"Nor can I forget the prompt and patriotic manner in which, at the outbreak of war, Lord Kitchener's call for garrison troops in India was answered. "It is with much pleasure that I welcome this opportunity of thanking them with all my heart for their services. "While they are thus fighting the battles of the Empire abroad, we must organise and equip a Force to take their place as defenders of these shores in case of invasion. "Men who from reasons of health and age are unable to stand the strain of war overseas have volunteered for this duty. "Ten years ago my father invited you to use your great influence in assisting the Territorial Force to attain efficiency; to-day I appeal with equal confidence for your valuable aid on behalf of the Volunteer Force. "I am glad to announce that I have appointed as its Colonel-in-Chief my uncle, Field-Marshal His Royal Highness the Duke of Connaught. "I am confident that all who are now prevented from undertaking active service abroad will join the Volunteers and show to our enemies that my subjects of all ages are ready to serve in the defence of our beloved country." To the King's approbation of the services of the Territorials it would be impertinence to add a single word, but in this connection we must place on record the very warm tribute paid a few days earlier by the Secretary for War to the work both of the Territorial Force and of the Territorial Associations which organised and equipped it. In a speech at a Conference of the Chairmen and Secretaries of the Territorial Force Association, Lord Derby said : "I regarded it as a great mistake that our new Army was not created on Territorial lines. I advocated it, but, as you know, the first few weeks of the war was not a time for advocating things. You had to be up and doing, and when it was decided that equally with raising our second divisions and our third lines we should raise new troops I devoted myself, to the best of my ability, both to raising second lines in my own part of the county and arranging new divisions also. One thing was very curious. Very often when you could not get men to go into second line Territorials they would go into new units. I am sorry for that, because here I speak with the authority of Lord French, who has been intimately connected with the Territorial Force and who thinks, and perfectly rightly, that the Territorial Force saved the situation in 1914if the Force saved the situation as regards fighting, I am not sure that it cannot be said with equal truth that the Associations saved the situation with regard to the equipping and turning out of those men. I am perfectly certain if the Associations had not existed, the burden of work which would have fallen on the War Office would have absolutely overwhelmed it, and nothing like the satisfactory result attained could have been achieved. Therefore, I look upon the Associations and the forces which they administer as being an essential part of our military organisation, not to be destroyed in any way, but in every way to be encouraged, built up, and strengthened." (Middlesex Guildhall, January 26th, 1917.) Lord Haldane worked hard for the establishment of the Territorial system in 1907; his reward in 1917 is to know that in the test of the Great War the Territorial Force "saved the situation," and that it is regarded by the military authorities of to-day as being an essential part of our military organisation." INCREASED ALLOWANCES. In view of the prevailing high prices of the necessaries of life, the Government has decided to make certain increases in the rates of the separation allowance payable for children of soldiers and sailors. For the lowest ranks in the Navy and Army (seaman and private) the additions to existing allowances will be, where there is a wife drawing separation allowance, 2s. a week for the first child, 1s. 6d. each for the second and third, and 1s. for the fourth and each succeeding child. The new scale for the lowest ranks of the Navy and Army compares with the old as follows: Increased allowances will also be given to children of sailors and soldiers of higher rank where the total allowances to the family, exclusive of the man's contributions, would otherwise be less than that to the family of a man of the lowest rank on the new scale. For children of sailors and soldiers of all ranks entitled to the motherless rate of allowances the addition will be, for any child living singly 2s., and where two or more children of the same family live together 2s. to the first and 1s. to each other child. The increases will be granted up to the age of fourteen. Beyond that age allowances will continue to be made at the present rates and under present conditions. The new rates took effect for the Navy from January 18th, and for the Army from January 15th. Some little time will necessarily be occupied in effecting the reassessment and issue of allowances for the very large number of children who are concerned, and meanwhile payment will continue to be made at present rates, but payment of extra allowances, including arrears, from the above dates will begin shortly. No application is necessary. When the wife of a sailor or a soldier without children is unable, from ill-health or other cause, to supplement her separation allowance by her earnings, and her income is insufficient to meet the increased cost of living, her case will be considered by the Local War Pension Committees of the Statutory Committee. Claims for increased allowances to dependents of sailors and soldiers on the ground of the increased cost of living will be similarly considered. II. MOVEMENTS TOWARDS PEACE. We continue from last month (see MAGAZINE for January at page 604) our record of the various documents which have been issued as the result of the German Peace Note and the U.S. Peace Note. The following list will, perhaps, be of assistance to our readers:: German Peace Note (December 12th) (p. 604) Allied Reply (December 30th) (p. 611) U.S. Peace Note (December 20th) (p. 608) (German Reply (Dec. 26th) (p. 610) Allied Reply (January 10th) (p. 18) German Note to Neutrals (January 11th) (p. 24) Where the page given is 604 or over, the reference is to the last number of the MAGAZINE (January, 1917). are to the present issue (see below). The other references The Allied Reply to the U.S. Note. The following is the reply of the Allied Governments to the U.S. Note, communicated on January 10th, 1917: 1. The Allied Governments have received the Note handed to them on December 19th, 1916, by the Government of the United States. They have considered it with the care due both to their own keen sense of the gravity of the present time and to the sincere friendship which unites them to the American people. 2. In a general way they desire to declare their respect for the lofty sentiments inspiring the American Note and their whole-hearted agreement with the proposal to create a League of Nations which shall assure peace and justice throughout the world. They recognise all the benefits which will accrue to the cause of humanity and civilisation from the institution of international arrangements designed to prevent violent conflicts between nations, and so framed as to provide the sanctions necessary to their enforcement, lest an illusory security should serve merely to facilitate fresh acts of aggression. 