proposals (published in the Daily Chronicle, July 4, from the New York Metropolitan) which were thus summarized:

(1) Belgium must be restored and amply indemnified. (2) Luxemburg should be joined to France or Belgium.

(3) France must have back Alsace and Lorraine.

(4) Italy should have Italia Irredenta, including Trieste, bordering with Switzerland and Germany in the north, but with full provision for Austria's commercial access to the Mediterranean.

(5) The Czech and his close kinsmen outside of Bohemia should form a new commonwealth.

(6) The Southern Slavs should be made into a Greater Serbia.

(7) Effort must be made to leave the mass of the Magyars together and the mass of the Rumanians together as independent nations.

(8) A democratic Russia should be entitled to and would not abuse the possession of Constantinople. A democratic Russia could safely be trusted to stand as the sponsor of an autonomous Finland, an autonomous Poland, and an autonomous Armenia.

(9) Lithuania should also have her just claims considered.

(10) The Danes of North Schleswig should be given the right to vote whether or not they wish again to become part of Denmark.

(11) Ireland must remain part of the British Empire, but surely the time has come to give her Home Rule within the Empire, on a basis of resolute justice.

(12) England and Japan must keep the colonies they have conquered. Although we were unable to understand the connexion between Home Rule and any terms imposed on Germany, most of these suggestions are excellent so far as they go, but we contributed an addendum for Mr. Roosevelt's consideration which we believe generally represents our readers' views, though neither they nor we should be bound by these or any other terms should the enemy persist in prolonging the war in the hopes of bleeding the Allies white. We must always reserve to ourselves the right to punish German contumacy and impose further compensation to the Allies should the enemy wilfully continue the struggle in a purely anarchic spirit after he has lost all serious prospect of victory. These terms should be read in conjunction with Mr. Roosevelt's: (a) No peace with the Hohenzollerns.

(b) Punishment to be inflicted on the convicted authors of atrocities in Belgium, France, and elsewhere, however highly placed.

(c) Germany to make good ton for ton all shipping, Allied and neutral, unlawfully sunk

(d) The German principle of making the loser indemnify the victors for the cost of the war to be applied to Germany.

(e) Germany to surrender her fleet for pro rata distribution among the Allies prior to any negotiations.

(f) The Kiel Canal to be internationalized under European guarantees.

(g) No modification of the published terms by secret diplomacy, whether in the shape of a promise of dynastic marriages or any commercial concessions whatsoever. (h) As no German signature is worth the paper on which it is written, the Allies to take effectual military guarantees for the execution of the above terms and any that may hereafter be added.

(i) Terms to become more drastic with the prolongation of the war.

A Question of Time

IT was only a question of time from the moment Germany began flying signals of distress in the shape of peace kites as to when the Papacy would propose mediation. The only doubt was whether it would be at a convenient or an inconvenient moment for the Allies, which has, happily, been resolved in our favour, so another lion has now been cleared from the path. There were no illusions in London, Paris, Petrograd, Washington, or other Allied capitals as to the attitude likely to be assumed by the Vatican, which has shattered whatever moral authority it formerly held in the nonCatholic world by having practically played the part of a confederate of Kultur against civilization during these hideous years. Its enemies have been unable to conceal their glee at this alliance with Satan, which has injured the Holy See infinitely more than any catastrophe since the Reformation, and has ruined any prospect it ever had of recovering its prestige in communities once classified as Catholic. There must be some overpowering motive for the strange silence of the Pope when Christianity and humanity alike cried to Heaven against barbarism. In mediæval Europe Rome was the acknowledged centre of international law, and Popes braved emperors and punished emperors who defied the laws of God and man. But in our time another Benedict has acquiesced in horrors surpassing all former records, and has preferred to look the other way while a Protestant Sovereign pillaged, murdered, raped, and tortured great Catholic communities. The Pope is infallible to his flock, but beyond them he is viewed with something approaching abhorrence by many who once tolerated a harmless superstition, now that they realize what the Vatican will endure for material and political ends. Astute men do not so demean themselves for nothing. If every man has his price, that of the Papacy must be high, nor is there much mystery as to its amount. The German Emperor must have promised to restore the Temporal Power in return for the Holy See's moral support. This explains the vast network of intrigue which has confronted the Allied cause in Papist circles, even those under our own Flag, which if left to themselves might have rallied to the national cause. Unofficially the Vatican is believed to have promoted the Sinn Fein movement, which embraces the younger priesthood, and it is undoubtedly responsible for the moral isolation of Quebec in North America

at a time when the two countries to which it owes everything are fighting for their lives. Vatican influences probably promoted the almost solid vote which Catholic Australia cast against Compulsory Service. In Spain we see a similar attitude. Indeed, wherever we look Ultramontanism and Anglophobia are synonymous and interchangeable terms. It is a poor return for the extraordinary tolerance which Catholicism has enjoyed under British rule that the Papacy should now be ranged with the country of Bismarck. It is exceedingly hard on English Catholics, who have been splendid at this crisis.

