The Germans have come with floating mines in the open seas, threatening belligerents and neutrals equally. They have come with the undiscriminating and murderous Zeppelin, which does military damage only by accident. They have come with the submarine, which destroys neutral and belligerent ships and crews, in scorn alike of law and mercy. They have come upon blameless nations with invasion, incendiarism, and confiscation. They have come with poisonous gases and liquid fire. All their scientific genius has been dedicated to wiping out human life. They have forced these things into general use in the war. The Prussian authorities apparently have but one idea of peace--an iron peace imposed on other nations by German supremacy. They do not understand that free men and free nations will rather die than submit to that ambition, and that there can be no end to the war till that aim is defeated and renounced. _From an interview with_ SIR EDWARD GREY, _in the Chicago News, May, 1916._ [Illustration] _EMPIRE DAY, 1916_ * * * * * When Germany challenged us nearly two years ago to uphold with our lives the ideals by which we professed to live, we accepted the challenge, not out of madness, nor for glory or for gain, but to make good those professions. Since then the Allies and our empire have fought that they may be free and all earth may be free from the intolerable domination of German ideals. We did not foresee the size of the task when it opened. We do not flinch from it now that the long months have schooled us to full knowledge and have tempered us nationally and individually to meet it. The nations within the empire have created, maintained, and reinforced from their best the great armies they devote without question to this issue. They have emerged, one by one, as powers clothed with power through discipline and sacrifice, strong for good by their bitter knowledge of the evil they are meeting, and wise in the unpurchasable wisdom of actual achievement. Knowing as nations what it is we fight for, realizing as men and women the resolve that has been added to us by what each has endured, we go forward now under the proud banner of our griefs and losses to greater effort, greater endurance, and, if need be, heavier sacrifice, equal sponsors for the deliverance of mankind. RUDYARD KIPLING, _on Empire Day, May 24, 1916._ [Illustration] _THE SPRING SONG_ [Illustration] _THE GERMAN_: "_If you will let me keep what I have I will let you go_" * * * * * I have twice publicly stated that Germany has been and is prepared to discuss the termination of the war upon a basis that offers guarantee against further attack from a coalition of her enemies and insures peace to Europe. You have read President Poincaré's answer to that.