THE KING'S SPEECH. (February 7th, 1917.) MY LORDS AND Gentlemen, For the third time in succession I summon you to your deliberations in the midst of war. Certain overtures, of which you are aware, have been made by the enemy with a view to the opening of peace negotiations. Their tenour, however, indicated no possible basis for peace. My people throughout the Empire and My faithful and heroic Allies remain steadfastly and unanimously resolved to secure the just demands for reparation and restitution in respect of the past and guarantees for the future which we regard as essential to the progress of civilisation. In response to an invitation from the President of the United States of America, we have outlined, so far as can be done at present, the general objects necessarily implied by these aims. The threats of further outrages upon public law and the common rights of humanity will but serve to steel our determination. During the winter months My Navy has maintained unchallenged its ceaseless watch on the Seas, and has enforced with rigour the blockade of the enemy. My Armies have conducted successful operations not only in Europe but in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and East Africa, and they are fully prepared to renew the great struggle, in close and cordial co-operation with My Allies, on every field. I trust that their united efforts will carry the successes already won to a victorious conclusion. I have invited representatives of My Dominions and of My Indian Empire, which have borne so glorious a share in the struggle, to confer with My Ministers on important questions of common interest relating to the war. The step so taken will, I trust, conduce to the establishment of closer relations between all parts of My Empire. GENTLEMEN OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, You will be asked to make the necessary provision for the effective prosecution of the war. MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, The accomplishment of the task to which I have set My hand will entail unsparing demands on the energies and resources of all My subjects. I am assured, however, that My people will respond to every call necessary for the success of our cause with the same indomitable ardour and devotion that have filled Me with pride and gratitude since the war began. I therefore confidently commend to your patriotism the measures which will be laid before you, and I pray that Almighty God may give His blessing to your counsels. PAGE THE GREAT WAR. 1. IN THE COURSE OF THE WAR The Thirty-First Month Cerman Intrigue in Persia British Thanks to the U.S. Embassy 11. THE THOUSAND MILLIONS WAR LOAN III.-RESTRICTED IMPORTS AND STIMULATED ACRICULTURE ... IV.-NATIONAL SERVICE Why the Scheme is Necessary Reasons for a Voluntary Appeal The Scheme in Outline Rate of Remuneration ... Sources from which Volunteers will be Drawn V. THE EMPIRE AND THE WAR Help from the Dominions and Colonies YI. THE HOME SITUATION Food Production Food Supply and Prices... State Workers' Wages Petrol Restriction Soldier Emigrants VII. POINTS FROM WAR SPEECHES I. IN THE COURSE OF THE WAR. MONTH. The past month has brought with it THE THIRTY-FIRST excellently satisfactory news from Mesopotamia, where the Turks have been compelled to fly from Kut and to retreat in anything but good order along the road to Baghdad. A large number of prisoners have been captured, as well as a great mass of military material. The British Expeditionary Force is now admirably organised under Sir Stanley Maude, and the skill, gallantry, and resource displayed by the British and Indian troops under his command are beyond all praise. The war, it is true, will not be won in Mesopotamia, but it was of the first importance that British prestige, lowered by last year's surrender at Kut, should be re-established—as it now has been-in a part of the East where prestige counts for a very great deal. It is not impossible that the Turks will suffer still further severe reverses in this region, but as to that we must be content to let the future speak for itself. On the Western Front the Germans have, on the Ancre, set a new precedent by voluntarily withdrawing from some forty square miles or so promptly occupied by British troops. As might be expected, it is explained that this is all part of a prepared plan, and that no inference injurious to the Germans ought to be inferred from the withdrawal, but as to that we can form our own conclusions. The plain truth would seem to be that the positions yielded had been made untenable by British pressure and British artillery. To give ear to explanations depriving our generals and their men of the credit for the German retreat would be merely to play the German game. The Germans took their leave because it would have been too expensive to stay. The The Germans have started their U-boat campaign "regardless," and profess an assured confidence that in a few months this country will be starved into a German peace. The submarine peril is real and serious; it has to be fought with every weapon at our disposal. None the less, we believe that the U-boat will be in the end as great a disappointment to the Germans as the Zeppelin has been. Navy is doing all it can to destroy the sea pirates; but, as the Prime Minister explained in his momentous speech in the House of Commons (fully summarised in a later section), we have all our part to play in the matter. We have to increase our food production by every available means which ingenuity and patriotism can contrive, we have cheerfully to put up with the loss of comforts and commodities to which in normal times we are accustomed. Incidentally, we may all be glad that as one consequence of the new departure in agriculture, the agricultural labourer is to have a minimum wage of 25s. In the matter of the War Loan, the nation has nobly responded to the appeal made to it for money with which to carry on the war. A thousand millions of new money is more than the most optimistic had dared to hope for, and Mr. Bonar Law is warmly to be congratulated on his shrewdness in rejecting the advice of those who urged him to offer a higher rate of interest than 51 per cent. Mr. Neville Chamberlain's appeal for National Service Volunteers is now being made, and we hope he will get the large number of men required for essential trades and industries. It is the clear duty of