advance was poor in horses and artillery, as an overseas raid was likely to be. I suggested, too, that the mere enrollment and arming of the population would have a powerful educational effect in steadying and unifying the spirit of our people. My proposals were received with what seemed even a forced amusement by the "experts." I was told that I knew nothing about warfare, and that the Germans would not permit us to do anything of the sort. The Germans, it seems, are the authorities in these matters, a point I had overlooked. They would refuse to recognize men with only improvised uniforms, they would shoot their prisoners--not that I had proposed that my irregulars should become prisoners--and burn the adjacent villages. This seemed to be an entirely adequate reply from the point of view of the expert mind, and I gathered that the proper rôle for such an able-bodied civilian as myself was to keep indoors while the invader was about and supply him as haughtily as possible with light refreshments and anything else he chose to requisition. I was also reminded that if only men like myself had obeyed their expert advice and worked in the past for national service and the general submission of everything to expert military direction, these troubles would not have arisen. There would have been no surplus of manhood and everything would have gone as smoothly and as well for England as--the Press Censorship.

An Improbable Invasion.

For a time I was silenced. Under war conditions it is always a difficult question to determine how far it is better to obey poor, or even bad, directions or to criticise them in the hope of getting better. But the course of the war since

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that correspondence and the revival of the idea of a raid by your military correspondent provoke me to return to this discussion. Frankly, I do not believe in that raid, and I think we play the German game in letting our minds dwell upon it. I am supposed to be a person of feverish imagination, but even by lashing my imagination to its ruddiest I cannot, in these days of wireless telegraphy, see a properly equipped German force, not even so trivial a handful as 20,000 of them, getting itself with guns, motors, ammunition, and provisions upon British soil. I cannot even see a mere landing of infantrymen. I believe in that raid even less than I do in the suggested raid of navigables that has darkened London. I admit the risk of a few aeroplane bombs in London, but I do not see why people should be subjected to danger, darkness, and inconvenience on account of that one-in-a-million risk. Still, as the trained mind does insist upon treating all unenlisted civilians as panicstricken imbeciles and upon frightening old ladies and influential people with these remote possibilities, and as it is likely that these alarms may even lead to the retention of troops in England when their point of maximum effectiveness is manifestly in France, it becomes necessary to insist upon the ability of our civilian population, if only the authorities will permit the small amount of organization and preparation needed, to deal quite successfully with any raid that in an extremity of German "boldness" may be attempted.

And, in the first place, let the expert have no illusions as to what we ordinary people are going to do if we find German soldiers in England one morning. We are going to fight. If we cannot fight with rifles, we shall fight with shotguns, and if we cannot fight according to rules of war apparently made by Germans for the restraint of British military experts, we will fight according to our inner light. Many men, and not a few women, will turn out to shoot Germans. There will be no preventing them after the Belgian stories. If the experts attempt any pedantic interference, we will shoot the experts. I know that in this matter I speak for so sufficient a number of people that it will be quite useless and hopelessly dangerous and foolish for any expert-instructed minority to remain "tame." They will get shot, and their houses will be burned according to the established German rules and methods on our account, so they may just as well turn out in the first place, and get some shooting as a consolation in advance for their inevitable troubles. And if the raiders, cut off by the sea from their supports, ill-equipped as they will certainly be, and against odds, are so badly advised as to try terror-striking reprisals on the Belgian pattern, we irregulars will, of course, massacre every German straggler we can put a gun to. Naturally. Such a procedure may be sanguinary, but it is just the common sense of the situation. We shall hang the officers and shoot the men. A German raid to England will in fact not be fought--it will be lynched. War is war, and reprisals and striking terror are games that two can play at. This is the latent temper of the British countryside, and the sooner the authorities take it in hand and regularize it the better will be the outlook in the remote event of that hypothetical raid getting home to us. Levity is a national characteristic, but submissiveness is not. Under sufficient provocation the English are capable of very dangerous bad temper, and the expert is dreaming who thinks of a German expedition moving through an apathetic Essex, for example, resisted only by the official forces trained and in training.

And whatever one may think of the possibility of raids, I venture to suggest that the time has come when the present exclusive specialization of our combatant energy upon the production of regulation armies should cease. The gathering of these will go on anyhow; there are unlimited men ready for intelligent direction. Now that the shortage of supplies and accommodation has been remedied the enlistment sluices need only be opened again. The rank and file of this country is its strength; there is no need,

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and there never has been any need, for press hysterics about recruiting. But there is wanted a far more vigorous stimulation of the manufacture of material--if only experts and rich people would turn their minds to that. It is the trading and manufacturing class that needs goading at the present time. It is very satisfactory to send troops to France, but in France there are still great numbers of able-bodied, trained Frenchmen not fully equipped. It is our national duty and privilege to be the storehouse and arsenal of the Allies. Our factories for clothing and material of all sorts should be working day and night. There is the point to which enthusiasm should be turned. It is just as heroic and just as useful to the country to kill yourself making belts and boots as it is to die in a trench. But our organization for the enrollment and utilization of people not in the firing line is still amazingly unsatisfactory. The one convenient alternative to enlistment as a combatant at present is hospital work. But it is really far more urgent to direct enthusiasm and energy now to the production of war material. If this war does not end, as all the civilized world hopes it will end, in the complete victory of the Allies, our failure will not be through any shortage of men, but through a shortage of gear and organizing ability. It will not be through a default of the people, but through the slackness of the governing class.

