"In the second place, Russia demands that this plebiscite shall take place _after all German troops and officials have been withdrawn from the occupied provinces_, while Germany, in reply to this, points out that if this principle were carried to its utmost limits it would create a vacuum, which could not fail to bring about at once a state of complete anarchy and the utmost misery. It should here be noted that everything in these provinces which to-day renders possible the life of a state at all is _German property_. Railways, posts and telegraphs, the entire industry, and moreover the entire administrative machinery, police, law courts, all are in German hands. The sudden withdrawal of all this apparatus would, in fact, create a condition of things which seems _practically impossible to maintain_. "In both cases it is a question of finding a _middle way_, which moreover _must be found_. "_The differences between these two points of view are in my opinion not great enough to justify failure of the negotiations_. "But such negotiations cannot be settled from one day to another; they take time. "_If once we have attained peace with Russia, then in my opinion the general peace cannot be long delayed_, despite all efforts on the part of the Western Entente statesmen. I have learned that some are unable to understand why I stated in my first speech after the resumption of negotiations that it was not now a question at Brest of a general peace, but of a _separate peace with Russia_. This was the necessary recognition of a plain fact, which Herr Trotski also has admitted without reserve, and it was necessary, since the negotiations would have been on a different footing--that is to say, _in a more limited sphere_--if treating with Russia alone than if it were a case of treating for a general peace. "Though I have no illusions in the direction of expecting the fruit of general peace to ripen in a single night, I am nevertheless convinced that the fruit _has begun to ripen_, and that it is now only a question of holding out whether we are to obtain a general honourable peace or not. =Wilson's Message= "I have recently been confirmed in this view by the offer of peace put forward by the President of the United States of America to the whole world. This is _an offer of peace_, for in fourteen points Mr. Wilson sets forth the principles upon which he seeks to establish a general peace. Obviously, an offer of this nature cannot be expected to furnish a scheme acceptable in every detail. If that were the case, then negotiations would be superfluous altogether, and peace could be arrived at by a simple acceptance, a single assent. This, of course, is not so. "_But I have no hesitation in declaring that these last proposals on the part of President Wilson seem to me considerably nearer the Austro-Hungarian point of view_, and that there are among his proposals some which we can even agree to _with great pleasure_.