General Botha, thereupon adopting an emotional tone, said: "I have one last appeal to make to you. It behooves Poland to lift the question from its present petty surroundings and set it in the larger frame of world issues. What we are aiming at is the overthrow of militarism and the cessation of bloodshed. As a civilized nation Poland must surely see eye to eye with the Supreme Council how incumbent it is on the Allies to put a stop to the misery that warfare has brought down on the world and is now inflicting on the populations of Poland and eastern Galicia." "Truly," replied the Polish delegate, "and so thoroughly does she realize it that it is repugnant to her to be satisfied with a sham peace, a mere pause during which a bloodier war may be organized. We want a settlement that really connotes peace, and our intimate knowledge of the circumstances enables us to distinguish between that and a mere truce. That is the ground of our insistence." "Bear well in mind," insisted the Boer general, "the friendly attitude of the great Allies toward your country at a critical period of its history. They restored it. They meant and mean to help it to preserve its status. It behooves the Poles to show their appreciation of this friendship in a practical way by deferring to their wishes. Everything they ordain is for your good. Realize that and carry out their schemes." "For their help we are and will remain grateful," was the answer, "and we will go as far toward meeting their wishes as is feasible without actually imperiling their contribution to the restoration of our state. But we cannot blink the facts that their views are sometimes mistaken and their power to realize them generally imaginary. They have made numerous and costly mistakes already, which they now frankly avow. If they persisted in their present plan they would be adding another to the list. And as to their power to help us positively, it is nil. Their initial omission to send a formidable military force to Poland was an irreparable blunder, for it left them without an executive in eastern Europe, where they now can help none of their protégées against their respective enemies. Poles, Rumanians, Jugoslavs are all left to themselves. From the Allies they may expect inspiriting telegrams, but little else. In fact, the utmost they can do is to issue decrees that may or may not be obeyed. Examples are many. They obtained for us by the armistice the right of disembarking troops at Dantzig, and we were unspeakably grateful to them. But they failed to make the Germans respect that right and we had to resign ourselves to abandon it. They ordered the Ukrainians to cease their numerous attacks on us and we appreciated their thoughtfulness. But the order was disobeyed; we were assailed and had no one to look to for help but ourselves. Still we are most thankful for all that they could do. But if we concluded the armistice which you are pleading for, this is what would happen: we