the country which we have once honored now has become
Europe's common enemy and the enemy of all people who
respect the rights of nations. We must carry to an end this
war which we have entered. For us as for the Belgians it is
a war of defense, which will be fought through for peace and
freedom.

The old story of the splinter and the beam! Is England's rule of the
sea no military system then? Can there be conceived a more
far-reaching militarism than that which stretches out its conquests
over five continents? Which even clutches at the straw which
republican Portugal holds out and announces "the need for more men" in
the newspapers?

What was the Boer War then? An expression perhaps of this same humane
solicitude for the small states which now causes England to break the
lance for Belgium's independence?

It would be useless at this late day to attempt to determine what
would have been the course of the great war had England stayed out of
it. But this much is certain, that Belgium's loss of independence
would have lasted only until the conclusion of peace. The war would
then not have grown as now to be a world-war--to be the greatest and
most tragic catastrophe which the human race has ever suffered. No
nation has ever incurred a greater, a more comprehensive
responsibility than England! And one can only regret most deeply that
these men will have to bear now and in the world to come the full and
oppressive burden of that responsibility.

Calais or Suez?

Which Should be Germany's Objective?

_By special cable to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _from London on July 1, 1915,
came the following information:_

Count von Reventlow, in last Sunday's Deutsche Tageszeitung, explains
the importance and meaning of Calais as a German objective in the west
and as a key to the destruction of the British Empire. Dr. Ernst
Jaeckh, in an article called "Calais or Suez," maintained that if an
English statesman had to make a choice he would undoubtedly give up
Calais and cling to Suez rather than give up Suez and control Calais.
Reventlow maintains there is no reality about this alternative.

About the importance of Suez, Jaeckh and Reventlow are agreed.
Reventlow for his part declares England's main interest in the
Dardanelles operations is the desire to protect Egypt and that this is
the explanation of all her efforts to range the Balkan countries
against Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Turkey. As