“The Religion of Valor”--that new creed for which Germany now claims to be fighting--will call for many martyrs behind the fighting lines, and we may suppose that the middle classes of the fatherland as little like the sacrifices demanded from them as any other members of the community, whose savings are the result of their own energy and enterprise. That Germany is subscribing to her loans with generosity and self-denial we have no reason to doubt; but since there is no free press, the nation as a whole remains under delusion as to the value of its securities. The dust, however, cannot be in every eye much longer, and before another spring is spent, Germany’s people will know that she is powerless to keep her paper promises. For the one hope that a victorious trade war would instantly break out upon the arrival of peace is destined to be disappointed. As Mr. Kitson recently and very effectively showed, economic power is the basis of political power, the root from which all national power, which can be interpreted into force, must spring. “Trade warfare is therefore a struggle for economic power, for the control of men and of all factors of wealth production.” The British Empire seems to be grasping this fact for the first time in her national history; and though we have far to go, and the panacea of free trade will doubtless be vended again after the war--by those who, before it, knew so well that Germany would never fight--a growing conviction is none the less apparent that only by a direct and strenuous offensive shall we win the war after the war. Let us banish inter-tariffs, as Germany did, and unite the nation in a closer economic understanding; and let us not leave our frontiers open to the legions of German and Austrian bagmen, who only await peace to swarm over them. It depends largely upon us whether the gentleman in the picture will get his money back. The grand total of the fatherland’s indebtedness, were war to go on until last April, has been calculated in Germany to represent £4,500,000,000, which would demand in annual interest a sum near £800,000,000. One does not desire to be vindictive, but let no man forget the barefaced villainy and devilish brutality with which the Central Nations prosecuted war. It is not for us to forward the peaceful penetration of such a people through the length and breadth of our empire if we desire to preserve that empire as an entity. Let Germany redeem her pledges if she can; it will be no part of our post-war activities to assist her task. EDEN PHILLPOTTS. [Illustration] “_Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind? Dass ist der Vater mit seinem Kind_” (_Erlkönig_) Not only the father and his sick child ride storm-foundered and lost through night, with the phantom king steadily gaining upon both: the frantic, over-driven brute they ride should also be conscious of approaching doom. But is it?