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ar before the Russian Orange Book was put out. In fact, th the whole thing is completely misrepresented.

Be, th The propaganda which emanates from Germany has Ras found an echo in other countries, especially in France sary and America. French writers on this subject seem to Rus be chiefly animated by an intense personal animosity nce against M. Poincaré and also by the desire to destroy the reputation of a politician who had condemned to shi insignificance the parties of the extreme left. It is a byeat product partly of the treaties of peace and partly of ly French policy in the years immediately succeeding the nis war. Those who imposed the invasion of the Ruhr seek as a weapon against the statesman who was chiefly responsible for this, to prove that he, in co-operation de with M. Isvolsky, deliberately set to work to engineer sho a war against Germany with the object of recovering ar Alsace and Lorraine. So we have a rather miscellaneous qcrowd of socialists and pacificists, who during the war had been defaitistes, united in a common attack upon him. Their motives we can easily understand; to follow them in detail would require an intimate knowledge of the under-world of French politics and French journalism.

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Some of the American writers present a more difficult problem. There is among them a growing school who have committed themselves to support the more extreme German case in which they even out-Herod their masters and instructors. They differ from the French in this, that the object of the latter is not to exculpate Germany, but to incriminate M. Poincaré. M. Victor Margueritte, M. Fabre Luce, M. Dupin, only aim at showing that M. Poincaré was as wicked as the Germans; the new American writers see all dark on one side and all bright on the other. To them Germany was an immaculate and pacificist State, which at the worst, in its ardent desire to maintain the peace of Europe, made some false

moves.

In reading these American books one gets a curious feeling of unreality. One quickly gets to see that their discussions and arguments are purely what we may call 'paper.' They never get behind the actual words and phrases of the despatches and other documents. They have no instinctive feeling of what was possible, of the

European atmosphere. As we read them we come to feel as one may imagine an ancient Greek would feel if he read modern discussions and explanations of Greek political life, Greek literature, and Greek thought. He would doubtless admire the immense learning and ingenuity which is displayed, but would all the time feel that the whole thing was completely unreal, and would be inclined to say: 'Of course this is not a true and living picture-they do not understand.' As a flagrant illustration of this we may refer to a point made by Senator Owen, who, for some reason incomprehensible to a mere Englishman, was allowed to inflict upon the Senate a speech of five hours in duration in which he exposed the case on behalf of Germany and against France and Russia. Misled by some telegrams the obvious meaning of which he completely misunderstood, he propounded the proposition that Belgium secretly mobilised her forces on July 24 and kept them mobilised for a week without any one knowing anything about it. A man who can put forward a theory of this kind is obviously so ignorant of the fundamental conditions of the matters with which he deals that we at once feel that everything else he says in his book may be completely disregarded. And then we have Mr Bausmann, who constantly refers to decisions of the German Cabinet. It is a mistake which no one could make who had an elementary acquaintance with the workings of the German Government, for it is an essential point in the whole development of the situation that there was no Cabinet at Berlin. Had there been a Cabinet to which the Chancellor had to explain and justify his policy, a Cabinet which exercised control over the army, the war would almost certainly not have taken place. By itself it is sufficient to show that he has no real knowledge; it is a blunder which if made in an examination paper would be sufficient to plough the candidate.

Among these writers at the moment the most conspicuous is Prof. Barnes; but I have already dealt with his book elsewhere, and it has been adequately criticised by writers such as Prof. Bernadotte Schmitt and Mr Lowes Dickinson in the American Press.

