It is, of course, essential that, if this end is to be accomplished, we shall face facts with the understanding of what they really signify. Not the slightest good is done by hysterical outcries for a peace which would consecrate wrong or leave wrongs unredressed. Little or nothing would be gained by a peace which merely stopped this war for the moment and left untouched all the causes that have brought it about. A peace which left the wrongs of Belgium unredressed, which did not leave her independent and secured against further wrong-doing, and which did not provide measures hereafter to safeguard all peaceful nations against suffering the fate that Belgium has suffered, would be mischievous rather than beneficial in its ultimate effects. If the United States had any part in bringing about such a peace it would be deeply to our discredit as a nation. Belgium has been terribly wronged, and the civilized world owes it to itself to see that this wrong is redressed and that steps are taken which will guarantee that hereafter conditions shall not be permitted to become such as either to require or to permit such action as that of Germany against Belgium. Surely all good and honest men who are lovers of peace and who do not use the great words “love of peace” to cloak their own folly and timidity must agree that peace is to be made the handmaiden of righteousness or else that it is worthless. England’s attitude in going to war in defense of Belgium’s rights, according to its guarantee, was not only strictly proper but represents the only kind of action that ever will make a neutrality treaty or peace treaty or arbitration treaty worth the paper on which it is written. The published despatches of the British government show that Sir Edward Grey clearly, emphatically, and scrupulously declined to commit his government to war until it became imperative to do so if Great Britain was to fulfil, as her honor and interest alike demanded, her engagements on behalf of the neutrality of Belgium. Of course, as far as Great Britain is concerned, she would not be honorably justified in making peace unless this object of her going to war was achieved. Our hearty sympathy should go out to her in this attitude.