purpose of an all-conquering army which was to intimidate the world. The army was the spearpoint of Prussia; the rest was merely the shaft.

That is what we had to deal with in these old countries. It got on the nerves of Europe. We knew what it all meant. The Prussian Army in recent times had waged three wars—all for conquest. And the incessant tramping of its legions through the streets of Prussia and on the parade grounds of Prussia had got into the Prussian head. The Kaiser, when he witnessed it on a grand scale in his reviews, got drunk with the sound of it. He delivered the law to the world, as though Potsdam were a new Sinai and he were uttering the law from the thundercloud. But make no mistake; Europe was uneasy. Europe was half intimidated; Europe was anxious; Europe was apprehensive. We knew the whole time what it meant. What we did not know was the moment it would come. This is the menace, this is the oppression, from which Europe has suffered for fifty years. It paralysed the beneficent activities of all States, which ought to have been devoted to, and concentrated upon, the wellbeing of their people. They had to think about this menace, which was there constantly as a cloud, ready to burst over the land.

Take France. No one No one can tell except the Frenchman what they endured from this tyranny, patiently, gallantly, with dignity, until the hour of deliverance came. The best energies in democratic France have been devoted to defence

against the impending terror. France was like a nation which had put up its right arm to ward off a blow, and it could not use the whole of its strength for the great things France was capable of. That great, bold, imaginative, fertile mind, which would otherwise have been cleaving new paths of progress, was paralysed. This was the state of things we had to encounter.

"The Hindenburg Line."

The most characteristic of all Prussian institutions is the Hindenburg line. What is the Hindenburg line? The Hindenburg line is a line drawn in the territories of other people with a warning that the inhabitants of those territories shall not cross it at the peril of their lives. That line has been drawn in Europe for fifty years in many lands. You recollect what happened some years ago in France when the French Foreign Minister was practically driven out of office by Prussian interference. Why? What had he done? He had done nothing that the Minister of an independent State had not the most absolute right to do. He crossed that imaginary line drawn in French territory by Prussian despotism, and he had to leave.

Europe, after enduring this for generations, made up its mind at last that the Hindenburg line must be drawn along the legitimate frontiers of Germany herself. It has been an undoubted fight for the emancipation of Europe and the

emancipation of the world. It was hard at first for the people of America quite to appreciate that. Germany had not interfered to the same extent with their freedom, if at all. But at last she has endured the same experience to which Europe has been subjected. Americans were told they were not to be allowed to cross and recross the Atlantic except at their peril. American ships were sunk without warning. American subjects were drowned with hardly an apology, in fact as a matter of German right. At first America could hardly believe it. They could not think it possible that any sane people could behave in that manner. And they tolerated it once, they tolerated it twice, until at last it became clear that the Germans really meant it. The Hindenburg line was drawn along the shores of America, and Americans were told they must not cross it. America said, "What is this?" and was told that this was a line beyond which they must not go. Then America acted, and acted promptly. America said, "The place for that line is not the Atlantic, but on the Rhine, and we mean to help you to roll it up." And they have started.

The Inspiration of Freedom.

There are two great facts which clinch the argument that this is a great struggle for freedom. The first is the fact that America has come in. She could not have done otherwise. The second is the Russian Revolution. When France

in the eighteenth century sent her soldiers to America to fight for the freedom and independence of that land France also was an autocracy. But when the Frenchmen were in America their aim was freedom, their atmosphere was freedom, and their inspiration was freedom. They acquired a taste for freedom and they took it home, and France became free. That is the story of Russia. Russia engaged in this great war for the freedom of Serbia, of Montenegro, and Bulgaria. Russians have fought for the freedom of Europe, and they wanted to make their own country free. They have done it. The Russian Revolution is not merely the outcome of the struggle for freedom. It is a proof of its character as a struggle for liberty. And if the Russian people realise, as there is evidence they are doing, that national discipline is not incompatible with national freedom, and know that national discipline is essential to the security of national freedom, they will indeed become a free people.

I have been asking myself the question, Why is it that Germany deliberately in the third year of the war provoked America to this declaration, and to this action? Deliberately! Yes; resolutely! It has been suggested that the reason was that there were certain elements in American life which Germany was under the impression would make it impossible for the United States to declare war. That I can hardly believe; but the answer has been afforded by General Hindenburg himself in the very remarkable interview which

appears, I think, this morning in the Press. He depended clearly on one of two things-that the submarine campaign would have destroyed international shipping to such an extent that England would have been put out of business before America was ready. According to his computation, America would not be ready for twelve months. He does not know America. Then alternatively, and when America was ready at the end of twelve months with her army, she would have no ships to transport that army to the field of battle. In Hindenburg's words, "America carries no weight." I suppose he means that she has no ships to carry it in!

"Ships!"

Well, it is not wise always to assume, even when the German General Staff has miscalculated, that they have had no ground for their calculation; and therefore it behooves the whole of the Allies -Britain and America in particular-to see that that reckoning of Von Hindenburg is as false as the one he made about the famous line which we have already broken. The road to victory, the guarantee of victory, the absolute assurance of victory, is to be found in one word-ships! In a second word-ships! In a third word-ships! I see that America, with that quickness of comprehension which characterises your nation, fully realises that, and to-day I observe that they have already made an arrangement to build a thousand