inhabitants. Even now, while they loudly proclaim their desire to put an end to the horrors of the war, they aggravate the rigours of the occupation by carrying Belgian workmen into slavery by thousands.

If there is a country that is entitled to say that it took up arms in order to defend its existence, that country assuredly is Belgium. Compelled by force to fight or to submit to dishonour, she passionately desires that an end may be set to the unheard-of sufferings of her population. But she could accept only a peace that assures to her, together with equitable reparation, securities and guarantees for the future. The Note adds a warm expression of thanks to the American people for their most ardent sympathy for Belgium, and for all that Americans have done in relieving the miseries of the Belgian population.

Mr. Balfour's Despatch.

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A despatch from Mr. Balfour, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to the British Ambassador in Washington, sent in connection with the Allies' reply to President Wilson's Peace Note, was municated to the United States Government by the Ambassador on January 16th. The following is the text of the despatch:

In sending you a translation of the Allied Note, I desire to make the following observations, which you should bring to the notice of the United States Government:

I gather from the general tenor of the President's Note that, while he is animated by an intense desire that peace should come soon and that when it comes it should be lasting, he does not, for the moment at least, concern himself with the terms on which it should be arranged. His Majesty's Government entirely share the President's ideals, but they feel strongly that the durability of the peace must largely depend on its character, and that no stable system of international relations can be built on foundations which are essentially and hopelessly defective.

This becomes clearly apparent if we consider the main conditions which rendered possible the calamities from which the world is now suffering. These were the existences of a great Power consumed with the lust of domination in the midst of a community of nations ill-prepared for defence, plentifully supplied indeed with international laws but with no machinery for enforcing them, and weakened by the fact that neither the boundaries of the various States nor their internal constitution harmonised with the aspirations of their constituent races or secured to them just and equal treatment.

That this last evil would be greatly mitigated if the Allies secured the changes in the map of Europe outlined in their joint Note is manifest, and I need not labour the point.

It has been argued, indeed, that the expulsion of the Turks from Europe forms no proper or logical part of this general scheme. The maintenance of the Turkish Empire was during many generations regarded by statesmen of world-wide authority as essential to the maintenance of European peace. Why, it is asked, should the cause of peace be now associated with a complete reversal of this traditional policy?

The answer is that circumstances have completely changed. It is unnecessary to consider now whether the creation of a reformed Turkey mediating between hostile races in the Near East was a scheme which,

had the Sultan been sincere and the Powers united, could ever have been realised. It certainly cannot be realised now.

The Turkey of "Union and Progress" is at least as barbarous and is far more aggressive than the Turkey of Sultan Abdul Hamid. In the hands of Germany it has ceased, even in appearance, to be a bulwark of peace, and is openly used as an instrument of conquest. Under German officers, Turkish soldiers are now fighting in lands from which they had long been expelled, and a Turkish Government controlled, subsidised, and supported by Germany has been guilty of massacres in Armenia and Syria more horrible than any recorded in the history even of those unhappy countries. Evidently the interests of peace and the claims of nationality alike require that Turkish rule over alien races shall, if possible, be brought to an end, and we may hope that the expulsion of Turkey from Europe will contribute as much to the cause of peace as the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France, of Italia Irredenta to Italy, or any of the other territorial changes indicated in the Allied Note.

Evidently, however, such territorial rearrangements, though they may diminish the occasions of war, provide no sufficient security against its recurrence. If Germany, or rather those in Germany who mould its opinions and control its destinies, again set out to dominate the world, they may find that by the new order of things the adventure is made more difficult but hardly that it is made impossible. They may still have ready to their hand a political system organised through and through on a military basis; they may still accumulate vast stores of military equipment; they may still perfect their methods of attack so that their more pacific neighbours will be struck down before they can prepare themselves for defence. If so, Europe, when the war is over, will be far poorer in men, in money, and in mutual goodwill than it was when the war began, but it will not be safer, and the hopes for the future of the world entertained by the President will be as far as ever from fulfilment.

There are those who think that for this disease international treaties and international laws may provide a sufficient cure. But such persons have ill-learned the lessons so clearly taught by recent history. While other nations, notably the United States of America and Britain, were striving by treaties of arbitration to make sure that no chance quarrel should mar the peace they desired to make perpetual, Germany stood aloof. Her historians and philosophers preached the splendours of war; power was proclaimed as the true end of the State; the General Staff forged with untiring industry the weapons by which at the appointed moment power might be achieved.

