Nothing has been stated here which cannot be proved by independent testimony. The literature of the war and of the events antecedent to the war has grown apace, and this short prefatory note is not the place to review it. But attention may be profitably drawn to the testimony, borne by another neutral, to German methods. Dr. Anton Nyström, one of the most distinguished sons of Sweden, a historian of high repute, who has travelled widely throughout Europe, in his book “Before, During, and After 1914,” written only last summer, establishes that public feeling has been deliberately created in Germany during the last fifty years that that country should assume the mastery of all nations related to Germany without regard to material and historical factors. And wherever this mastery has been assumed, whether in Schleswig-Holstein, Poland, or Alsace and Lorraine, a systematic and ruthless suppression of the mother-tongue has been attempted, and the peoples have been persecuted for any tokens of affection for their own nationality. As it has been, so it will be again, if Germany triumphs. Furthermore, we know well to-day that the mastery of the Germanic peoples was intended only to be the beginning of the mastery of the world. * * * * * When complete these portfolios of Louis Raemaekers’ cartoons will constitute the most marvellous record of the horrible realities of this vast world-struggle, and will have a historical value which will grow greater with time. Already the originals have been purchased, and their present owners, in most instances, would not part with them for ten times the price they have paid. It has been well said that no man living amidst these surging seas of blood and tears has come nearer to the rôle of Peacemaker than Raemaekers. The peace which he works for is not a matter of arrangement between diplomatists and politicians: it is the peace which the intelligence and the soul of the Western world shall insist on in the years to be. God grant it be not long delayed, but it can only come when the enemy is entirely overthrown and the victory is overwhelming and complete. FRANCIS STOPFORD, EDITOR, _Land and Water_. EMPIRE HOUSE, KINGSWAY, LONDON. _February, 1916._ [Illustration: _Photograph by Miss D. Compton Collier._ Louis Raemaekers] AN APPRECIATION FROM THE PRIME MINISTER DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL, S.W.