important, and it behaved well until it seized up for better or worse when we had landed. From the aerodrome the pilots proceeded to tea and a bath, while we, the unfortunate observers, copied our notes into a detailed report, elaborated the sketches of the new aerodromes, and drove in our unkempt state to Headquarters, there to discuss the reconnaissance with spotlessly neat staff officers. At the end of the report one must give the height at which the job was done, and say whether the conditions were favourable or otherwise for observation. I thought of the absence of thick clouds or mist that might have made the work difficult. Then I thought of the cylinder that missed and the chunk of rudder that was missing, but decided that these little inconveniences were unofficial. And the legend I felt in duty bound to write was: "Height 5,00010,000 ft. Observation easy." CONTACT. MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD. THE UNITED STATES AT WAR-PRESIDENT WILSON-STATESMAN OR POLITICIAN-THE LIBERATION OF THE GERMAN PEOPLETHE FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY-WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FORTHE GERMANS IN RUSSIA-TWO CENTURIES OF INTRUSION-THE AWAKENING-THE SINISTER INFLUENCE OF RASPUTIN. THE somewhat tardy entrance of the United States into the war is an event which fills every member of the Entente with hope and satisfaction. Although we cannot expect the immediate passage of a well-trained and fully-equipped army across the Atlantic, we recognise the means of help which the Americans have at their disposal are neither few nor immaterial. Nobody sees more clearly than President Wilson what the declaration of war involves. "It will involve," said he in his message to Congress, "the utmost practical co-operation in council with the Governments now at war with Germany, and as incident thereto an extension to those Governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may, as far as possible, be added to theirs." It involves much more than this. From the moment that war was declared all the vast resources of the United States were organised to increase and equip the Army and Navy of the country; a force of 500,000 men, chosen upon the only sane principle of universal service, was instantly called for. But the President insisted with perfect wisdom that the citizens of America should inter fere as little as possible, in their own preparation and in the equipment of their own military forces, with the prac tical duty of supplying the Allied nations already at war with materials which they can obtain only from America or by our assistance. "They are in the field," he says very properly; 66 we should help them in every way to be effective there." We are glad also, with a certain irony, that the United States fight upon our side, because their alliance is a plain justification of our conduct during the last three years. We have been fighting the battle of the United States for many months. There can be no man, not blinded with politics, who does not know that if England and France had been defeated in the field that the United States would have been Germany's next victim. And yet we remember vague phrases about "peace without victory," and, worse still, hints that the two sides were fighting for the same object. It seemed as though Mr Wilson either mistook the meaning of history himself or put very little faith in the intelligence of the democracy, whose perfection he vaunts in his famous Message. He recognises at last that Ger many is waging war against mankind. He confesses that he was compelled to choose between war and submission, that he could not suffer the most sacred rights of his nation to be ignored and violated. Forgetful of what he had said in the past, he now asserts that civilisation itself was in the balance, and that right is more precious than peace. With these respectable commonplaces of international politics we proved our agreement in August 1914, when we sent our solemn ultimatum to Germany. But now that we are formally and cordially allied with the United States, it is necessary that we should understand the character and motives of our friend. We have always made a friendship with America more difficult by approaching her with bended knee, and the dithyrambie chorus of praise which was sung in public to Mr Wilson's Message shows that we have not yet learnt wisdom. On all hands we have been told that it was the finest speech delivered in America since Lincoln's death. And the comparison with Lincoln proved how little those who made it understood the rhetoric of President Wilson. Between Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson there is the essential difference which must ever exist between the statesman and the politician, the leader and the follower. When Lincoln spoke to his country, he spoke as an autocrat, who knew what was right and who meant to be obeyed. Mr Wilson's speech was as pretty a piece of politics as we have seen for a long time. He gave the impression that he was following his countrymen into war. As you read his Message you can say to which group of citizens this or that paragraph is addressed. He is led by the nation over which he presides to make war upon Germany, when the victory is almost within the grasp of the Allies, and he professes that he is