When I went about Europe I was dismayed by the denial of all mental progress towards a state of peace. Physically there was a slow recovery from war. Morally there was a reaction in many countries to black passion, militarism, and ideas of Force. Austria-Hungary and Germany were swinging right back to the old traditions of nationalism. They saw no way of freedom except by future war. They desired vengeance—against the French. They were talking of calling back their Emperors. In Germany the Crown Prince came home as a “private citizen” ready for a call to the throne at some not distant date. The war which was to make the world safe for democracy had been followed by a peace in which democracy was repudiated by many leaders and by public opinion in many countries. “I do not believe in democracy,” Herr Streseman told me in Berlin. The Italian Fascists under Mussolini did not believe in democracy, nor in Parliamentary institutions, nor in free speech. They bludgeoned men who disagreed with their ideas and methods or poured castor oil down their throats. They saved Italy from anarchy, which was a good deed, but Mussolini, the autocrat, was quite willing to play the anarchist against international laws, and did so when he flouted the League of Nations and bombarded Corfu. Students of world affairs, thoughtful observers like Sir Edward Grey and General Smuts, men not given to exaggerated speech and morbid fears, expressed their alarm at the state of Europe ten years after the outbreak of the world war, and confessed that it seemed to be slipping downhill towards general catastrophe. THE REVIVAL OF HOPE Since then something has happened to change the outlook of Europe and renew the hopes of peace. It is the London Agreement by which Germany, France, Great Britain, Belgium, and Italy agreed on Saturday, August 16—ten years and fourteen days after the beginning of the world war—to accept the chief provisions of the Dawes Report for the restoration of German credit by international loans and to establish a business settlement of the reparations problem with German consent. As Ramsay MacDonald, Labour Prime Minister, said at the conclusion of the London Conference, this agreement was “the first Peace Treaty” since the end of the world conflict, “because we sign it with a feeling that we have turned our backs on the terrible years of war and war mentality.” Three great events in the political world led up to this new hope of peace and progress. The first was the friendly co-operation of the United States in the endeavour to find a business solution on the subject of German reparations. The second was the advent of a Labour Government in England. The third was the downfall of Poincaré, owing to a change of view in France which put Herriot into power as an opponent of the Poincaré school of thought. AMERICAN IDEALISM