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HE well-meant but ingenuous efforts of the Government to produce pessimism among the citizens have failed. The object of these efforts was clear; it has, I think, been attained by more direct and wiser means. Munitions of war are now being more satisfactorily manufactured, though the country still refuses to be gloomy. "Eyewitness" pretended to quake, but Przemysl fell. He tried again, but Sir John French announced that he did not believe in a protracted war. Since Sir John French said also that he believed in victory, it follows that he believes in a victory not long delayed. The incomparable and candid reports of the French War Office about the first stages of the war increased our confidence, and at the same time showed to us the inferiority of our own reports. Only victors could publish such revelations, and Britain, with her passion for forgetting mistakes and her hatred of the confessional, could never bring herself to publish them. These reports were confirmed and capped by the remarkable communications of General Joffre to a journalistic friend. The New York Stock Exchange began to gamble about the date of victory. The London Stock Exchange took on a new firmness. Not even the sinister losses at Neuve Chapelle, nor the rumors concerning the same, could disturb our confidence. Peace, therefore, in the general view, and certainty in the view of those who knew most, is decidedly nearer than when I wrote last about peace.

A short while ago Mr. Asquith referred with sarcasm and reproof to those who talk of peace. But, for once, his meaning Iwas not clear. If he meant that to suggest peace to the enemy at this stage is

both dangerous and ridiculous, he will be approved by the nation. But if he meant that terms of peace must not even be mentioned among ourselves, he will find people ready to disagree with him, and to support the weight of his sarcasm and his reproof. I am one of those people. Bellicose by disposition, I nevertheless like to know what I am fighting for. This is perhaps an idiosyncrasy, but many persons share it, and they are not to be ignored. It may be argued that Mr. Asquith has defined what we are fighting for. He has not. He has only defined part of what we are fighting for. His reference to the overthrow of Prussian militarism is futile, because it gives no indication of the method to be employed. The method of liberating and compensating Belgium and other small communities is clear; but how are you to overthrow an ideal? Prussian militarism will not be destroyed by a defeat in the field. Militarism cannot overthrow militarism; it can only breed militarism. The point is of the highest importance.

I do not assume that Mr. Asquith's notions about the right way to overthrow militarism are not sound notions. I assume that they are sound. I think that his common sense is massive. Though it is evident that he lets his Ministerial colleagues do practically what they choose in their own spheres, and though there are militarists in the Cabinet, I do not, like The Morning Post, consider that the Prime Minister exists in a stupor of negligence. On the contrary, I assume that at the end of the war, as at the beginning, Mr. Asquith will control the foolish, and that common sense will prevail in the Cabinet when a treaty is the subject of converse. Still further, I will

assume that, contrary to nearly all precedent, the collective sagacity of the Ministry has not been impaired, and its selfconceit perilously tickled, by the long exercise of absolute power in face of a Parliament of poltroons. And, lastly, I will abandon my old argument that the discussion of peace terms might shorten the war, without any risk of prolonging it. And still I very strongly hold that peace terms ought to be discussed.

It appears to me that there is a desire -I will not say a conspiracy-on the part of the Government to bring this war to an end in the same manner as it will be brought to an end in Germany-that is to say, autocratically, without either the knowledge or the consent of the nation. The projected scheme, I imagine, is to sit tight and quiet, and in due course inform the nation of a fact accomplished. It can be done, and I think it will be done, unless the House of Commons administers to itself a tonic and acquires courage. Already colonial statesmen have been politely but firmly in-. formed that they are not wanted in England this year! The specious excuse for keeping the nation in the dark is that we are allied to Russia, where the people are never under any circumstances consulted, and to France, where for the duration of the war the Government is as absolute, in spirit and in conduct, as that of Russia; and that we must not pain those allied Governments by any exhibition of democracy in being. Secrecy and a complete autocratic control of the people are the watchwords of the allied Governments, and therefore they must be the watchwords of our Government.

This is very convenient for British autocrats, but the argument is not convincing. The surrender of ideals ought not to be so one-sided. We do not dream of suggesting to the Russian and the French Governments how they ought to conduct themselves toward their peoples; and similarly we should not allow them to influence the relations between our Government and ourselves.

The basis of peace negotiations must necessarily be settled in advance by representatives of all the allied Govern

ments in conclave. The mandate of each Government in regard to the conclave is the affair of that Government, and it is the affair of no other Government. The mandate of our Government is, therefore, the affair of our Government, and the allied Governments are just as much entitled to criticise or object to it as we, for example, are entitled to suggest to the Czar how he ought to behave in Finland. Our Government, being a democratic Government, has no right to go into conclave without a mandate from the people who elected it. It possesses no mandate of the kind. It has a mandate, and a mighty one, to prosecute the war, and it is prosecuting the war to the satisfaction of the majority of the electorate. But a peace treaty is a different and an incomparably more important thing. Up to the present the mind of the nation has found no expression, and it probably will not find any expression unless the Government recognizes fairly that it is a representative Government and behaves with the deference which is due from a representative Government. As matters stand, the mandate of the British Government will come, not from Britain, but from Russia and France.

The great argument drawn from the Government's alleged duty to the allied Governments is, no doubt, reinforced, in the minds of Ministers and at Cabinet meetings, by two subsidiary arguments. The first of these rests in the traditional assumption that all international politics must be committed, perpetrated, and accomplished in secret. This strange traditional notion will die hard, but some time it will have to die, and at the moment of its death excellent and sincere persons will be convinced that the knell of the British Empire has sounded. The knell of the British Empire has frequently sounded. It sounded when capital punishment was abolished for sheepstealing, when the great reform bill was passed, when purchase was abolished in the army, when the deceased wife's sister bill was passed, when the Parliament act became law; and it will positively sound again when the mediaeval Chinese tradi

tions of the Diplomatic Service are cast aside. There are many important people alive today who are so obsessed by those traditions as to believe religiously that if the British people, and by consequence the German Government, were made aware of the peace terms, the German Army would in some mysterious way be strengthened and encouraged, and our own ultimate success imperiled. Such is the power of the dead hand, and against this power the new conviction that in a democratic and candid foreign policy lies the future safety of the world will have to fight hard.

