NOTES
Peace Intrigues
The Russian Government recently issued an emphatic denial of the rumours that Russia was contemplating negotiations for peace. In view of the echo which a recent German press campaign had found in a section of the Russian press, the denial was opportune. The Allied Governments doubtless understand that the Allied peoples are not disposed to have peace made over their heads, or behind their backs, in secret. The only answer that can be given to German intrigues, which, of late, have multiplied exceedingly, is an absolute refusal to countenance them, directly or indirectly. Specious arguments, to the effect that the Allies ought not to leave to Germany the "moral prestige" that may come from being the only belligerent anxious for peace, are extremely dangerous. They reveal a strange inability to comprehend even now the true character of this war. We are fighting for a clean, sound and lasting peace. Between that and the kind of "peace" for which the Germans strive. there can be no compromise.
Rumours have for some time past been afloat in very serious quarters in Washington that the true aims of the British Government are a reversion to the status quo ante bellum and a league to enforce peace (the former as pernicious as the latter is admirable). Steps should therefore be taken to make it clear that the recent pronouncements of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith really represent the views of every member of the British Government, and that there is no divergence of opinion among our leaders on so capital a point.
Lord Grey's Speech
Lord Grey’s speech to the Foreign Press Association on 23rd October was in reality his first war speech. It was by far his most considerable pronouncement since the speech of 3rd August, 1914, in which, while defending British intervention, he seemed at moments uncertain how the House of Commons would accept his pleading. Since then he has indicated his feelings in various forms — by interviews, authorised statements, introductory remarks at a lecture, and so on; but he has never attempted to lay bare his own mind on the question of peace. A feature common to nearly all his utterances has been his curious reluctance to get away from the diplomatic negotiations that preceded the war and to accept the war as something in itself, a struggle which must be won and settled on such lines as to preclude its recurrence. It was as though his heart were anchored in the last fortnight of July, 1914, and his mind were still seeking the ghost of its former self among the ruins of the somewhat negative abode which he had once inhabited. Last Monday's speech shows that his heart is still anchored there, but that his intelligence is breaking the hawsers which held it and beginning to comprehend, not only that we are at war, but that we must win the war and that victory must have a certain shape and consistency, if it is to be victory indeed. It may be hoped that his diplomacy will henceforth be marked by a constructive war-vigour such as it has sometimes seemed to lack in the past.
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