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tinguished from a separate would not involve any breach of faith with the Allies, is a sample of German military honor in these matters, which the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates have met as it deserved. If tricks or subterfuges of that kind were to prove successful and to split the Alliance, then, as Mr. Wilson bluntly says, the forces of autocracy would overcome us. But if we stand together, as the events of each succeeding week encourage the expectation that we shall stand, "victory is certain and the liberty which victory will secure." When they are won, he adds, we can afford to be generous, but neither now nor then can we afford

to be weak, "or omit any single guarantee of justice and security." We trust that this remarkable utterance with its practical shrewdness, its breadth of view, and its lofty and generous ideals, will have upon all Allied and neutral peoples the effect which it will assuredly have upon the British democracies.

THE DEAD WHO DIED FOR IRELAND.

Major Willie Redmond's death repeats the glorious tragedy of Kettle's, and just in the same guise. When Kettle entered the Irish Party fresh from the National University in Dublin Willie Redmond had long been a veteran; but no one ever thought of the senior member as a middle-aged man. If he had lived to the Scriptural three-score-and-ten, Willie would still have been a boy-if the War had not intervened. In the House of Commons, which is one of the fairest and most discerning assemblies in the world socially, whatever it may lack in other respects, he was a universal favorite. It was impossible for any man to dislike him. He had a way with

him which smoothed away frowns and opened stern lips to laughter. Like Kettle, he was a great master of repartee; but his happiest jokes were in the shape of interjections in debate.

I remember the first thing that struck me about Willie Redmond when I first met him many years ago in the House of Commons was his voice. He had a very musical brogue, in spite of a great huskiness. Though he was not, until these latter years of stress and sorrow, regarded as a serious speaker in the House of Commons, outside St. Stephen's he was looked on as one of the finest orators in the Irish Party, with a singular power of moving audiences.

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He was a man of extraordinary courtesy and consideration, without particle of self or class-consciousness. He was a very fervent Catholic who, time and again, fought the clergy tooth-and-nail. At the time of the great Parnellite split he was as active as his brother on behalf of the fallen Chief, and his strong advocacy earned much clerical displeasure. It was the same over the Education Question, when the Irish Party did not see eyeto-eye with the clerics. His English friends must have been often surprised that such an ultramontane Catholic should have preserved his loyalty to his Church and his political creed at the same time; but this, though it never appears to be accepted by Ulster or English Unionists, is almost a commonplace of Irish politics and politicians.

He has not been much in the House of Commons since, at the beginning of the War, at the age of 54-gray, but gay-he took to the hard life of the active soldier. Such speeches as he has made within this last twelve months have had in them much gravity and fervor. His pleading has strongly moved the House of Commons, and the memory of it moves all England today. I would hope from such a feeling, poignant and widespread, and felt by the The New Witness.

political opponents of Irish nationality in this country and Ireland, a solving of the whole difficulty of Irish government; but public feeling is an ephemeral thing, and when I think of poor, chivalrous Tom Kettle lying forgotten, in spite of his passionate plea for unity amongst his own folk, and of his dying request that England should be good to his country, I have misgivings. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friend." What shall be said of the men who fought and fell for an hereditary enemy in the hour of her greatest danger and tribulation? Lieut. Kettle and Major Redmond believed that this War was Ireland's as well as England's as did the thousands of their dead countrymen, obscure heroes, remembered only in little cabins and in humble houses, in the island across the Irish Sea. I believe with Captain Gwynn that as regards the Irish at the front-Protestant and Catholic, Unionist and Nationalist-the men who have occupied the same trenches and advanced side by side against the common enemy can never hate one another again (those who return to their country), and that a common heroism will create a common comradeship.

It is bitter to think that the sacramental blood of the Irish and Ulster divisions, which has been shed so freely abroad, may not cleanse away the disaffection at home. It is as bitter

and a more cynical reflection that England, which is generous today, may be forgetful tomorrow. The Irish remember an old song, "Bravo, Dublin Fusiliers!" They remember a more recent one, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary." Does England really remember? It is time, and overtime, that a very old debt were paid.

Louis J. McQuilland.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

Whoever buys Helen Leah Reed's sketch of "Serbia" will have the double satisfaction of reading the tragic history of one of the least understood of the European family of nations, and of contributing the full cost of the volume to the Serbian Distress Fund. The book is bound in Serbian blue; carries on the cover an appealing figure in three colors; and has four sepia illustrations. It may be bought at any bookstore, or direct from the author at Riverbank Court, Cambridge.

He

The answer which Dr. Henry B. Wilson, in his little book "Does Christ Still Heal?" (E. P. Dutton & Co.), gives to the question expressed in his title is an emphatic affirmative. holds that "When Christians of any sect declare themselves to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth and His teachings, they assume a belief which obligates them to the practice of bodily healing by faith as truly as to the cure of souls." The reasons by which he reaches this conclusion are strongly urged, and readers who do not find them convincing will respect their obvious sincerity.

