HOLLAND: “Oh, yes. I’ve heard that from my Belgian sister.”] “To Your Health, Civilisation!” This terrible cartoon points its own lesson so forcibly that its effect is more likely to be weakened than strengthened by any verbal comment. Death quaffs a goblet of human blood to the health of Civilisation. Death has never enjoyed such a carnival of slaughter before, and it is Civilisation that has made the holocaust possible. The comparatively simple methods of killing employed by barbarians could not have destroyed so many lives; nor could barbarian states have raised such huge armies. The artist makes us feel that such a war as this is an act of moral madness, a disgrace to our common humanity. It is true that some of the nations engaged are guiltless, and others almost guiltless; but there is a solidarity of European civilisation which obliges us all to share the shame and sorrow of this monstrous crime. Universal war is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of false political theories and false moral ideals; and the _reductio ad absurdum_ is the chief argument which Providence uses with mankind. Perhaps it is the only argument which mankind in the mass can understand. THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S [Illustration: “TO YOUR HEALTH, CIVILISATION!”] Fox Tirpitz Preaching to the Geese There is nothing more pathetic in some ways to-day than the position of the small neutral countries in Europe, and especially those which directly adjoin Germany. And there is nothing more galling than the inability of the Allies to give them any help. For the hour they are absolutely at the mercy of Germany, or would be, if she had any, and they know it. They are certainly liable and exposed to all her flouts and cuffs and to any displays of bad temper or bullying or terrorism it may please her to exercise. And none perhaps is worse off in this respect than Holland. It suits Germany to be fairly civil to Switzerland, who could give her a good deal of trouble by joining France and Italy; and no doubt it suits her too to some extent to consider Denmark, for Denmark commands the entrance to the Baltic; and, further, Germany does not wish to bring all Scandinavia down upon herself just at present. That can wait; but Holland is in the worst plight of all. She has the terrible spectacle of Belgium, ruined and ravaged just on the other side of the way. And she has a very considerable and valuable mercantile marine.