forgets also, does the Boche proprietor of sixty newspapers, that Germany must and shall pay for the war which its wanton ambition forced upon the world. However, these truths are as nothing to Herr Stinnes, who presently boasted that Germany had voluntarily supplied France with considerable quantities of coal before the treaty was signed. Whether they did or did not is wholly irrelevant. The simple duty which lies before the Germans is to carry out the pledges which they gave at Versailles, and the noisy blustering of Herr Stinnes is not likely to deceive anybody.

Then Herr Stinnes began to threaten. "The Germans might fail to persuade the Allies to moderate their demands," he said, "and the Allies might occupy the Ruhr." No doubt they will. "But," he went on, "the Allies would not get their coal, the influx of workmen into the Ruhr would cease, and the building of houses for them would lapse for want of material." And then he pictured, according to the invariable plan, the riots and revolutions which would surely occur. Now, the real meaning of all this is that if Germany can escape its obligations, it will regain in a few years its superiority over France. So with the firm intention of injuring French trade and removing from her path a commercial rival, Germany destroyed the mines and faotories of France. If it be asked to repair the damage it has done, then its industrious

policy of destruction will have failed, and that is why Herr Stinnes and his kind will employ all their cunning and all their arrogance to trick the Allies of that which properly belongs to them. The Boohes, indeed, are unchanging. They bully when they think they are winning, and they weep when they know that they are beaten. We should be moved neither by their tears nor their insolence. It is the duty of the Allies to see that the bill is paid, and that the innocent do not suffer for the guilty. That is all that concerns Messrs Millerand and George just now. Mr George found the intervention of Herr Stinnes outrageous. The outrage was committed when the man was admitted into the Conference.

It is oharacteristic of Mr George that he never knows what he is going to do next. Possessing little knowledge of any sort, he acts upon impulse or upon the persuasion of the last comer. It is quite likely that England is governed to-day by an unknown and wholly obscure individual, named Sir Philip Sassoon, who seems to have the ear of the Prime Minister as well as a convenient house near Hythe. Why these valuable possessions entitle him to attend the Conference at Spa is not very plain, and we should like to have his position more clearly defined. But, under whatever inspiration Mr George is acting at present, one thing is certain: he has turned another somersault in Russian policy.

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the approval of Mr Thomas, the eminent Privy Councillor, upon whom the University of Cambridge, to its shame be it said, has conferred a dootor's degree. It is to this effect: "If Soviet Russia intends to take action hostile to Poland on Polish territory, the British Government and its Allies will feel bound to help Poland with all means at their disposal." Will they? Lives there a man so simple, who believes that the British Government would ever be felt bound in any circumstances to help Poland or any one else? If it did, all the anarchists in our midst would set up a howl, would threaten to down tools, and would if they could bring the whole Empire to a premature end. But if, in the phrase dear to our demagogues, the contingency should arise, a orafty answer to a plain question delivered in the House of Commons would discard in an instant the whole burden of responsibility. At the same time, the commercial bargain goes on apace. Each party undertakes to refrain from propaganda,-a one-sided arrangement surely, since England has never shown any desire to convert the Russians from or to any opinion, and sinee it is exceedingly unlikely that the fanatical Lenin regards it of any consequence to keep his pledged word. And so we are to exchange prisoners and promote commercial facilities as though no outrages had

Now, all these things are possible only because we rejoice in a Coalition Government. But a Coalition Government should give as well as take, and the susceptibilities of either side should be respected. We can see in all the negotiations with Soviet Russia the influence of the extreme Socialists. We cannot detect in them the restraining effect of the Unionist Party. The supposed leader of the Unionists, Mr Bonar Law, must enjoy the closest confidence of his revered leader, Mr George. Does he dare to argue with him, or is he content to take the master's orders, like the rest of the Cabinet? And does he ever condescend to meet the party which he is said to lead, and upon whose allegiance he is supposed to depend? These are some of the doubts which we should like to see resolved. Our desire, we are sure, will_not be gratified. Mr Bonar Law will go on answering questions, more or less inaudibly and rarely intelligibly, so long as Mr George keeps the office of Prime Minister. And it will be the fault of the Unionists themselves if they do not then find a representative leader who will more wisely guide the interests of England than any one of Mr George's colleagues has been able to guide them.

ant secretary,' I can tell at first hand and with numerical precision the events of that period which he relates at secondhand and vaguely.

The world knows Fooh only at the height of his achieve ment, when he drove the Germans before him and would have destroyed them altogether had not his final and fatal blow been stopped by the armistice; it knows him at the moment of success, when his position was at its highest, but it knows little of him in adversity when he himself was at his greatest. This preface of Major Grasset's book tells us something, but not enough, of those earlier battles in which he rose, between 4th August and 4th October 1914, from the command of a corps to the command of an army group, and that the most important, and found himself, in the third month of the war, commanding the generals who had commanded him during the first month. During this first period of the war he was far greater than in the last, when the eyes of all the world were fixed on him, when he took all the tricks, but held all the cards. During the first period he held no cards at all, but won all the same. Then, as later, the words of the greatest of ancient historians, used by him of the man he admired most, are applicable to Foch. "He gave proof of a power of penetration that was natural, wonderful, and infallible. When any crisis arose, however little he expected it, and

without any examination, a view of the situation, far superior to that of any one else, sprang from him at once, and he predicted the subsequent course of events with no less certainty. His exposition of his own plans was most lucid: his criticism of other men's schemes consummate: and however incalculable the result might seem, he always knew what would succeed and what would not. In a word, uniting the deepest intellectual grasp with a lightning rapidity of decision, he was the model man of action."

Major Grasset gives us only a slight sketch of his earlier feats.

At the Trouée de Charmes in Lorraine, August 24, 1914, he and Dubail defended the line of the Meurthe against odds at least ten times as

great. On the last day of August he was put at the head of the 9th Army by Marshal Joffre. This army was to hold the French centre in the first battle of the Marne, and it was against the centre that the main shook of the Germans was to be expected. Foch had 70,000 men: Von Bulow and Von Hausen, whe attacked him (or rather, who faced him, for he attacked them at once as soon as they came within his reach on September 6), had 300,000 men. Thus the plan of the battle hung on whether Foch could hold these odds, while Maunoury and Lord French enveloped the German right: if the Germans could have