"Well, you will have something to eat when you come home, won't you? What time will that be?"

It was the first time in her life she had asked such a question, and his quiet answer to it, delivered over his shoulder as he went downstairs, cut her to the heart.

Scant consolation! She knew that he did not mean to kill himself at least, not yet, for he had promised to make the arrangements for and to attend Julia's funeral.

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

SIR,-On reading Mr. Gribble's statement: "First of all it is the Bible that Tolstoy dismisses with scorn," I thought I would verify the quotation on which he relies in proof of so surprising an assertion. The passage occurs in An Appeal to the Clergy, the best English version of which, I think, is contained in Essays and Letters The World's Classics," issued by the Oxford University Press. Allow me to quote the whole passage.

་་

"People talk of harmful books! But is there in Christendom a book that has done more harm to mankind than this terrible book called Scripture History from the Old and New Testaments?'"

66

A footnote explains:- The reference here is not to the Old and New Testaments in their entirety (the extreme value of many parts of which Tolstoy does not question), but to a compilation for school use, which is largely used in place of the Bible."

Feeling sure that Mr. Gribble had no intention of doing Tolstoy an injustice, I have no hesitation in asking you to insert this letter in your magazine.

October, 1908.

Yours truly,

AYLMER MAUDE.

EDITORIAL NOTICE.

The Editor has in his possession a number of unclaimed MSS., sent in for approval to the FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. They were sent to the office before the end of 1900, and unless they are claimed by their owners in the course of the next four weeksthey will be destroyed.

The Editor of this Review does not undertake to return any manuscripts; nor in any case can he do so unless either stamps or a stamped envelope be sent to cover the cost of postage.

It is advisable that articles sent to the Editor should be typewritten.

The sending of a proof is no guarantee of the acceptance of an article.

THE

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

No. DIV. NEW SERIES, DECEMBER 1, 1908.

FRANCE AS THE KEYSTONE OF EUROPE.

THOUGH in the last few weeks a European catastrophe has been narrowly averted, security has not been restored. The foundations of peace have weakened, and are weakening. For many reasons it is unlikely that things will go better before they go worse. The present and approaching causes of unrest are so numerous, so widespread, and so grave that a long period of unremitted anxiety and recurring peril seems certain. The position is one of unstable equilibrium tending to the overturn. We have again a short respite from tension. But at any moment the strain may be felt again. And at any moment thereafter may come the crash-perhaps next spring, perhaps later. It is happily possible that the very urgency of the danger may rouse the earnest and resolute efforts required to dissipate it. But that is now only the chance. The presumption is plainly the other way. The balance of probability has dipped towards the hazard of war. The time may come at no very distant date, and with a Liberal Government still in office, when the state of general peace we have enjoyed for nearly forty years will appear in the retrospect like the golden vision of a lost age.

It is to be feared that in this matter we apprehend the issues without realising what they are. We entertain a dim, rather than a searching conception of possibilities. It is old knowledge among mankind that contingencies endlessly discussed are apt to be but vaguely imagined. When we come to the point of asking ourselves, perhaps more frequently and seriously than ever before in living memory, what would happen if war should come, we must go further and endeavour to analyse definitely the whole range of meaning and situation condensed into an If. What would be our own situation, our responsibilities, our resources and deficiencies, our inevitable tasks? What would be the position in Western Europe and in Eastern? How 3 P

VOL. LXXXIV. N.S.

would the repercussion make itself felt in Asia? What, above all, would be the effect upon the relations of the two Englishspeaking Powers? It is permissible and not premature to raise these questions. They are raised already. They float in a more or less shadowy form before every mind, and it would be almost criminal if we did not try to envisage these questions and to attempt the answers. Not endeavouring to construct either an alarmist or a reassuring system, but trying to trace out the conceivable process by which known things would pass into their likeliest consequences, let us compel ourselves genuinely to realise the main contingencies. To do this we must, of course, be careful to avoid that exaggeration of the bad which commonly does duty for "realism," both in art and politics, but has no right to the name. The mere pessimist is no realist at all. only an idealist reversed. Nevertheless, we must be at least as far from minimising the tremendous ordeal reasonably to be expected as from seeking to magnify the worst that can be imagined.

In the nature of the case it must be long in any event before the feeling that peace is assured can return to Europe At two points of danger upon the opposite extremities of the Continent the tension must continue to increase until the accumulation of electric antagonisms threaten more and more imminently to discharge themselves in the thunder and lightning of active hostilities. To analyse the events which have destroyed all confidence in the stability of peace is a task somewhat less easy than it seems. Down to the moment half a decade ago when the whole massive structure of the Bismarckian system began to sink and disappear, peace was ensured by very powerful guarantees. Counting upon the benevolent neutrality, if not the open aid of this country, and upon the secret understanding between Berlin and St. Petersburg, the Triple Alliance was secure against attack. Upon the other hand, France was for a time equally secure against another overwhelming onset from the side of the Vosges. Russia would have been bound to intervene, and since the maintenance of the traditional understanding between the Romanoffs and the Hohenzollerns was still the immovable base of the Iron Chancellor's diplomacy, France, though confined to a passive rôle and prevented from reasserting any decisive influence in Europe, was safe from attack. Peace had been preserved, in a word, mainly because it seemed in Germany's highest interest to preserve it for a generation from the Treaty of Frankfort. No ultimate aim of pan-German ambition was abandoned by Bismarck-far from it. But he believed that time was upon the side of the German Empire, and

that all the world would come to her if, having known how to conquer, she then learned how to await. Her population and wealth were increasing with such immense rapidity that in time France would be automatically reduced to relative impotence. She would be paralysed by peace or else crushed in conflict as the elephant kneads the tiger.

This sense of relative security upon the Continent was rather strengthened for a time than weakened by the system of "crossbracing" which established a series of ententes between the Triplice and the Dual Alliance. Nominally in opposite camps, for instance, Berlin and St. Petersburg were connected by the celebrated "wire." In the same way the Balkan compromise between Austria and Russia seemed to guarantee the status quo even in the Near East, and to lay a dead hand even upon all efforts towards progress likely to bring, not peace, but a sword. The Austro-Russian understanding meant the preservation of some semblance of unity in the European Concert. In these circumstances, rather than that peace should be jeopardised, even justice was sacrificed without hesitation. Again, the third member of the Triplice was attached by a special entente to France. This was the state of things which prevailed up to a time that seems like yesterday. It would be impossible to imagine a more ingenious or complex system of guarantees for the maintenance of Continental peace under German hegemony.

But two things are to be noted. The theory we have sketched was a theory of calm at the centre, and storm at the circumference. Consistently with a military truce local to Europe, there would be extra European conflicts such as, indeed, have actually occurred. Competition would be concentrated upon the sea. England's maritime preponderance and Imperial position would be gradually neutralised. France and Russia alike would be compelled to close old quarrels in order to work a British overthrow. For this country, regarded as an essentially extraEuropean Power, there would not necessarily be peace under a system calculated to secure for a time the internal tranquillity of all the Continental nations. Germany under these conditions was devoted to the idea of peace which would have made Germany more and more the arbiter of her neighbours' destinies and ours.

Events from the entente cordiale to the Anglo-Russian rapprochement transformed the situation. It turned the edge of the Bismarckian method against the policy of Berlin. England and France sought a wider security. The tragic issue of the Manchurian adventure led Russia to seek the same. The later policy of ententes has sought to make peace equally secure for African and Asiatic, as well as for European, purposes. For