Several European rulers, who, as their panegyrists maintain, are soldiers, body and soul, had no desire to restrain the arm of England; they wished Queen Victoria success and noted the progress of the war with semi-joyous interest. But with the people of non-English countries there was pronounced opposition to this war; there was a manifestation of the very thing whereof we dream as a foundation of an alliance of European States, namely, a European conscience. This conscience rose in rebellion against the fact that a war of conquest should be waged in this our day; that a great country should seek to subjugate small, free republics. From every side came protests, petitions, actions of various sorts, to move the English to call a halt in this war. In England itself the peace party untiringly made remonstrances in this direction. The deeply rooted sentiment, “My country, right or wrong,” had to give way to a sense of justice deeper still, and, as boldly as Zola and Picquart entered the lists against the General Staff, even so boldly did noted Englishmen battle against the imperialistic ministry of their native land. Ten years ago these things would not have happened. Neither Europe nor America would have opposed this war so determinedly; still less possibility would there have been of so powerful a counter-current as arose in England itself. All these things are symptoms of the new spirit. But, in spite of the sentiment of the nations, the various governments have refrained from any peace-making intervention; and in London this attitude has been regarded as the correct one. But it was correct according to ancient standards only; it was in direct contravention to the new lines officially marked out at The Hague. The progress of the war in the Transvaal has shown, forcibly and terribly, what a false relation the possible advantages of war bear to its positive disadvantages. Fifty thousand of her youth, healthy and vigorous youth, has England lost in the past ten months; sixty-one million pounds sterling of her national wealth have been wasted; the respect and sympathy of the world have been recklessly sacrificed; the character of the nation has been brutalized by the passions aroused, and freedom, the pride of the British people, freedom of speech, as well as freedom of the individual, has been imperilled, for even now the spectre of conscription is raising its head. The fruits of half a century of national education have been destroyed in this one attack of war-fever. And in place of the great, submarine Channel-tunnel already planned, the fortification of Dover has been begun. India is devastated by a famine, and the money wasted in South Africa for the destruction of human life might have saved the famished ones.