In Germany even people are beginning to find the censorship a little too strict. Before the Budget Commission of the Reichstag Herr Scheidemann, the Socialist deputy, complained that in the district of Rüstringen certain of the German official communiqués even were prohibited. The newspapers may not leave blank the spaces caused by the censorship, as the latter must not appear. At Strasburg the censorship prohibited the publication of articles dealing with the increased price of milk. At Dortmund the Socialist newspapers were subjected to a preventive censorship for having inserted an article by the sociologist Lujo Brentano, one of the "Ninety-three," professor at the University of Münich (_N.R.C._, 16th May, 1913, morning). Does the German public, knowing that the newspapers publish none but articles inspired by authority, or at least controlled thereby, accept this sophisticated mental pabulum in good part? Or does it make an effort to procure foreign publications? One must believe that it does not, for in that case the "intellectuals," better informed, would cease to blindly accept the official declarations. "But," it will perhaps be said, "since the Government forbids the introduction of foreign newspapers, it is radically impossible to obtain them." We do not know just how the Germans could obtain pamphlets and newspapers, but we do know that in Belgium we read prohibited literature every day--French, Dutch, and English. Any one who does not intend to resign himself to living in an oubliette will succeed, in spite of everything, in opening some chink that the light may shine through; and this light, when we have received it, we hasten to share. It is forbidden, under the severest penalties, including the capital, to introduce newspapers into Belgium; it is forbidden, under the same penalties, to publish and distribute "false news," as our masters call it. It makes little difference to us; not an article or book of importance appears abroad but it reaches us, and two days later it is secretly distributed in thousands of copies. There will be a curious book for some one to write when the war is over, on the subject of the strange and ingenious means employed by the Belgians, prisoners in their own country since August 1914, to obtain and distribute prohibited letterpress. There is accordingly no doubt that if the Germans really wished it they could without great difficulty obtain reliable "documentation." But they do not wish it. They, of late so proud of their critical spirit, who made it their rule, so they professed--and their glory, as was thought--to accept only that which their reason commanded them to believe! They have abdicated their critical faculty; they have sacrificed it to the militarist Moloch. And to-day, with eyes closed, they swallow all that the Government and its reptile Press presents to them. _The Abolition of Free Discussion in Germany._