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the Entente Powers will be able to impose their mastery over them on the earth.

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The struggle for that mastery between the Entente Powers and the Central Empires will therefore increase in intensity. The genius of inventors in both groups of nations will continue to be enlisted to produce more and more powerful machines of various types, each better adapted to the services it is intended to render than the aeroplanes employed today. It is consequently not only a question of quantity but one of quality. great deal has been said about the advisability of unifying the aeroplanes in use in the armies of the Entente Powers, in order that the spare parts of one machine may serve for another. Something has been done in that way; but the spare parts of a big, bombarding aeroplane cannot be made to fit a swift, fighting one. However, with the object of obtaining as great uniformity as possible, the Americans have adopted the metric system of weights and measures for the building of their air-craft and their motors, all of which-that is to say, both the flying apparatuses and the engines, are to be copies of the most approved types in use in the British and French armies.

The aeroplane and the submarine are the two new factors revolutionizing warfare on land and sea. In this connection it is interesting and important to note that if the submarine is powerless against the seaplane, the seaplane can be employed with good effect against the submarine. It can discover the whereabouts of the submarine much more easily than any surface craft. Flying at the height of 100 or 200 metres (328 or 656 feet) it can, in a fairly calm sea, descry the vessel even when it is navigating at a considerable depth, and failing favorable weather, it can detect the wake

the submarine leaves on the surface of the water. It can swoop down on the enemy and attack it with bombs regulated to explode at a given depth. If the submarine is navigating on the surface, its destruction by the hydroplane is all the less difficult. In any case, having discovered the presence of a submarine, the hydroplane can promptly warn the merchant-vessels in the vicinity to be on their guard, and, if necessary, to alter their course.

No one need feel disappointment because the Americans cannot hope to maintain in actual active service in Europe an aerial fleet of more than 5,000 aeroplanes during the coming year. That number, or even half of it, with the increased power of the British and French aviation corps, would almost certainly place the enemy's aerial forces in a position of marked inferiority. It would be something like a miracle if the Germans could keep pace with Great Britain, France, and the United States in building aircraft and training pilots, especially as the wastage of their machines, and the casualties among their pilots have for many months been greater than the losses suffered by the Entente Powers. It is therefore not unreasonable to expect that the arrival of the American aeroplanes on the Western front will result in the three great Allies obtaining a sufficiently complete mastery in the air to enable them most materially to hasten a decisive victory.

Formidable battles between fleets of avions will nevertheless have to be fought, but the bombardment of the enemy's camps, etc., in the rear of the fighting lines, will be effected on a much larger scale than heretofore. The wrecking of munitions factories, far in the interior of Germany, by means of bombs dropped by imposing fleets of avions, will make the Germans feel that, if their territory is not yet

invaded by land forces, war is carried into it in a very effectual manner. That warfare, directed against places of military importance, will inevitably result in the unintentional killing and wounding of non-combatants. There is, however, something so repugnant to the vast majority of the AngloSaxon race in the idea of wreaking vengeance on unarmed, defenseless people, even for the most heinous crimes committed by other persons, though those persons belong to the same race and nation, that it is unlikely that reprisals for the German aeroplane and Zeppelin raids over England and The Contemporary Review.

France will be sanctioned. Moreover, apart from sentiment, the fact remains that the explosives can be more usefully employed in wrecking warmaterial factories, railway lines, bridges, naval arsenals, shipping, U-boats in port, etc., than in killing women, children, and old men. And in addition to the services the Allies' avions will render by aerial bombardments, and by participation in battles on the earth with their mitrailleuses, it may be possible for the seaplanes to attack, cripple, and perhaps wreck German war-vessels in port, or even

sea.

T. F. Farman.

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THE REICHSTAG AND ECONOMIC PEACE.

The crisis over "war-aims" in the German Reichstag came upon us suddenly, and we have not yet exhausted its whole significance. Our interest in it turned primarily on the simple fact that a large majority of the representatives of the German people had for the first time renounced aims of conquest. It meant less and more than this. The renunciation was not categorical or unconditional: it was part of a brief but comprehensive formula in which the new Three-Party Coalition sketched the future which it desires for Europe. "No conquests" came first, but "economic peace," the "freedom of the seas," and some organization of the idea of public right followed so closely that we must read them as conditions which qualify the offer to abandon territorial gains. The resolution involved some careful and constructive thinking. It also involved a decided and almost unprecedented act of will. The comparative impotence of the Reichstag during its career of nearly half a century has been due less to the survivals of autocracy in the German Constitution than to the inability of