3. But a discussion of future arrangements for assuring a durable peace pre-supposes a satisfactory settlement of the present conflict. The Allies cherish a desire as deep as that of the Government of the United States to see an end put as soon as possible to the war for which the Central Empires are responsible, and which inflicts such cruel sufferings upon humanity. But in their judgment it is impossible to obtain at this moment such a peace as will not only secure to them the reparation, the restitution, and the guarantees justly due to them by reason of the act of aggression, the guilt of which is fixed upon the Central Powers, while the very principle from which it sprang was undermining the safety of Europe; and at the same time such a peace as will enable the future of the European nations to be established upon a sure foundation. The Allied nations are convinced that they are not fighting for selfish interests, but above all to provide safeguards for the independence of peoples, for law, and for humanity. 4. The Allies are fully conscious of the losses and suffering entailed by war on neutrals as well as on belligerents. They regret them, but cannot consider themselves responsible for them, as they in no way either desired or provoked this war; they are doing all in their power to reduce in every possible way the damage occasioned by it, so far as they can do so under the inexorable pressure of providing for their own defence against the violence and the devices of the enemy. 5. They note with satisfaction the declaration made to them that the American communication is not in any way connected in its origin with that of the Central Powers transmitted to them on December 18th by the Government of the United States. Indeed, they did not doubt the determination of that Government to avoid any appearance of giving even moral support to the responsible authors of the war. 6. The Allied Governments feel it their duty to challenge in the most friendly, but also in the clearest, way the analogy drawn between the two groups of belligerents. This analogy, based on the public declarations of the Central Powers, is in direct conflict with the evidence, both as regards responsibility for the past and guarantees for the future. President Wilson, in alluding to this analogy, did not, of course, intend to adopt it as his own. 7. If any fact of history is clearly established to-day, it is the calculated policy of aggression by which Germany and Austria-Hungary sought to ensure their hegemony of Europe and their economic domination over the world. By her declaration of war, by the instant violation of Belgium and Luxemburg, and by her methods of warfare, Germany has proved that she systematically scorns every principle of humanity and all respect due to small States. More and more as the struggle has progressed has the attitude of the Central Powers and their allies been a constant challenge to humanity and civilisation. Is it necessary to recall the horrors that marked the invasion of Belgium and of Serbia, the atrocious treatment undergone by the invaded countries, the massacres of hundreds of thousands of inoffensive Armenians, the barbarities inflicted upon the peoples of Syria, the raids of Zeppelins upon open towns, the destruction by submarines of passenger liners and merchant vessels, even under neutral flags, the cruel treatment inflicted on prisoners of war, the judicial murders of Miss Cavell and Captain Fryatt, the deportation and enslavement of civil populations, &c.? The perpetration of such a catalogue of crimes regardless of the reprobation of mankind will surely explain to President Wilson the protest which the Allies here make. 8. They consider that the Note which they have handed to the United States in reply to the German Note answers the question put by the American Government and constitutes in their own words a public "avowal of their views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded." But President Wilson expresses a further wish he desires the belligerent Powers to state in the full light of day the aims they have set themselves in prosecuting the war. The Allies find no difficulty in meeting this request. Their aims in this war are well known, for they have been repeatedly expressed by the heads of their several Governments. These aims can only be formulated in detail, with all the just compensations and indemnities due for the losses suffered, when the moment for negotiation arrives. But, the civilised world knows that they include, primarily and of necessity: The restoration of Belgium, of Serbia, and of Montenegro, with The evacuation of the invaded territories in France, Russia, and The reorganisation of Europe, guaranteed by a stable settlement, The liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous 9. The intentions of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia in regard to Poland have been clearly shown in the proclamation which he has just addressed to his armies. 10. It is hardly necessary to add that, while it is the wish of the Allies to rescue Europe from the brutal encroachments of Prussian militarism, it has never been their intention, as has been alleged, to seek the extermination or the political extinction of the Germanic peoples. The chief aim of the Allies is to assure peace on those principles of liberty, justice, and inviolable fidelity to international obligations which have never ceased to inspire the action of the United States. With this high end in view, the Allied Governments are each and all determined to put forth all their strength and to endure every sacrifice in order that they may press to a victorious close a conflict on which, they are convinced, depend not only their own safety and prosperity, but the very future of civilisation. A Separate Belgian Note to the U.S. In addition to signing the Note sent by the ten Allied Powers, in reply to the U.S. Note, Belgium also sent a separate Note as to her position in the war, and her attitude towards peace. After some preliminary observations the Note says: Until Germany delivered her ultimatum, Belgium's sole aspiration was to live on good terms with all her neighbours; towards each of them she discharged with scrupulous loyalty the obligations imposed on her by her neutrality. How was she rewarded by Germany for the confidence she showed? Overnight, without plausible warrant, her neutrality was violated, her territory was invaded, and the Imperial Chancellor, in announcing to the Reichstag this violation of right and of treaty, was compelled to admit the iniquity of such an act and to promise that reparation would be made. But the Germans, after occupying Belgian territory, showed themselves no more observant of the rules of international law or of the provisions of The Hague Conventions. They exhausted the resources of the country by exactions as heavy as they were arbitrary; they deliberately ruined its industries, destroyed whole towns, and put to death or imprisoned a considerable number of |