"Either Alliance or War!" It sounds at first hearing a fantastic exaggeration. Yet the words have been spoken by sober-minded people, and it is worth while trying to think them out. It is easy for an Englishman to find in America confirmation of whatever opinions he happens to hold, and terribly easy for him to get the proportional importance of such opinions completely wrong. Indignation with Germany and horror at her cruelties; emotion about the Irish rebellion and its suppression; irritation at the Black List; angry alarm at the Paris Resolutions; a general desire for kindness to everybody, and especially for a quick and generous peace--all these waves of sentiment, and many others, are to be found in America, and possess their own importance and influence. But it seems to me that there are two currents of feeling that have swept the whole continent, and are likely, whatever party is in power, to shape the effective policy of the United States. The first reaction produced by the war and the determination not to participate in it has been the movement for "Preparedness." It is first a preparedness for war. England, according to popular opinion, had been unprepared, and France not much better. America, had she tried to enter the war, would have been more utterly unprepared than either. Suppose the German attack had fallen on her? The direction of this first movement has gradually changed with the course of events. The campaign of "Preparedness" presupposes some possible or probable aggressor, and it has gradually become clear that that aggressor will not, for many years to come, be Germany. The prospect of a really victorious Germany would shake America to her foundations and probably change completely the national policy; but there is now no such prospect. The danger, if there is any, will come from a victorious Great Britain, allied, as America always remembers, with a victorious and unexhausted Japan. Other neutral nations in this war may be waiting to side with the conqueror; but America is built on too large a scale for that. She will arm against the conqueror, and be prodigal of help to the vanquished.