been more talked around than practised. Thus the Washington Government is understood to have had considerable difficulty in ascertaining the Allies' wants. Colonel House, besides occupying a unique position as the President's most intimate political friend and counsellor on many matters, is an unusually shrewd and wellinformed man, who has made the most of his exceptional opportunities and has become one of the most accomplished of International diplomatists. We cannot help occasionally regrettingthough it is unavoidable-that distinguished visitors to our country should be thrown mainly with the official world, and should see so little of the unofficial world, as it is no reflection on the former to describe the latter as the "better half" of our nation. Eminent personages have been frequently misled because they mistook British Governments for the British people, and imagined they knew what Britain would do because they had conversed with so many Right Honourables. Colonel House happily knows us too well to make this mistake. He has paid eloquent tribute to the British Army, which he recognizes as the very flower of our race. He will not, therefore, be misled by any manifestations of "cold feet" that he may be met with among Departmentalists. THERE was an historic meeting of certain members of the American Lord Reading, who went out to help Lord Northcliffe on the financial side, Sir William Robertson, Sir Eric Geddes, Lord Derby, Sir John Jellicoe, and others. They met in the same room and round the same table where the decisions were taken 150 years ago that produced the great breach in the English-speaking race. It was a moving moment when at the close of proceedings, which had been severely practical, Admiral Benson on behalf of the American Mission thanked the British Government for the treatment they had received in London, adding, "The United States, with the strength and vigour of youth and mature manhood and the experience reaped from the history of their own country, were filled with the profound determination to do all that was possible in order that all men might enjoy the right to life, liberty, and happiness." The Mission was anxious to learn as much as possible from the experiences of the Allies during the last three and a half years, and were grateful for all the information they had received. Admiral Benson added "that the United States was heart and soul in the war, and that his country absolutely endorsed the statement of their President that none of its resources would be spared, its men, its ships, or its work, in order to win the Table of IN opening the proceedings the Prime Minister had expressed our Government's satisfaction that the United States and the British Empire should now be dedicated to the common task of defending the liberties of the world in the very place where had been committed the blunders that had estranged them. The object of the Conference was to determine the most effective form of American co-operation with the Allies, but it was not easy to draw up " any table of urgency,' as everything was urgent, but the British Government believed that two matters stood in a class by themselves in their urgency-viz. Man-power and Shipping. Mr. Lloyd George examined the military situation, suggesting that Russian and Italian developments made it more imperative than ever that the United States should send as many troops as possible as soon as possible, and he inquired when the first million men might be expected in France. British shipping was now wholly employed on war work, and assuming the submarine got no worse, the easing of the 66 Allies' strain depended upon the date when the Americans would be able to launch the six million tons of shipping promised for 1918. Among matters of "secondary urgency were aeroplanes, in which much was hoped from the United States, and food, as several of the great grain fields of the world had gone out of reach, notably Russia. At the same time production in Europe was falling." Therefore the Allies were becoming increasingly dependent upon the North American food supply, and the Premier assured the Mission that "the most drastic restrictions were about to be imposed upon the people of the British Isles," partly to assist our Allies, partly to make more room for the carriage of men and munitions to the Battle Fronts. He also mentioned the "tightening of the Blockade," which we may note in passing is invariably pronounced to be a tight as it could be, but always" about to be tightened." Happily, the Washington Government will refuse to be "fobbed off" with verbal assurances while neutrals feather their nests. Ir was a particularly happy and timely arrangement whereby a distinguished American admiral was the national spokesman at A Gentle this historic meeting in Downing Street. Was it intended as a polite rebuke to the one-time Mother Country? Was it a gentle reminder of something latter-day British statesmanship appears to have forgotten or put aside as something taken so completely for granted that we need no longer bother our heads about it? All these interAllied conferences and councils, wherever held--in France, Paris, Rome, or Rapallo-have one serious defect. They overlook the secret of Allied success-the condition of