ost impossible to estimate
the far-reaching results of what was taking place. The evacuation of
large tracts of land by the Germans, the giving up of their Somme front,
was more significant than we at the time realized. Then came the
fulfilment of the German threat that on February 1 there would be
unrestricted murder at sea, when vessels of all nationality, whether
neutral or otherwise, would be attacked. At first we could scarcely
believe it, it seemed too horrible to contemplate. War had ceased to be
war; 'rules of the game' were no longer known as far as the Germans were
concerned. Then came the Prime Minister's statement that the food
supplies of the country had become very low, and that the strictest
economy would have to be used. Appeals were made to the nation to
conserve all our food resources, while the Germans jubilantly proclaimed
that in three months we should be starved into submission.

'I suppose,' Edgecumbe wrote, 'that it is bad form on my part to say "I
told you so"; but I saw this coming months ago. Indeed, no one could
have an intelligent appreciation of German psychology without knowing
that it must come. I am told that food is now only obtainable at famine
prices at home, and that there is a cry on every hand,--"Eat less bread."
But think of the mockery of it, my friend! While there is a threatened
bread famine, beer is still manufactured. And that which was intended to
provide food for the people is being used to make beer. If the Germans
bring us to our knees, it will be our own fault. If the resources of the
nation had not been squandered in this way, we could laugh at all the
Germans say they are going to do.'

Then news came which staggered Europe and set the world wondering. The
Revolution had broken out in Russia,--the Czar and Czarina became
practically prisoners, the Russian bureaucracy fell, and although the
Revolution was practically bloodless, that great Empire was reduced to a
state of chaos. Of course our newspapers made it appear as though
everything were in our favour; that the old days of corruption and
Czardom were over, and that the people, freed from the tyranny and the
ghastly incubus of autocracy, would now rise in their might and their
millions, and would retrieve what they had lost in the Eastern lines.
Some prophesied that the Revolution in Russia was but the beginning of a
movement which should destroy all autocratic Governments and, with the
establishment