more than one
direction. Our Vienna Correspondent truly says that "there is no
valid reason to believe war between Austria-Hungary and Russia to
be inevitable, or even immediately probable." We entirely agree,
but wish we could add that the absence of any valid reason was
placing strict limitations upon the scope of "precautions." The
same correspondent says he is constantly being asked:--"Is there no
means of avoiding war?" The same question is now being asked, with
some bewilderment, by millions of men in this country, who want to
know what difficulties there are in the present situation which
should threaten Europe with a general war, or even a collision
larger than that already witnessed.... There is no great nation in
Europe which to-day has the least desire that millions of men
should be torn from their homes and flung headlong to destruction
at the bidding of vain ambitions. The Balkan peoples fought for a
cause which was peculiarly their own. They were inspired by the
memories of centuries of wrong which they were burning to avenge.
The larger nations have no such quarrel, unless it is wilfully
manufactured for them. The common sense of the peoples of Europe is
well aware that no issue has been presented which could not be
settled by amicable discussion. In England men will learn with
amazement and incredulity that war is possible over the question of
a Servian port, or even over the larger issues which are said to
lie behind it. Yet that is whither the nations are blindly drifting
Who, then, makes war? The answer is to be found in the
Chancelleries of Europe, among the men who have too long played
with human lives as pawns in a game of chess, who have become so
enmeshed in formulas and the jargon of diplomacy that they have
ceased to be conscious of the poignant realities with which they
trifle. And thus will war continue to be made, until the great
masses who are the sport of professional schemers and dreamers say
the word which, shall bring, not eternal peace, for that is
impossible, but a determination that wars shall be fought only in a
just and righteous and vital cause. If that word is ever to be
spoken, there never was a more appropriate occasion than the
present; and we trust it will be spoken while there is yet time.

And the ver