These are, however, mere eccentrics; their books and articles, singularly lifeless in style, are of no help to the

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honest inquirer. They are a mere impediment in the discussion of the extraordinarily interesting and complicated problem with which they deal. If we turn away from them, it may, I think, be said that there is gradually nd being formed a general consensus of opinion. I do not mean that there will ever be a complete agreement between English, French, and German writers; for every one must approach the subject from the point of view of his own country. On the other hand, there is a general condemnation of the manner in which the foreign policy of the German Empire was conducted after the fall of Bismarck, a condemnation which has been frankly endorsed by many German writers. By their tortuous and blundering diplomacy, Bülow and Holstein succeeded in losing the confidence of and alienating at the same time England and Russia, and left their country without a single reliable friend on the continent of Europe, except Austria; while at the same time they forced upon Europe a series of acute diplomatic crises. It is argued that on no occasion did they really and deliberately desire war; but it none the less remains true that the chief weapon in their armoury was the threat of war. It is this which they used in 1904-5, in 1909, in 1911. But it is impossible to enjoy and to deserve the reputation of peacefulness and moderation if one repeatedly tries to attain one's ends by the threat, if not the use, of violence. At the same time the flamboyant speeches of the Emperor and the inconsistencies of his policy kept Europe in a constant state of apprehension. When we come to the final crisis we find that the German Government once more resorted to its familiar methods. It was, after all, they, and they alone, who were responsible for dealing with the difficult situation presented by the murder of the Archduke in such a way as to make war almost inevitable from the beginning. It is impossible even now to read again the story as told by themselves, of the secret conspiracy which, together with the Austrians, they engineered against the Entente, without profound indignation. Above all, must this be felt by an Englishman. Let us recollect that on June 24 the German Chancellor sent a message to Sir Edward Grey in which, anticipating some dangerous episode in the Balkans, he said that in

order to avoid war arising out of it, it was necessary that England and Germany should work together as they had done during the last two years. Within & week a very serious crisis arose. Had the German Chancellor acted as he had promised to do, had he taken the British Government into his confidence and consulted with them as to the manner in which Austria might get the security which she justly demanded, without at the same time incurring the danger of bringing about a European war, there can be little doubt that the war would have been avoided. His actions in fact were completely different; he seems entirely to have forgotten what had been said, and by every means in their power the German Government kept the British Government in the dark as to the policy they were pursuing, and with the most hasty consideration embarked on a course of action which must almost inevitably lead to war, and would certainly have been condemned by every impartial and candid critic. We cannot get over this, and surely a consideration of the action of the German Government between June 28 and July 28 justifies the conclusion that it is they on whom, together with their fellow supporters in Austria, the real blame rests for the outbreak of the war.

J. W. HEADLAM MORLEY.

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ther Art. 13.-POOR LAW REFORM.

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1. Bill Consolidating the Poor Law Acts.

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2. Reports of the Ministry of Health 1919-26.

3. Ministerial Proposals for Poor Law Reform.

4. Reports of the London County Council, Metropolitan Asylums Board, and other Local Authorities on Ministerial Proposals.

ON Nov. 17, 1926, there was introduced into the House of Lords a Bill entitled An Act to Consolidate the Enactments Relating to the Relief of the Poor in England and Wales. It is an achievement of no small merit, for it is an authoritative summary of all the Acts of Parliament relating to this subject from the famous statute of the 43rd year of Queen Elizabeth (1601) down to one of the fourteenth year of the present reign.

It is the first step, and indeed an essential step towards Poor Law Reform, and one for which some of us have asked in vain for the last thirty years. Even thirty years ago we were not first in the field, for as long ago as 1839 the Poor Law Commissioners stated that the consolidation of the Poor Law Statutes would be a work of eminent utility'; but we must nevertheless congratulate the Government on bringing this Bill to birth, for although only some hundred Acts of Parliament are enumerated in the Bill and its schedules, already twenty years or more ago it was estimated that there were between 350 and 400 Acts of Parliament with which the Poor Law Guardians were supposed to be acquainted.

The Act of Elizabeth was the starting-point of our present system, but it was in fact preceded by a long series of enactments which imposed, for the most part, barbarous punishments on vagabonds and beggars, but proved useless as a remedy. Indeed, pauperism may be said to date from the decay of Feudalism and the emancipation of the serf. But on the one hand in the Middle Ages it was largely fostered by the hospitality of the great Lords and Prelates, who not only fed their retainers, but also practically kept open house. For instance, Stow writes that he saw two hundred people fed twice every day with bread and meat and drink at

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