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WOW long will the war last, and what will be the result? To such questions as these any British subject can give but one answer, and that is that the war will last until the cause of the Allies has been brought to a successful issue and Europe and the world have been relieved from the ideals involved in the aggression of Prussian domination. The world peace does not enter into our vocabulary at the present time. It is banished from our conversation as something immoral and impossible under existing circumstances. And yet we are the most peace-loving people in the world; a nation which throughout the globe, within its many dominions, has inculcated good government and social and industrial progress and the free exercise, in its widest sense, of civil and religious liberty.

Rightly or wrongly, we have in the past devoted our energies and our intelligence, not to preparations for war, but to that social progress which makes for the happiness and the contentment of the mass of our people. And this, no doubt, is the reason why other nations imagine that we, as a nation of shopkeepers, are too indolent and apathetic to fight for and maintain these priceless liberties won by the men who laid the foundation of our vast empire.

But they are entirely mistaken in forming any such estimate of the temperament or determination of our people. Great Britain hates war, and no nation enters more reluctantly upon its horrible and devastating operations; but at the same time no nation, when it is driven to war by the machinations of its foes who desire to filch from it or from its co-champions of liberty any

portion of their inherited freedom, is more resolved to see the matter through, at whatever cost, to a successful issue.

A year of war has transformed Great Britain. Of our navy I need hardly speak. It has upheld to the fullest extent the great traditions which fill the pages of history in the past, it has driven its enemies off the seas, it holds vast oceans free for almost the uninterrupted commerce of neutral powers, and it has preserved these highways for its own supplies of material and food almost without interruption. I do not minimize the peril of the submarines, which is in process of being dealt with through the careful and zealous watchfulness of our Admiralty, but, while the submarine has enabled the Germans to commit savage and inhuman atrocities contrary to the laws of civilization and against the settled rules of international law, it has done nothing to affect the vast commerce of our empire.

The German submarine attack has signally failed to hamper our military operations. Under the protection of our navy hundreds of thousands of men have been brought to the fighting area from the most distant parts of the empire. Troop ships are crossing daily to France, and not a single ship or a single soldier has been lost in the passage. The manner in which our troops have received their supplies is a source of satisfaction to us and admiration to our enemies.

At the commencement of the war we were not, and never did pretend to be, a military nation. An expeditionary force of 170,000 men and a small terri

torial army of 260,000 men for defense against invasion was all we could boast of, but today Great Britain teems with military camps in which millions of men of the finest material are being trained and equipped to cope with every emer

gency.

No other nation in the world ever produced, or hoped to produce, a volunteer army of such proportions. Each day brings to the colors thousands of men who had never thought of military service before, and each day, as our enemy grows weaker, the infancy of our strength is growing into manhood, and with increasing virility and prowess. No doubt some people are foolish enough to be influenced by the misrepresentations which are a part of the equipment of our German enemies, who represent us as a decadent race. But they know little of the spirit of our people.

As the problem unfolds from day to day and the task before us expands in its herculean form, our spirit becomes more determined and our efforts and organization quietly shape themselves to meet the emergencies that are before us. That all this is being accomplished without dramatic demonstration and foolish boasting is not a sign of weakness, but of strength.

The splendid heroism of our Russian and French allies is not only an example which stimulates us, but it is an additional incentive to our national honor to carry on to an end the obligations we have undertaken. And if for the moment we are confronted with the impossibility of offensive action by our brave Russian allies, and are compelled to wage a costly and difficult war against the Turks in the Dardanelles, as well as against our enemies in Flanders, we cheerfully resolve to fit ourselves for the situation which confronts us.

It is, of course, true that our country has not been accustomed to organization and discipline, which leads unthinking men from time to time to imagine that there could be a different discipline in the coal fields or the workshops from that which prevails in the trenches; but

all that is a mere temporary difficulty, and it cannot impede the country, which has made up its mind to win if it has to spend the last man and its last dollar in the process.

The success of the recent war loan shows how anxious our people are to invest their money in the prosecution of the war. Not only is it the largest loan that ever has been floated, but it represents not merely the accumulation of capital of a few large banks, but the hard-earned savings of small investors in every part of the country. Although our shores are not invaded and we have not experienced the impelling necessities of a war waged in our own country, yet there is hardly a family in any village in the land that has not willingly sent its sons to fight our battles in foreign lands. While I see day by day more and more anxiety from every man to do his share, I can see no sign nor trace of wavering in any section of the community.

We have the right to say to neutrals that our cause is just; that the war has been forced upon us, and that we are making and are going to make every sacrifice that makes a nation great to bring our cause to a successful conclusion. We have a right, I think, to ask neutrals to examine their own consciences as to whether they have done everything that neutrals ought to do or can do in insisting that the laws of humanity and the doctrines of international law, which have been so carefully fostered in times of peace, are carried out. Neutrals are the executive power to compel observance of the principles of international law, and, if they fail to do so, the result must be disastrous to the world at large, in the present and in the future, and give free play to a savagery and barbarism which is none the less revolting because it carries out its methods by the aid of the discoveries of scientific research and prog

ress.

But, however that may be, our courage is undaunted. It grows into exaltation by reason of the difficulties that surround us, and we will go on to the end without fear or trembling and in the certain inspiration of a victory which will restore to the world that peace which can

alone bring happiness and contentment to the mass of its citizens.

EDWARD CARSON.

By PRIME MINISTER ASQUITH.

The Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Right Hon. Herbert H. Asquith, has made the following authorized statement:

I have been asked to send a message to the United States of America at the end of the first year of the war. The reasons why we are fighting are known in America. The world has judged, and will judge, not our words, but our actions. The question today is not of our hopes or our calculations, but our duties.