Arms and Equipment Needed.

Now so far as the enrollment of us goes, of the surplus people who are willing to be armed and to be used for quasi-military work at home, but who are not of an age or not of a physique or who are already in shop or office serving some quite useful purpose at home, we want certain very simple things from the authorities. We want the military status that is conferred by a specific enrollment and some sort of uniform. We want accessible arms. They need not be modern service weapons; the rifles of ten years ago are quite good enough for the possible need we shall have for them. And we want to be sure that in the possible event of an invasion the Government will have the decision to give every man in the country a military status by at once resorting to the levée en masse. Given a recognized local organization and some advice--it would not take a week of Gen. Baden-Powell's time, for example, to produce a special training book for us--we could set to work upon our own local drill, rifle practice, and exercises, in such hours and ways as best suited our locality. We could also organize the local transport, list local supplies, and arrange for their removal or destruction if threatened. Finally, we could set to work to convert a number of ordinary cars into fighting cars by reconstructing and armoring them and exercising crews. And having developed a discipline and self-respect as a fighting force, we should be available not only for fighting work at home, in the extremely improbable event of a raid, but also for all kinds of supplementary purposes, as a reserve of motor drivers, as a supply of physically exercised and half-trained recruits in the events of an extended standard, and as a guarantee of national discipline under any unexpected stress. Above all, we should be relieving the real fighting forces of the country for the decisive area, which is in France and Belgium now and will, I hope, be in Westphalia before the Spring.

At present we non-army people are doing only a fraction of what we would like to do for our country. We are not being used. We are made to feel out of it, and we watch the not always very able proceedings of the military authorities and the international mischief-making of the Censorship with a bitter resentment that is restrained only by the supreme gravity of the crisis. For my own part I entertain three Belgians and make a young officer possible by supplementing his expenses, and my wife knits things. A neighbor, an able-bodied man of 42 and an excellent shot, is occasionally permitted to carry a recruit to Chelmsford. If I try to use my pen on behalf of my country abroad, where I have a few friends and readers, what I

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write is exposed to the clumsy editing and delays of anonymous and apparently irresponsible officials. So practically I am doing nothing, and a great number of people are doing very little more. The authorities are concentrated upon the creation of an army numerically vast, and for the rest they seem to think that the chief function of government is inhibition. Their available energy and ability is taxed to the utmost in maintaining the fighting line, and it is sheer greed for direction that has led to their systematic thwarting of civilian co-operation. Let me warn them of the boredom and irritation they are causing. This is a people's war, a war against militarism; it is not a war for the greater glory of British diplomatists, officials, and people in uniforms. It is our war, not their war, and the last thing we intend to result from it is a permanently increased importance for the military caste.

Yours very sincerely,

H.G. WELLS.

To the Editor of The [London] Times:

Sir: In a strikingly vigorous letter Mr. H.G. Wells claims that a nation of which every individual prefers death to submission is unconquerable and cannot be successfully invaded. Ways of hampering an army are too numerous, if people are willing to run every risk, not only for themselves but for those dependent on them.

This may be admitted. And we may also agree that the British race would be likely to risk everything if the consequences of carefully engendered hate were loosed upon us. But here comes a point worthy of consideration. An invasion of England is, to say the least, unlikely; an invasion of Germany may soon have to be undertaken. May it not add to the difficulties of our troops if a policy of "arming every woman, child, and cat and dog" is favorably regarded by us? Is not such a policy a sort of left-handed outcome of the Prussian contention that even their own unarmed civilian populace is contemptible and may be slaughtered without mercy if military procedure is resisted, or even if supplies are not forthcoming?

It will be difficult, and I hope impossible, for the Allies to act in accordance with this latter view; though the German peasantry may have been so fed with lies that it will be unable to believe that our soldiers can be trusted to behave like civilized beings when the time has come for a forward march. It is clear that riotous license is subversive of discipline, and conduces to defeat--as it probably has in recent Continental experience. For, although ancient warriors used to ravage a country, and although women have occasionally intervened in order to stop a battle, surely never before in the history of the world have women and children been forced forward in defense of a fighting line! Yet undoubtedly war can be so conducted that foes mutually respect each other; indeed, save for the cowardly abomination of floating mines, this present war has been so conducted at sea. I suggest that the fair procedure in case of invasion is for each civilian to choose whether to be a combatant or not, and to incur the danger of an affirmative choice in a sufficiently conspicuous and permanent manner. I am, Sir, faithfully yours,

OLIVER LODGE, The University, Birmingham, Oct. 31.