t, you will have most imperfect evidence; just as you would have
very imperfect evidence in a court of law if you only listened to
the prosecution and refused to listen to the defence.

Mr. Belloc then proceeds to show what characteristics all official
_communiques_ have in common, and then to outline the peculiar
characteristics of the _communiques_ of each belligerent. Although not
one unnecessary sentence is included, this short summary of his own
discoveries covers seven pages. The final sentence of the article is as
follows: "Nevertheless, unless you do follow fairly regularly the Press
of all the belligerent nations, you will obtain but an imperfect view of
the war as a whole."

This comparison of the _communiques_ of the belligerents, which is seen
in these pages to be no light task, naturally forms but a small part of
Mr. Belloc's work; so that further proof of his own statement, that his
work necessitates the expenditure of much time and energy, need hardly
be adduced.

This slight insight into the nature of Mr. Belloc's work will also serve
to emphasize the point in which we disagree with Mr. Belloc's own
description of his work. If, let us say, a bank manager, who may be
regarded as a type of citizen of considerable intelligence and leisure,
were to adopt and faithfully to pursue the methods described in this
article, the methods which Mr. Belloc himself has found it necessary to
adopt, he would certainly find his leisure time swallowed up. In so far
as this alone were the case, we might agree with Mr. Belloc when he says
of himself--"I ... profess now ... to be doing for others what their own
occupations forbid them the time and opportunity to do." But our bank
manager, when he had accomplished the long process of sifting out the
only war news that is reliable (and he would be only able to accomplish
this much, be it noted, with the aid of Mr. Belloc) would still be
unable, in all probability, to grasp the full meaning and importance of
that news. To do that he would need what, in common with the majority of
Englishmen, he does not possess, and what it would take him years to
acquire, namely, a knowledge of military history and military science.

We see then that Mr. Belloc, in his weekly commentary in _Land and
Water_, is doing for others not merely "what their own occupations
forbid them the time and opportunity to do," but _what they could not do
for themselves_, even had they the time and op