Allied existence. It is sufficiently serious that it should escape the notice of Continental statesmen, but it is hardly surprising. What are we to think of the islanders, the Imperial statesmen so called, who turn their backs on their entire history and across whose minds, judging from their utterances and many actions, the vision of sea-power never floats? Where would the Allies be to-day without the sea? Where would Britain be without her Navy? But it is only in the fourth year of this gigantic war, to which the sea holds the key, that a sailor has been allowed to open his mouthso far as the public are aware---at a War Council. May we take it as an augury that the Americans, who, like ourselves, sprang from the sea, hold fast by the teaching of history and would tactfully remind us of something we cannot afford to forget by placing a sailor in the foreground of the American Mission? We are far more dependent upon the sea than the United States. If anything went seriously wrong with us at sea we are finished as a European Power, and Pan-Germany would triumph from Calais to Constantinople. This should be plainer than ever. But seapower was practically excluded from Allied conferences until Admiral Benson's presence in Downing Street reminded our statesmen that there was such a thing, and when the British Prime Minister reviews the war in Paris he shows no bowing acquaintance with sea-power, which is not directly represented in our War Cabinet. Can this be right? Can it continue ? Mr. Cope Cornford contributes a striking paper to this number on "The Forgotten Navy." ALTHOUGH the misfortunes of Italy made an immediate and heavy call upon the military resources of France and Great Britain, which are less limitless than exuberant Passchendaele orators imagine, both Allies have managed to maintain their pressure upon the enemy. Pace amateur strategists of the Harum-Scarum School, who regard Army Corps as so many pancakes to be "thrown " about, such pressure is the best service we can render Italy at this juncture. We could only injure Italy by so denuding the Franco-British Front as to permit the German General Staff to increase the German army now invading Venetia, which is not nearly as large as it would have been had the French General Staff and our own lost their heads like certain politicians. For every British or French Division that can be sent to Italy at least the German equivalent can leave Flanders or the Aisne, reaching its objective appreciably sooner than we can reach ours owing to the shorter distance and superior communications. General Pétain wisely completed the brilliant operations which gave him control of the Chemin des Dames and deprived the Germans of two hundred guns and the equivalent of a Division of unwounded prisoners, and other casualties in proportion. Frequently in November the French scored tactically from Soissons to Verdun. Meanwhile the British Army pursued its victorious career in four different theatres, from the Yser to the Tigris. Think what that measures in foresight, in preparation, in organization in London, and in Staff work on the ground, apart from the capable and resourceful leadership and fighting qualities which it has long been impertinent to praise. Sir Douglas Haig, who is not lightly diverted from his purpose, and keeps the even tenor of his way regardless of Intriguers, had set his heart on the capture of Passchendaele, commanding the road to Bruges and reversing the previous position of the two armies in this sector. At last his tenacity was rewarded in the first week of November at one of the darkest moments of the Italian eclipse. To the Canadians deservedly fell the glory of taking the village of Passchendaele on November 6, leaving only a couple of insignificant spurs to be cleared, and consigning the enemy to the waterlogged plain for the winter. SIMULTANEOUSLY in Palestine General Allenby, one of our most clear-brained and decisive generals, was carrying on a campaign which at any other time would have riveted Palestine the attention of the world. As it was it was too important to be ignored, proving as it did that the German General Staff is nowadays constrained to husband man-power, of which it was once so prodigal, and run considerable risks in allowing the despised, deserted Turk to be strafed, although he enjoys the advantage of having a Prussian courtier, the high and mighty Falkenhayn, as Generalissimo of the Turkish army. Constantinople had been led to anticipate a double event this autumn-viz. the bundling of one British army into the Persian Gulf and the kicking of another across the Suez Canal, to be followed by a Turkish invasion of Egypt, the recovery of which is an Ottoman war aim to which Wilhelm II is solemnly pledged. So far the boot is on the other leg. Bagdad has become the established base of one Turkish defeat after another, and is a witness of Allied prestige throughout the Middle East, while General Allenby is at the time of writing actually within striking distance of Jerusalem, the fall of which, if of no appreciable military importance in the Clausewitz sense of that term, would be a resounding blow that would go far to neutralize the loss of Venice, supposing that beautiful city were destined to pass for the |