its parties to combine. It rests on manhood suffrage; and it has (what the Duma never had) unlimited rights of veto over taxation and legislation. If at any time it had resolutely used the power of the purse, it could have extracted from the Emperor and the Federal Council any reforms on which it was bent. An obstructive Reichstag would have been dissolved (as happened in Prince Bülow's time), but if the party of protest had come back stronger from the general election (as on that occasion it did not), it must have had its way. The significance of this "war-aims" crisis was that it involved a bold use of the power of the purse. It broke out in the Financial Committee. The Majority Socialists refused to vote the war-credits unless the Chancellor adopted their "no annexation" formula. What might have been a mere demonstration became a decisive turning point, because the Center and the Radicals took their stand with the Socialists. The Committee, after an electric debate, declined to proceed further with the credits until the desired declaration was forth

coming. The old Chancellor fell, a penalty for a long career of balancing and hesitation. It has been much disputed in this country whether the new Chancellor did in fact endorse the Reichstag's resolution. In spite of one or two questionable phrases, he certainly meant to convey that he endorsed it, and both Herr Scheidemann and Herr von Payer (the Radical leader) congratulated him on endorsing it. Only then were the credits voted. The crisis is very far from making Parliamentary Government in Germany, or even a near approach to it. That was not its purpose. It has, however, illustrated the real power of the Reichstag, which rests on the control of the purse-strings. Its stormy origin has given to this historic resolution (hotly combated as it was by the Conservatives and the National-Liberals) a meaning which similar forms of words rarely possess. It has cost some effort, some determination, and a long struggle to say this thing. It is the result of a three years' controversy, and it sums up the German experience of the war.

Strip the resolution of the dignified and mildly idealistic language in which it is phrased,* and it will be found to suggest a bargain between land-power and sea-power. Landpower, thanks to long preparation, efficient organization, a central situation, a unified command, and the ability to strike hard in the first weeks of war, has occupied and still holds large stretches of Allied territory. Seapower fastens the doors by an im

*The essential passage of the resolution runs thus: The Reichstag strives for a peace by agreement and the lasting reconciliation of nations. With such a peace, forcible acquisitions of territory, and political, ec nomic or financial domination are alike incompatible. No less does the Reichstag reject all schemes which aim at creating economic isolation and enmity among nations after the war. The freedom of the seas must be assured. Economic peace alone can prepare the ground for the friendly intercourse of peoples. The Reichstag will actively promote the creation of international organizations for public right (Rechtsorganisationen).

penetrable blockade, seizes colonies overseas, and extends its control over all the distant markets and sources of supply. The threat of land-power is to turn its occupations into permanent conquests. The threat of sea-power is to prolong the blockade into an economic boycott. For three years annexationists and their opponents have debated whether it was to the interest of Germany to turn these occupations, or some of them, into permanent acquisitions. At first the Conservative Junkers and the National-Liberal capitalists of the metallurgical industries were opposed only by the Socialists and by little groups of far-sighted "intellectuals." In the end the Junkers and the industrialists stand isolated, with all the rest of Germany against them. The Reichstag has decided that military conquests are not for it a substantive aim: it regards the occupied territories as assets, as pieces to bargain with, as temporary advantages which it will surrender in order to obtain, not a "German" peace, but a peace of "reconciliation." There lies a long and educative experience behind this decision. It is primarily prudence, realism, a clear perception and measuring of facts. There are hunger, loss, and alarm behind it. Plain living has led, if not to high, at least to sane thinking. The spectre of hunger rode in the victor's car, and the advancing phalanx left widows in its rear. The ghastly disillusionment of these years has done its work in men's minds. The dreams of dominion have receded, the vanity of a great military machine has been demonstrated. In some quarters, far outside the Socialist ranks, especially among Catholics, one detects signs of a moral and religious change. The Austrian Emperor in granting his amnesty to political prisoners deplores "the policy of hate and reprisals which let loose the world-war," and a Catholic Peace

League, with the White Cross as its symbol, preaches "the substitution of Christian principles in public life for Machiavellian diplomacy." There is a change, not among the Junkers and the "profiteers," but among the simpler middle and working classes of Germany and in Austria, in much higher quarters. A Hapsburg has adopted "democracy" as his watchword: the fifth Chancellor after Bismarck has talked of "reconciliation."