fighting, among other things, for the liberation of the German peoples. We have seen the German peoples at too close quarters to share Mr Wilson's beneficent sympathy. pathy. Indeed we can attribute his opinions about Germany and the Germans only to ignorance, or to desire to keep the Americans of German blood upon his side by a trick of flattery. He is determined to make a distinction, which does exist, between Hohenzollerns and the German people. "We have not quarrelled with the German people," he says; 8 not we have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship." Then why go to war? And does Mr Wilson believe that the best hope of victory lies in this kindly slurring of the truth? Again he says: "It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. was not with their previous knowledge or approval." If Mr Wilson has come to this conclusion, he can have examined very few of the documents, which belong to us all. Noth It ing emerges more clearly from ill to anybody seems to surprise the events which preceded the him. "One of the things which declaration of war than the have served to convince us," complete unanimity of Ger- says he, "that Prussian automany. The Hohenzollerns and cracy was not and never could the German people had pre- be our friend, is that, from the pared for the war with equal very outset of the present war, zeal. They were and are one it filled our unsuspecting comin cruelty, one in greed, one munities, and even our offices in ambition. Socialists and of government, with spies, and Junkers alike, they had prayed set criminal intrigues everyfor the hour of world-dominion where afoot against our nafor many a long year. It was tional unity of council and our no war arranged in secret by peace within and without, our diplomatists in the interests of industries and our commerce. the dynasty. It was a war Indeed, it is now evident that which Germany, whole and in- spies were here even before the divisible, willed for herself, and war began." It was evident for which she must accept the also in England to all save whole responsibility. the politicians, for whom ignorance is bliss, and who would have found a foolish wisdom the loss of many votes, that every German living and working in our midst was a spy. In vain was our Government warned of the evil neighbourhood of those who used hospitality to prepare for war. But if the Germans in America were thus aiding and abetting the designs of their Government with zeal and enthusiasm, what becomes of the legend of the wicked Hohenzollerns and the virtuous German people? Nor can the German people be absolved of the crimes which have disgraced its conduct of the war. Sadio cruelty and a lust of destruction cannot be imposed merely from on high. Of the bestial outrages which have marked the progress of the Germans through Belgium and France all the participants are guilty, and justice will not be done after this war by inviting the Kaiser and his family to change their sky, and by setting up in Berlin a pretty little pinchbeck imitation of democratic polling booths and "free government." The harder task lies ahead of us of teaching a whole people that it cannot live on pride and brutality alone that as the Wise Man said, a very long time ago, science without conscience is the ruin of the soul. The truth is that Mr Wilson approaches the Germans with a strange sort of ingenuousness. That any German should have wished Indeed, this difference which is supposed to exist between people and Kaiser is the mere figment of a politician's brain. It may serve to soothe the susceptibilities of German emigrants. As a contribution to contemporary history it is not of the smallest value. Nor are we able to agree with the causes for which Mr Wilson asserts that America draws the It to interfere with a proper de- Mr sword. "We are glad," says he, "now that we see facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world, for the liberation of its peoples-the German peoples included-the rights of nations great and small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and obedience. The world must be safe for democracy." If these "glittering generalities" mean anything, they mean that President Wilson would revert to the practice of our mid-Victorian Whigs, and insist upon handing out replicas of his own constitution to States over which he has no control. It is & practice fraught with danger, and it derives no support from the study of history. A constitution, to be serviceable, must be allowed to grow, and of political philosophy more truthfully than of diet may it be said that one man's meat is another man's poison. Mr Wilson says that he fights for the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and obedience. Suppose some nations are candid enough to prefer a benign autocrat to a scheming leader of the people, will Mr Wilson olub them into obedience to his will or threaten them with all the pains and penalties of warfare unless they bend the But, says Mr Wilson, "the knee to the Goddess of De- world must be safe for demomocracy? Never was there cracy." Whether it is safe so stern a tyranny proposed from democracy is not quite since the famous Holy Alliance, so certain. For democracy is which was a deliberate and not a patent medicine which happily unsuccessful attempt we should advertise widely in |