Our duty, which we shall fulfill, is to continue to the end in the course which we have chosen and "to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace."

By SIR EDWARD GREY. Sir Edward Grey, the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, made this authorized statement:

I have been asked to send a message to the United States of America at the end of the first year of the war.

The reasons which led Great Britain to declare war and the ideals for which she is fighting have been frequently set forth. They are fully understood in America. I do not feel, therefore, there is any need to repeat them now. I am quite contented to leave the rights and wrongs of the causes and conduct of the war to the judgment of the American people.

The United Kingdom, and the entire empire, together with their gallant allies, have never been more determined than they are today to prosecute this war to a successful conclusion, which will result in honorable and enduring peace based on liberty and not burdensome militarism.

The British Army was not more than 250,000, excluding the reserves. There are now in training or in the field 350,000 troops of the overseas dominions alone, while this country, on estimate, has at least 2,775,000 men in the field or in training.

We are producing probably 350 times as much ammunition per month as we produced in September last, and we have supplied our allies also with munitions of war.

The achievement of our armies and of the Allies, as a whole, has been enormous.

Germany had prepared for forty years for a great European war, in which she would make herself the supreme power of the world, dispossessing Great Britain on land and sea and making it impossible for any other nation, however powerful, to challenge or to revolt against her supremacy.

She had laid up great stores of munitions, she had organized for a vast production when war should begin; she had, with mathematical precision, meticulously, and with devoted industry made her whole industrial, commercial, and educational life conform to a military organization for national and imperial purposes.

Her object was not the object of nations with civil, humanitarian, and social

ideals. Power, not the amelioration of human life or the development of individual independence and character, was her object and her goal.

Therefore, when the war broke out, she had such a military machine as the world had never seen. And it must not be forgotten that Austria, which is so constantly left out of the calculations of the world in thinking about this war, had also made huge military preparations, as was shown by the great guns she brought into the field in the very early stages of the war.

To talk of Germany fighting the world is nonsense. Germany and Austria, two great central empires of Europe, with 117,000,000 of people, are fighting the Allies. In the field of war they were able at the start to put nearly twice as many equipped men into the field as the Allies.

That they did not defeat the Allies is a marvel.

It is also splendid evidence of the capacity of the Allies and of Great Britain's power; for, though Great Britain's sector of the field of battle has been small, her contributions in other directions have been prodigious, all things considered.

She has had troops fighting in France, Belgium, the Dardanelles, Egypt, British East Africa, Southwest Africa, the Cameroons, and the Persian Gulf.

Her navy has done what was expected of it. It has cleared the seas of German commerce and German ships of war. It has taken some of Germany's island possessions in the South Seas. It has bottled up the German fleet behind its mine fields, rendering it powerless, and it is now waiting patiently for that navy to come out and give battle.

In money and in munitions, and by her

sea power enabling the Allies to trade freely, she has played a great part in this conflict, and presently the part will be gigantic, for she will have an army of 3,000,000 equipped, backed by a preponderating navy.

By next Winter her output of shells will give her superiority in that field, and she will be able to supply Russia with much that she needs. It has not been German bravery which has kept Russia back, which has dispossessed Russia of ground which she won by valor, but shells and guns, which the Germans had in abundance.

Great Britain asleep! The American Nation may be assured, in spite of all carping and pessimistic statements, that Great Britain and her people are awake, and no democracy ever produced a voluntary army approximating three millions in the world's history, not even your United States.

You resorted to compulsory service for your great civil war. It may be that we shall not get through this war without compulsory service, but the response to the call of the Government for men has vastly exceeded what was thought possible.

In spite of her critics, whose object no doubt was so to alarm the nation that we should secure the utmost contribution of her strength, it is certain that there is not a street in the most secluded town or village of this kingdom which has not felt the call and contributed, if not to its utmost, then sufficient to show that the utmost will be forthcoming.

We are a slow people, but without boasting it may be said that we are sure; and that the citizens of this empire do not love their land and are concerned for its future less than the Germans are for Germany is a statement which time and fact are belying.

You ask me how, in this limited monarchy, the war has affected the democracy.

First let me say that the democracy governs itself; though it has a King as the permanent and stable element in the Constitution, representing the principles and traditions of that Constitution through their long course of development,

by being also the head of his people; the chief of his clan, as it were.

Well, wealth and peace are potent factors in every country toward separating people into classes. Even the United States has not escaped that. Social distinctions quite as imperious as in this country exist there, though they are not so extensive, not so carefully graded.

A great war like this shakes people of all classes and sections together to do the work demanded by the vital emergency.

So it is that a labor leader like Will Crooks, whose opinions have been repeated by many of his colleagues, says that the officer-peer and the artisanprivate have shown the same valor, the same sense of duty; that the man higher up, as he is called in America, has, with an unmatched gallantry, risked and lost his life, hand in hand with the man on the lower levels.

You ask me if I think that Kitchener's army is democratic in a wide sense.

Let me say this: that what is called "Kitchener's army" is the most democratic, and it is probably the best, army that ever took the field since the armies of the civil war of the United States won their reputation.

In it are a very high proportion of elementary school teachers as non-commissioned officers, who are trained to organize and direct, who are typical of the bridging of the gulf between classes by the bond of education.

But not only Kitchener's new battalions are democratized. The professional army was always a mere handful, and to bring up the required battalions to war strength, to fill the gaps, a stream of reserve officers and men was called up—“"city" men, lawyers, university lecturers, industrial workers, policemen, street car drivers, &c. These took their place in the framework at once.

Hence, the whole of the British armies in this conflict are like the American armies in the civil war.

They possess the intelligence, method, perseverance, the devoted courage of the Northerners, and the natural aptitude, adaptability, and improvising power of the Southerners.

In this war officers and men are