Raemaekers does not spare even his own countrymen when he discovers a situation inimical to the welfare of the Allied cause, or one which involves an obvious absurdity. Here we have such a situation. In the early days of the War of far greater frequency than at present, thanks to the ever tightening “strangle hold” of the British Fleet. There can be no doubt that for many months Holland (greatly to her material gain) turned herself into a conduit pipe for the supply of contraband of War to the Central Empires and more especially to Germany. Daily there were scenes such as that depicted, though possibly veiled with some thin veneer either of legality or subterfuge. Dutch peasants (as well as the agents of the rich merchants and the resident German smugglers) of all ages and grades flocked to the frontier figuratively if not literally to drop their bags of contraband over the slenderly marked line which divides Holland from Germany. On the faces of the smugglers one sees the grin of satisfaction and the smug recognition of the truth of the ancient saw, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” They are all doing their little bit--though strictly neutral, of course--to keep the Huns alive, to provide the means of killing the soldiers of the Allies, and--at the same time are adding to that “nest egg” which is so dear to the Dutch heart. At the frontier line are two soldiers. The Dutch guard with a stolid appearance in his back, and with a look of detachment and bland unconsciousness of what is going on behind it, discoverable even on the small portion of his face that is visible. On the other side of the frontier stands the Hun guard smiling sardonically at the Dutch ideas of neutrality, and the eagerness with which the people of the land he covets, and hoped to take, play his game. CLIVE HOLLAND [Illustration: IDYLLIC NEUTRALITY A daily smuggling scene on the Dutch Belgian frontier.] Alcoholism In this cartoon the Dutch artist pays a high compliment to the British working man. The hideous figure of Alcoholism dressed in rags, with large bony hands at the end of her thin bony arms, with the glaring eyes, the distorted face and the dishevelled hair of a raging mad woman, approaches the workman, offering bottles of whisky which he has struck from her hand. Two of them lie smashed on the ground, the third is falling. The workman’s choice is made voluntarily. He will be neither the slave of drink, on the one hand, nor the slave of prohibitory law on the other. He will judge for himself, and his decision is expressed in this cartoon. He knows the nature of Alcoholism which assails him, and he looks at her with anger and contempt as he points to the answer which he has expressed in the bottles falling or broken.