ARTICLE XXII

Paris and London

E WOULD indeed be foolhardy who would pause to discuss Paris and London-so much are they on the beaten track of travel-in any phase, except their postwar condition.

It is apparent that a generation has passed since 1913, when I saw these cities in the full bloom of their pride and glory. You miss familiar faces in shop and restaurant, and those who survive are prematurely old and broken. But the boulevards are thronged, and the cafes are patronized, just as much as ever before; and, for countries stricken by adversity, it is hard to imagine where the means for gratifying extravagance comes from. It cannot all be laid to the Americans, numerous enough. The French and Europeans, in this great throng, must be successful contractors and profiteers, who have made fortunes, creating a new 'nouveau riche" out of the opportunities which war always gives. The gay world is still adorned with the jewels that are mined in the Rue de la Paix. No restaurant nor theatre has closed its doors. The Chateau Madrid and the Pre

Catalan are nightly the scenes of brilliant balls, and the race tracks draw their tens of thousands.

Where are the millions who perished in the War? Their places have been taken, if not filled. After a war, the youth of a country is always found in the ranks of death. So, France will doubtless suffer. The character of her new generation, which is but slowly coming on (because the birthrate of France has been a matter of serious concern to French statesmen), is on trial. France fears that Germany will first recuperate, on account of her greater fecundity, and that, unless she is now crippled, there will be another war within ten years. There is more gloom in Paris among the serious-minded, on account of what the future, they fear, may hold for their country, than for any present embarrassment.

The British, secure in their isolation, have no fear of of a foreign invasion, because sea-fighting is at an end, as the sea power of Germany has been destroyed, and the United States is not considered at all a likely aggressor. In this day of good will and, apparently, sincere desire on the part of England and, many in America, to come together—a union of English-speaking peoples-it would be infelicitous to venture an opinion which conveyed the idea of discord or disagreement. But few know how close America and Great Britain have been to war.

In Paris I met my friend, Colonel E. M. House, at a dinner-party, where several diplomatists were present, and, when grouped together after dinner, the ever-recurring discussion of the War, its causes, conduct and consequences, took place. There was nothing confidential about it. Colonel House, having held a position which made him

peculiarly qualified to speak, said that, at one time, it was much more likely that America would have been at war with England than with Germany; and had not Germany blundered so grievously, by the invasion of Belgium and by the prosecution of torpedo warfare, the destruction of American ships and American lives, the bad faith of her promises and the insulting character of her communications, she would have won a victory, because, not only would America not have gone to War on behalf of the Allies, but she would have waged war against England for the violation of international law and the invasion of her neutral commerce,-blockading, seizing and searching vessels, denying coaling facilities, diverting cargoes, blacklisting merchants and, in every possible way, calling down the wrath of the American people, never too friendly to English ambitions and aggressions. Conditions had become intolerable, when the inaptitude of German diplomacy and the ruthlessness of German warfare on the high seas, turned the scale of sentiment, and made it necessary for America to strike.

American merchants and manufacturers were greatly profiting by commerce with the neutral countries, which was their right. But England felt that these countries were supplying the enemy, and she though she would interrupt the traffic at the source. So, Colonel House's point was that it would have been incumbent upon America to defend her position, under international law, and to protect her commerce upon the sea, and that England, being in no humor to yield, would immediately have precipitated a conflict.

The dominant note in London, voiced by the press and