"Better Meals for Less Money" is the beguiling title of a book which, in these times, can hardly fail to appeal to distressed housewives and anxious heads of families. It is the work of Mary Green, formerly an instructor in a cooking school, and it contains seven hundred recipes especially adapted to strenuous times-recipes which require only a small amount of meat, for vegetable dishes which can take the place of meat, for the economical use of cereals and dairy products, for breads, cakes and desserts calling for the minimum of butter and eggs, and for various relishes and accessories. These, with general suggestions looking

toward economy, make the book especially timely. Henry Holt & Co.

Arthur Bullard's modest volume on "Mobilizing America" (The Macmillan Co.)-a book of hardly more than vest-pocket size-is full of wise and practical suggestions regarding the mobilizing of public opinion, of money and munitions, of industry and of men. The question which confronts Congress, the President and the Cabinet at the present moment is whether the United States shall blunder along from one costly mistake to another, or shall avail itself of the experience of the Allies-Great Britain and France in particular and avoid the mistakes which they have made and which have cost them dearly. Mr. Bullard's suggestions are the fruit of two years' residence in England and France during the strain of war, and of intimate relations with some of the governmental leaders. They are well worth the consideration of the men who are responsible for public affairs; and the more they gain the attention of the man in the street, the more enlightened will be that public opinion upon which, in the last analysis, the government rests.

Out of the war Ramsay Muir, Professor of Modern History at the University of Manchester, has struggled to enunciate the two principles for which Europe is contending, "Nationalism and Internationalism." He accepts frankly the saying of the great Napoleon that only on the basis of triumphant nationalism can an effective internationalism be realized, then goes on to state that to this attempt among modern peoples Germany, Austria and Turkey have been the chief foes. The volume shows vast learning, clear composition, a steady

view of both facts and theories, and is as fair as any book by a patriotic Englishman could be at this time. The history of the growth of these two forces, of the enemies along the way, of the triumphant achievement of men's civilization, is graphically given. The theme is fresh and the matter original, the style clear and forceful. Houghton, Mifflin Co.

To the confirmed pacifist any kind of peace is better than any kind of war; but George D. Herron, whose small but striking volume on "The Menace of Peace," is published by Mitchell Kennerley, is not at all of that way of thinking. "Terrible as the war is," he contends, "the peace which the pacifists propose would be still more terrible." A peace, he insists, that leaves the nations where they were, that recognizes neither victor nor vanquished, that ignores the conflict's causes and questions, that evades all judgment as to the right or wrong of the matter, such a peace would be the last disaster of mankind. The true reason why our civilization is falling in upon itself is because it is based upon the will to power instead of upon the will to love. The progress of German "Kultur," which exemplifies this decadent civilization and is based on the will to power is synonymous with the spiritual destruction of the world. "Humanity," says the author, "is at a standstill before the Prussian sword and system. There can be no peace, nor can the race take another onward step, until that sword and that system are destroyed. The social efficiency of the German State, fundamentally effecting the unmaking of man, is but an inward manifestation of the idea whose outward manifestation is the lawless quest for world-dominion. It is merely the preliminary of the Prussian will to power, the preparatory process of the might that regards itself as superior to right, and as divinely

appointed to destroy the old world and to create a new world in its own monstrous image." There remain but two alternatives-"one is surrender to Prussia, and the other is the extinction of Prussianism." In an hour so stupendous "there is no place for compromise, there is no time for neutrals." If anyone is in doubt as to the right or wrong of any crisis, he has but to observe whence the neutrals receive their protection and applause. There is plenty of evidence to sustain the author's conclusion that it is militarist Prussia that sustains or sends forth the peacemaking emissaries now beclamoring the world. He can find neither neutrals nor pacifists who are not secretly hoping or working for a German victory. Only in a defeated Germany can any hope be found for a condition of universal peace. "A peace that left Germany with her weapons in her hands would be no peace, but a preparation for wars immeasurably more terrible than the one that now baffles our hopes for humanity." This is the kind of peace which Mr. Herron regards as a menace to the world and to human progress-a catastrophe immeasurably greater than the continuance of the war. That he has not misstated German aims or under-estimated that sort of spiritual obsession which has seized not only the Kaiser but the leaders of German thought is shown by such utterances as the following, by Professor von Stengel of Munich, at the end of the second year of the war:

The nations, and especially the neutral nations, have only one means of leading a profitable existence. It is to submit to our guidance, which is superior from every point of view. . . For we not only have the power and force for this mission, but we also possess all the spiritual gifts to the highest degree, and in all creation it is we who constitute the crown of civilization.

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