every man who can to respond to the call, just as it will be of every woman when the appeal is (as it shortly will be) made to her. Lord Devonport, as Food Controller, makes perhaps the widest appeal of all in begging us on our honour" to ration ourselves in bread, meat, and sugar. This is a direction in which we can all do our bit," and it will be a grave reflection upon our national public spirit if our failure to do what we are asked makes necessary the unwelcome and unpleasant last resort of food tickets. THE UNITED STATES Last month we were able to record the fact that the United States had (on February 3rd) broken off diplomatic relations with Germany. That is still the correct description of the relations between the two countries. In the meantime, however, the Germans have killed American citizens who have been passengers on merchant ships. On the Laconia, sunk at sight without warning at the end of February, there were several American passengers. Of these two (Mrs. and Miss Hoy, mother and daughter) sought safety in a lifeboat. They died from cold and exposure before land was reached, and were buried at sea. Before it was known that the Laconia was sunk, however, the U.S. President went again (on February 26th) to a Joint Session of Congress, and asked for further powers. First of all, he reviewed what had occurred since, on February 3rd, he had spoken to a Joint Session of Congress.* His invitation to other neutrals to take measures in defence of their rights at sea had been accepted by none. United States commerce was suffering but rather in apprehension than in fact, because so many U.S. ships were timidly keeping" to home ports. Mr. Wilson did not find an "overt act in the sinking of either of the two American vessels, the Housatonic and the Lyman M. Law. None the less, the situation was fraught with the gravest possibilities and dangers." At any moment the U.S. might have to defend its elementary rights as a neutral nation, and it would be "most imprudent to be unprepared." Mr. Wilson said: 66 'No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances with discretion, but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method and the extent remain to be chosen upon the occasion, if the occasion should indeed arise, since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are suffering at the hands of Germany. There may be no recourse but to an armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain, and for which there is abundant American precedent. "It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be necessary to put armed forces anywhere into action. The American people do not desire it. Our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure they will understand the spirit in which I am now acting-the purpose I hold nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in everything I do. I am anxious that the people of the nations at war should also understand and not mistrust us. I hope I need give no further proofs or assurances than * See MAGAZINE for February, at page 8. a The phrase "armed neutrality was first coined in 1780, when combination of Powers, headed by Russia, protested against Great Britain's extension of her contraband list. On March 11th, 1780, Catherine the Great issued a declaration claiming certain rights for neutrals, alleging her intention of upholding these rights, and saying she would not hesitate to commission a considerable part of her naval forces, and that in case of provocation her Fleet would be ordered to go "wherever honour, interest, and necessity shall call it." I have already given throughout nearly three years of anxious patience that I am a friend of peace and mean to preserve it for America as long as I am able. "I am not now proposing or contemplating war or any steps that would lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and the definite bestowal of means of authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who is at peace and who is desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace, and to follow in pursuit of peace in quietness and good-will, rights recognised time out of mind by all the civilised nations of the world. No course of my choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can come only by wilful acts and aggressions of others." (Congress, February 26th, 1917.) As to the actual powers for which he asked, Mr. Wilson said : It is in that belief that I request that you will authorise me to supply our merchant ships with defensive arms, should that become necessary, and with means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and people in their legitimate peaceful pursuits on the seas. I request, also, that you will grant me at the same time, along with the powers I ask, sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance against present war risks."(Congress, February 26th, 1917.) As a fact, Mr. Wilson did not succeed in getting from Congress these asked-for powers, thanks to the obstructive tactics of a small number of Senators, a little group of wilful men representing no opinion but their own," as the President describes them. We must defer till next month a fuller account of this constitutional entanglement, as also of the profound resentment created in the United States by the publication of an amazing Note from Germany to Mexico, inciting that country to attack the United States, if possible with the aid of Japan! No American can any longer be under any illusion as to Germany and German Kultur. GERMAN INTRIGUE Lord Curzon, in the House of Lords on February 20th, made a detailed statement on the present position of affairs in Persia, and in doing so he described how Germany had been engaged in intrigues, long before the war, for the extension of her power to the Indian Ocean "with a view to striking at the dominion of Great Britain in India, and taking from us the hegemony of the Eastern world." Lord Curzon, in the course of his speech, said: "In order to carry out this plan, Austria in the first place was to be treated as the washpot of Germany as far as the Balkans were concerned : Turkey was to become her slave in order that she might obtain control of the Straits; Egypt was to be menaced; Persia was to be controlled; Afghanistan was to be stirred up. This plot dated as far back as 1898, when the German Emperor made a theatrical entry into Jerusalem, and |