These facts proved clearly enough that treaty arrangements for maintaining peace were not likely to find much favour at Berlin. They did not prove that such treaties, once made, would be utterly ineffectual. This became evident only when war had broken out, though the demonstration, when it came, was overwhelming. So long as Germany remains the Germany which without a shadow of justification overran and barbarously ill-treated a country it was pledged to defend, no State can regard its rights as secure if they have no better protection than a solemn treaty.

The case is made worse by the reflection that these methods of calculated brutality were designed by the Central Powers not merely to crush to the dust those with whom they were at war, but to intimidate those with whom they were still at peace. Belgium was not only a victim;

it was an exampie. Neutrals were intended to note the outrages which accompanied its conquest, the reign of terror which followed on its occupation, the deportation of a portion of its population, the cruel oppression of the remainder. And lest nations happily protected either by British fleets or by their own from German armies should suppose themselves safe from German methods, the submarine has (within its limits) assiduously imitated the barbaric practices of the sister service. The War Staffs of the Central Powers are well content to horrify the world if at the same time they can terrorise it.

If, then, the Central Powers succeed, it will be to methods like these that they will owe their success. How can any reform of international relations be based on a peace thus obtained? Such a peace would represent the triumph of all the forces which make war certain and make it brutal. It would advertise the futility of all the methods on which civilisation relies to eliminate the occasions of international dispute and to mitigate their ferocity.

Germany and Austria made the present war inevitable by attacking the rights of one small State, and they gained their initial triumphs by violating the treaty-guarded territories of another. Are small States going to find in them their future protectors, or in treaties made by them any bulwark against aggression? Terrorism by land and sea will have proved itself the instrument of victory. Are the victors likely to abandon it on the appeal of the neutrals? If existing treaties are no more than scraps of paper, can fresh treaties help us? If the violation of the most fundamental canons of international law be crowned with success, will it not be in vain that the assembled nations labour to improve their code? None will profit by their rules but the criminals who break them. It is those who keep them that will suffer.

Though, therefore, the people of this country share to the full the desire of the President for peace, they do not believe that peace can be durable if it be not based on the success of the Allied cause. For a durable peace can hardly be expected unless three conditions are

fulfilled.

The first is that the existing causes of international unrest should be, as far as possible, removed or weakened.

The second is that the aggressive aims and the unscrupulous methods of the Central Powers should fall into disrepute among their own peoples.

The third is that behind international law and behind all the treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities some form of international sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor.

Those conditions may be difficult of fulfilment. But we believe them to be in general harmony with the President's ideals, and we are confident that none of them can be satisfied, even imperfectly, unless peace be secured on the general lines indicated (so far as Europe is concerned) in the Joint Note. Therefore, it is that this country has made, is making, and is prepared to make sacrifices of blood and treasure unparalleled in its history. It bears these burdens not merely that it may thus fulfil its treaty obligations, nor yet that it may secure the barren triumph of one group of nations over another. It bears them because it firmly believes that on the success of the Allies depend the prospects of peaceful civilisation, and of those international reforms which the best thinkers of the New World as of the Old dare to hope may follow on the cessation of our present calamities.

A German Note to Neutrals.

The following Note from the German Government was handed to the representatives of the neutral Governments in Berlin on January 11th:

The Imperial Government is aware that the Government of the United States of America, the Royal Spanish Government, and the Swiss Government have received the reply of their enemies to the Note of December 12th, in which Germany, in concert with her allies, proposed to enter forthwith into peace negotiations. Our enemies rejected this proposal, arguing that it was a proposal without sincerity and without meaning. The form in which they couched their communication makes a reply to them impossible. But the German Government thinks it important to communicate to the neutral Powers its view of the state of affairs.

The Central Powers have no reason to enter again into a controversy regarding the origin of the world-war. History will judge on whom the blame of the war falls. Its judgment will as little pass over the encircling policy of England, the revanche policy of France, and Russia's aspiration after Constantinople as over the provocation by Serbia, the Serajevo murders, and the complete Russian mobilization, which meant war on Germany.

