Statesmen, responsible, not only for the future of their respective countries, but, actually, for that of the whole world, are not to be supposed liable to be carried away by a hasty desire to put an end to the war and to their own arduous task in carrying it to the only possible solution:--A JUST AND DURABLE PEACE. A broad and certain fact, staring every one, is that the Berlin Government will not accept the only settlement to which the Allies can possibly agree as long as her armies occupy French and Belgian territories. If Mr. Bourassa and his "pacifists" friends--or dupes--have really entertained a faint hope to the contrary, they were utterly mistaken. Present military events, however proportionately enlarged by the increased resources, in man-power and money, of the belligerents, are not without many appropriate precedents. History is always repeating itself. Great Powers having risked their all in a drawn battle, do not give in as long as they can stand the strain, considering the importance of the interests they have at stake. For the same reason above stated, but reversed, the Allies will not negotiate for peace before they have thrown the German armies out of French and Belgian soil, and repulsed them over Teutonic territory. I do not mean to say that peace must necessarily be proclaimed either from Berlin or from Paris. But it will only be signed as the inevitable result of a final triumphant march on the way either to Berlin or to Paris. There is no possible escape from the alternative. In such matters, there is no halfway station. CHAPTER XXXIV. AFTER-THE-WAR MILITARY PROBLEM. Two of the most important propositions of His Holiness the Pope more especially deserve earnest consideration. They are indeed supported by the Allies who are purposely fighting for their adoption. In his note of the first of August, 1917, addressed to the Rulers of the belligerent nations, the Pope says in part:-- "AT FIRST, THE FUNDAMENTAL POINT MUST BE TO SUBSTITUTE THE MORAL FORCE OF RIGHT TO THE MATERIAL FORCE OF ARMS." No truer proposition could be enounced. If Germany had put this principle into practice, she never would have violated Belgian territory. When England protested against the proposed invasion of Belgium, she did so in obedience to the sacred principle enunciated by the Sovereign Pontiff. She strongly insisted to the last minute that _the moral force_ of solemn treaties should prevail upon _the material force of arms_. In a letter dated October 7, 1917, His Eminence Cardinal Gasparri, Secretary of State to His Holiness, addressing the Archbishop of Lens, wrote as follows respecting conscription:--