The other subsidiary argument for ignoring the nation is that Ministers are wiser than the nation, and therefore that Ministers must save the nation from itself by making it impotent and acting over its head. This has always been the argument of autocrats, and even of tyrants. It is a ridiculous argument, and it was never more ridiculous than when applied to the British Government and the British Nation today. Throughout the war the Government has underestimated the qualities of the nation-courage, discipline, fortitude, and wisdom. It is still underestimating them. For myself, I have no doubt that in the making of peace the sagacity of the nation as a whole would be greater than the sagacity of the Government. But even if it were not, the right of the nation to govern itself in the gravest hour of its career remains unchallengeable. All arguments in favor of depriving the nation of that right amount to the argument of Germany in favor of taking Belgium-" We do it in your true interests, and in our own."

If the Government does not on its own initiative declare that it will consultand effectively consult-Parliament concerning the peace terms, then it is the duty of Parliament, and especially of the House of Commons, to make itself unpleasant and to produce that appearance of internal discord which (we are told by all individuals who dislike being disturbed) is so enheartening to Germany. There have always been, and there still

are, ample opportunities for raising questions of foreign policy in the House of Commons. If foreign policy has seldom or never been adequately handled by the House of Commons, the reason simply is that the House has not been interested in it. Not to the tyranny of Ministries, but to the supineness and the ignorance of the people's representatives, is the present state of affairs due. Hence the rank and file of Radicals should organize themselves. They would unquestionably receive adequate support in the press and at public meetings. And none but they can do anything worth doing. And among the rank and file of Radicals the plain common-sense men should make themselves heard. Foreign policy debates in the House are usually the playground of cranks of all varieties, and the plain common-sense man seems to shrink from being vocal in such company. It is a pity. The plain common-sense man should believe in himself a little more. The result would perhaps startle his modesty. And he should begin instantly on the resumption of Parliament. will of course be told that he is premature. But no matter. When he gets up and makes a row he will be told that he is premature, until Sir Edward Grey is in a position to announce in the icy cold and impressive tones of omniscience and omnipotence and perfect wisdom that the deed is irrevocably done and only the formal ratification of the people is required. We have been through all that before, and we shall go through it again unless we start out immediately to be unpleasant.

He

I hope nobody will get the impression that I think we are a nation of angels under a Government of earthy and primeval creatures. I do not. We are not in a Christian mood, and we don't want to be in a Christian mood. When last week a foolish schoolmaster took advantage of his august position to advocate Christianity at the end of the war, we frightened the life out of him, and he had to say that he had been woefully misunderstood." In spite of this, the nation, being cut off from direct communication with foreign autocracy and re

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FTER six months of war search for the cause thereof borders on the academic. Comment on the physical facts of the situation does not come within the scope of one who, by disposition and training, is concerned with states of mind. Speculation on what the future may bring forth may be left to those with an aptitude for prophecy.

But there is one thought which rises supreme at this particular moment of these tremendous times: The period of surprise is over; the forces known; the issue fully joined. It is now a case of "Pull devil, pull baker " and a question of the fibre of the combatants. For this reason it may not be amiss to try to present to any whom it may concern as detached a picture as one can of the real nature of that combatant who is called the Englishman, especially since ignorance in Central Europe of his character was the chief cause of this war, and speculation as to the future is useless without right comprehension of this curious creature.

The Englishman is taken advisedly because he represents four-fifths of the population of the British Isles and eight-ninths of the character and sentiment therein.

And, first, let it be said that there is no more deceptive, unconsciously deceptive, person on the face of the globe. The Englishman certainly does not know himself, and outside England he is but guessed at. Only a pure Englishman— and he must be an odd one-really knows the Englishman, just as, for inspired judgment of art, one must go to the inspired artist.

Racially, the Englishman is so complex and so old a blend that no one can say what he is. In character he is just

as complex. Physically, there are two main types-one inclining to length of limb, narrowness of face and head, (you will see nowhere such long and narrow heads as in our islands,) and bony jaws; the other approximating more to the ordinary "John Bull." The first type is gaining on the second. There is little or no difference in the main character behind.

In attempting to understand the real nature of the Englishman certain salient facts must be borne in mind:

THE SEA.-To be surrounded generation after generation by the sea has developed in him a suppressed idealism, a peculiar impermeability, a turn for adventure, a faculty for wandering, and for being sufficient unto himself in far surroundings.

THE CLIMATE.-Whoso weathers for centuries a climate that, though healthy and never extreme, is perhaps the least reliable and one of the wettest in the world, must needs grow in himself a counterbalance of dry philosophy, a defiant humor, an enforced medium temperature of soul. The Englishman is no more given to extremes than is his climate; against its damp and perpetual changes he has become coated with a sort of bluntness.

THE POLITICAL AGE OF HIS COUNTRY.-This is by far the oldest settled Western power, politically speaking. For eight hundred and fifty years England has known no serious military disturbance from without; for over one hundred and fifty she has known no military disturbance, and no serious political turmoil within. This is partly the outcome of her isolation, partly the happy accident of her political constitution, partly the result of the Englishman's habit of looking before he leaps,