Germany and her allies, who were obliged to take up arms to defend their freedom and their existence, regard this, which was their war aim, as attained On the other hand, the enemy Powers have departed more and more from the realisation of their plans, which, according to the statements of their responsible statesmen, are directed, among other things, towards the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine and several Prussian provinces, the humiliation and diminution of Austria-Hungary, the disintegration of Turkey, and the dismemberment of Bulgaria. In view of such war aims, the demand for reparation, restitution, and guarantees in the mouth of our enemies sounds strange.

Our enemies describe the peace offer of the four allied Powers as a war manœuvre. Germany and her allies most emphatically protest against such a falsification of their motives, which they openly stated. Their conviction was that a just peace, acceptable to all belligerents, was possible, that it could be brought about, and that further bloodshed could not be justified. Their readiness to make known their peace conditions without reservation at the opening of negotiations disproves any doubt of their sincerity.

Our enemies, in whose power it was to examine the real value of our offer, neither made any examination nor made counter-proposals. Instead of that, they declared that peace was impossible so long as the restoration of violated rights and liberties, the acknowledgment of the principle of nationalities, and the free existence of small States were not guaranteed. The sincerity which our enemies deny to the proposal of the four Allied Powers cannot be allowed by the world to these demands if it recalls the fate of the Irish people, the destruction of the freedom and independence of the Boer Republics, the subjection of Northern Africa by England, France, and Italy, the suppression of foreign nationalities in Russia, and, finally, the oppression of Greece, which is unexampled in history.

Moreover, in regard to the alleged violation of international rights by the four Allied Powers, those Powers which, from the beginning of the war, have trampled upon right and torn up the treaties on which it

was based, have no right to protest. Already in the first weeks of the war England had renounced the Declaration of London, the contents of which her own delegates had recognised as binding in international law, and in the further course of the war she most seriously violated the Declaration of Paris, so that, owing to her arbitrary measures, a state of lawlessness began in the war at sea. The starvation campaign against Germany and the pressure on neutrals exercised in England's interest are no less grossly contrary to the rules of international law than to the laws of humanity.

Equally inconsistent with international law and the principles of civilisation is the employment of coloured troops in Europe and the extension of the war to Africa, which has been brought about in violation of existing treaties. It undermines the reputation of the white race in this part of the globe. The inhumane treatment of prisoners, especially in Africa and Russia, the deportation of the civil population from East Prussia. Alsace-Lorraine, Galicia, and the Bukovina are further proofs of our enemies' disregard for right and civilisation.

At the end of their Note of December 30th our enemies refer to the special position of Belgium. The Imperial Government is unable to admit that the Belgian Government has always observed its obligations. Already before the war Belgium was under the influence of England and leaned towards England and France, thereby itself violating the spirit of the treaties which guaranteed her independence and neutrality.

Twice the Imperial Government declared to the Belgian Government that it was not entering Belgium as an enemy, and entreated it to save the country from the horrors of war. In this case it offered Belgium a guarantee for the full integrity and independence of the kingdom and to pay for all the damage which might be caused by German troops marching through the country. It is known that in 1887 the Royal British Government was determined not to oppose on these conditions the claiming of a right of way through Belgium.* The Belgian Government refused the repeated offer of the Imperial Government. On it and on those Powers who induced it to take up this attitude falls the responsibility for the fate which befell Belgium.

The accusation about German war methods in Belgium and the measures which were taken there in the interest of military safety have been repeatedly repudiated as untrue by the Imperial Government. It again emphatically protests against the calumnies.

Germany and her allies made an honest attempt to terminate the war and pave the way for an understanding among the belligerents. The Imperial Government declares that it solely depended on the decision of our enemies whether the road to peace should be taken or not. The enemy Governments have refused to take this road. On them falls the full responsibility for the continuation of bloodshed.

But the four Allied Powers will prosecute the fight with calm trust and confidence in their good cause until a peace has been gained which guarantees to their own peoples honour, existence, freedom, and development, and gives all the Powers of the European Continent the benefit of working united in mutual esteem at the solution of the great problems of civilisation.

Referring to this statement as to the attitude taken up by the British Government in 1887, our Foreign Office subsequently declared (January 19th) that "this statement is absolutely devoid of foundation, and is categorically denied." There would seem to be no end to the lies and equivocations to which Germany has resource in the hopeless attempt to justify the "wrong" done to Belgium.