The belligerent nations have made their choice. Germany’s partners have chosen submission and are playing the dog’s part, as they have discovered. The Allies on the other side are paying the price of resistance in the sacrifice of life for Freedom. And what of the neutrals? They are evading the choice under cover of the Allies and waxing fat meanwhile. It is not a very heroic attitude and will exclude them from any voice in the settlement. But we understand their position, and at least they are ready to fight for their own freedom. There are, however, individuals who are not ready to fight at all. They call themselves conscientious objectors, prate of the law of Christ and pose as idealists. If they followed Christ they would sacrifice their lives for others, but they are only concerned for their own skins. Their place is in the shafts. The true idealist lies beneath the Cross. ARTHUR SHADWELL [Illustration: BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION THE DRIVER: “You are a worthy Dutchman. He who lies there was a foolish idealist.”] “The Burden of the Intolerable Day” Most people have wondered from time to time what the Kaiser thinks in his inmost heart and in the solitude of his own chamber about the condition of Germany and about the War. What impression has been made on him by the alternation of victories and failures during the last twenty months? After all he has staked everything--he has everything to lose. What does he feel? What impression do the frightful losses of his own people make on him? Raemaekers tells in this cartoon. The Kaiser has this moment been wakened from sleep by the entrance of a big gorgeously dressed footman, carrying his morning tea. The panelling of the royal chamber in the palace at Potsdam is faintly indicated. The Kaiser sits up in bed, and a look of agony gathers on his face as he realises that he has wakened up to the grim horror of a new day, and that the delightful time which he has just been living through was only a dream. He had dreamed that the whole thing was not true--that the War had never really occurred, and that he could face the world with a conscience clear from guilt; and now he has wakened up to bear the burden for another day. It is written in his face what he thinks. You see the deep down-drawn lines in the lower part of the face, the furrows upon the forehead, and the look almost of terror in the eyes. But a smug-faced flunkey offers him a cup of tea with buttered toast, and he must come back to the pretence of that tragi-comedy, the life of the King-Emperor.