Without any cynical implication, let us confine ourselves, however, to the more prosaic and realistic side of this movement of thought. What it means, in plain words, is that Germans have begun to think very gravely of the future which faces their commerce and their whole national life, if the program of the Paris Resolutions is put into force. They have realized that they must barter their potential conquests against our potential boycott. The alarm grew slowly. The Paris Resolutions were treated somewhat lightly at first. A solid Mitteleuropa seemed to offer a big market. The two Americas stood outside the Allied combination, and there was China with its vast resources awaiting development. Russia, it was thought, might break away from the Entente, after peace, if not before it. A different prospect presents itself today. The entry of America has changed the landscape. Brazil, the chief alternative source to Africa for the raw materials of the tropics, has followed the Northern Continent, and she is not alone. China, too, has entered the Allied camp, a fact of no military, but of vast economic significance. When the Paris Resolutions were drafted, they suggested conflict in a bisected world. Today a world-wide combination has made an unbreakable fence. That is the new fact behind the Reichstag's resolution. Germans may feel sincerely that a

Some

future of boycotts and animosities among nations is morally a repugnant prospect, but all Germans realize that it is materially a ruinous prospect. Sea-power has vindicated itself against land-power. One kind of force has proved itself on the balance more formidable than another kind of force. The military decision is evident, even though the present trench lines should hold. The loss of markets through tariff or shipping discrimination would be serious: the control by the Entente of raw materials (cotton, rubber, copper, and vegetable oils) would be fatal to the recovery of German industry.

We must scrutinize the terms of this resolution, and of the Chancellor's speech, to ascertain whether conquests have really been renounced. We do well to insist that even this is not for us the whole question. The wrong to Belgium must be repaired by monetary compensation, and there can be no "peace of reconciliation" without some settlement of the question of Alsace. We must note that the resolution (it is only a brief preliminary formula) says nothing about the limitation of armaments. Nor is it yet certain how far the encouraging phrase about creating organizations for public right involves (what the late Chancellor promised) a readiness to abandon militarism by adherence to Mr. Wilson's League of Nations. The "freedom of the seas" may mean some admissible reforms, but it may be a demand for impossible surrender. There is a wide field for inquiry here, when the opportunity for inquiry comes. Meanwhile, the resolution sets for us an urgent and imperative problem. On the assumption that our essential aims of restoration and security will be conceded by an enemy who professes his desire for a peace of reconciliation, are we prepared to grant what clearly is his indispensable condition? Are

we prepared, if wrongs are righted, armaments reduced, and the guarantee of a League of Nations created against future aggression, to concede "economic peace"? The problem is for us parallel to that which has confronted the Germans. They have eventually decided that their military occupations are means to an end, and not substantive aims. Is the ability to prolong the blockade into a boycott for us a substantive aim, or is it a means of extorting a good peace? Are we prepared to abandon the Paris Resolutions, as the Germans will abandon the occupied territories, if the whole scheme of the settlement makes for a secure and reconstituted world?

We have not yet begun to face this question. When the Paris Resolutions were published, two tendencies declared themselves in this country. One school regarded them as a satisfaction of its ideal: it positively wanted a "war after war," a competition in boycotts and exclusions, in which it believed that the advantage would lie with our trade. The other school thought the whole plan unworkable and unprofitable, and foresaw that it would destroy any attempt to organize peace on a basis of equity and good will. The former school meant to persevere in the plan at all costs. The latter school hoped that it would prove to be an extravagance of our war temper, which would be gradually forgotten and abandoned, as its difficulties were realized. Neither school perceived the part which the scheme might play in the larger strategy of the settlement. It is no mere extravagance; it is the inevitable statement of our sea-power. It is because our naval supremacy makes our combination supreme beyond the European Continent that the menace of the plan is formidable. Unless we are prepared to use this tremendous threat in a conscious and reasoning way, we shall

The

throw away our chiet weapon. possibility of an after-war boycott will be, at the moment of settlement, what the blockade itself has been during the war. An effective use of it depends, however, on our readiness to give it up. If we mean in any event to carry out the Paris program, whatever the enemy's attitude may be, the ability to penalize his commerce after the war ceases to be an asset, and becomes a handicap. If this is one of our substantive aims, we must prolong the war indefinitely before the enemy will submit to it, and in the end we may find that, because we will not renounce this aim, we may have to abandon others which have commended themselves to our better minds. Further, if this form of pressure is subtracted from our assets, we must rely on military force alone to undo the present balance on land. The time has come for prompt and decisive thinking on this question. If we regard some degree of after-war boycott as a substantive aim, we shall not carry with us the Russians, the Americans, the British Labor Party, or the French Socialists. They aim at peace after war. On the other hand, the whole combination may with capable leadership be rallied for a tactical use of a boycott. The firmer, the wider, the more united our combination is, the larger are the concessions which it may hope to extract. It must carry economic peace in one hand and economic war in the other. To a sincerely pacific German nation, ready to abandon her militarism, and to make her contribution towards the reconciliation of nations, it must offer economic peace, and offer it with both hands. Against a Germany which hesitates to make full restoration or to join a general pact of disarmament and conciliation, it must be prepared to impose a boycott so stiff, so united, so effective, that these

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