ALTHOUGH the Papal Note (which was dated August 1 and published on August 16) occupied a certain space in the Press, and provoked countless leading articles, it cannot be Papal Note said to have attracted much attention from the general public in this country, which is perhaps as well, as its terms are calculated to excite impatience and irritability. Though delivered in French to the British Government, it clearly had an Austrian and probably a German origin, as Vienna is not now in a position to act independently of Berlin. It was addressed "To the Heads of the Belligerent Peoples," to whom Benedictus XV thus appealed:

Since the beginning of our Pontificate, amid the horrors of the terrible war let loose on Europe, we have kept in mind three things above all: to maintain perfect impartiality towards all the belligerents, as becomes him who is the common Father and who loves with equal affection all his children; to strive constantly to do to all the greatest possible good, without exception of persons, without distinction of nationality or religion, as is enjoined upon us both by the universal law of charity and by the supreme spiritual charge confided to us by Christ; finally, as our pacifying mission equally requires, to omit nothing, as far as might be in our power, that could help to hasten the end of this calamity, by essaying to bring the peoples and their Heads to more moderate councils and to the serene deliberations of peace-a peace "just and lasting."

Such an exordium could only exasperate the Allies, who find themselves placed on the same level as the enemy and treated as though they were equally responsible with the Germans for the sufferings of Europe. Surely the first duty of a supreme spiritual authority is to distinguish between right and wrong and to excommunicate whoever "let loose on Europe" such horrors. If the Pope shares the German view that Great Britain is responsible for the war, he should say so plainly; as also if he holds the British view that Germany is the guilty party. However, the Papacy prides itself above all things upon "impar

tiality," presumably because it dare not defy civilization as it would wish by endorsing the German theory that wicked England engineered Armageddon.

Whoever has followed our work during the three sad years just elapsed has been able easily to recognize that, if we have been ever faithful to our resolve of absolute impartiality and to our beneficent action, we have never ceased to exhort the belligerent peoples and Governments to resume their brotherhood, even though all that we have done to achieve this most noble aim has not been made public.

WE are reminded that "towards the end of the first year of war we addressed to the nations in conflict the liveliest exhortations, and pointed out, moreover, the path along which "Impartiality" a peace, stable and honourable for all, might be attained." In other words, no move was made until the failure of the German spring had robbed the Mailed Fist of all hope of executing the full Pan-German programme this time, nor had there been any attempt to prevent the war at the crisis of 1914, when the pacific diplomacy of the Entente stood in sore need of reinforcement. His Holiness complains that his efforts were unheeded and the war raged for another two years. "It even became more cruel, and spread on land, on sea-nay, in the very air; upon defenceless cities, quiet villages, and their innocent inhabitants desolation and death were seen to fall." Just as its "absolute impartiality" prevented the Vatican from stigmatizing the guilty authors of the war, so it is restrained from indicating the miscreants who have perpetrated these atrocities. Very late in the day the Holy Father asks whether the civilized world should be "naught but a field of death. And shall Europe, so glorious and flourishing, rush, as though driven by universal madness, towards the abyss, and lend her hand to her own suicide?" In the presence of such a grave peril :

We, who have no special political aim [our italics], who heed neither the suggestions nor the interests of either of the belligerent parties, but are impelled solely by the feeling of our supreme duty as the common Father of the people, by the prayers of our children, who implore from us intervention, and our word of peace, by the very voice of humanity and of reason, we raise again a cry for peace, and renew a pressing appeal to those in whose hands lie the destinies of nations.

Directly the Note descends from the general to the particular and lays "concrete and practical proposals " before the belligerents its bias and inspiration emerge. There is, of course, the usual lip service to "the simultaneous and reciprocal diminution of armaments, according to rules and guarantees to be established,

to the extent necessary and sufficient for the maintenance of public order in each State," armies being replaced by arbitration, while the rest of the paraphernalia of the millennium is paraded, but this is mere verbiage in dealing with such a Power as Germany, who repudiates any obligation found inconvenient.

Freedom of the Seas

NEEDLESS to say the Pope is a pronounced partisan of "the true freedom and common enjoyment of the seas," alias the demobilization of the British Navy by international agreement, so that nothing may stand between the German Army and world-power. We are told this German desideratum would, on the one hand, remove manifold causes of conflict, and "would open, on the other, fresh sources of prosperity and progress to all." So it would to every Power wishing to become Germanized, which would be the unavoidable fate of Europe under the new dispensation, as "freedom of the seas" would remove the one serious obstacle to universal militarism. The Pope is equally in favour of the aggressor on the vital issue of reparation: "We see no way to solve the question save by laying down as a general principle complete and reciprocal condonation, which would, moreover, be justified by the immense benefits that would accrue from disarmament.' This is the Reichstag policy, where generous Socialists are prepared to forgive Belgium and Northern France for having been ruined by Germany, to which end the phrase “No annexations and no indemnities " has been devised-not that the German Government has yet reached this enlightened stage, because, as we learn on the unimpeachable authority of Mr. Gerard, the official world favours both annexation and indemnities. The Papacy urges, under the phrase "reciprocal restitution of territories now occupied," the complete evacuation of Belgium, with a guarantee of her full political, military, and economic independence towards all Powers whatsoever; likewise the evacuation of French territory. As we all know, Germany will be unable to hold these countries, which is doubtless the reason for their evacuation being recommended by the Vatican. As she has no prospect of regaining her Overseas Empire we are not surprised that the Papal Note recommends, the part of the other belligerent parties there must be a similar rostitution of the German colonies." We would once more invite

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