the British Ambassador, who was staying with him at the time. He was prepared for every form of German frightfulness; he was prepared for the bitter hostility of many alien and anti-British elements in America; he was prepared for the deep-rooted prejudices of a large volume of genuinely American opinion. What he was not prepared for was the mischievous activity of some of our own 'pacifists,' who did not hesitate to palliate the crimes of Germany and to distort our war aims in order to embitter American feeling against their own country, and to deter the American democracy from converting its instinctive sympathies with the Allied cause into active cooperation.

It is too early yet to attempt to appraise exactly Spring-Rice's share in bringing about the entry of the United States into the war. Some of his critics on this side have been inclined to rate it far less high than the Americans themselves, who must after all be the better judges. He had little faith in the coarser methods of propaganda, in which he knew we could never compete successfully with the Germans. Indeed he was convinced, from his knowledge of the American character, that such a tremendous issue as that which then confronted the American people would not be determined by any sensational or emotional appeal, and still less by any attempt to drive them. Only the stern logic of events would persuade them to turn their backs on their century-old traditions and prejudices, and plunge into the unknown vortex of a great European conflict. From his knowledge of Germany, on the other hand, he relied confidently upon the Germans to provide the events required for the conversion of the American democracy. That conversion the British Embassy, he believed, could do little to hasten, but might easily, through sheer excess of zeal, do a vast deal to delay or even to prevent.

Difficult and delicate questions arose, and were bound to arise, out of the most legitimate exercise of our naval power, between the British and American Governments, so long as America remained neutral and constituted herself the zealous champion of neutral interests. On two occasions, namely when Great Britain extended contraband to cotton, and when she 'blacklisted' a number of firms suspected of trading with the enemy,

the situation was seriously strained. Any slight error of judgment, any indiscreet move or word that could give a handle to the enemy or an occasion for unfriendly elements in America to blaspheme, might have had immediately disastrous consequences. Spring-Rice, mindful of what had happened to some of his predecessors in far less stormy times, never stumbled once, though many were the traps laid for him. In his official notes and conversations with the State Department, he upheld the British point of view in temperate and closely reasoned argument, but he never departed in public from the reserve which he knew to be his one safe shield against misrepresentation and calumny.

Our friends in America, who saw the German Embassy become the headquarters of a great anti-British organisation all over the United States, could not at times quite understand why he would not allow the British Embassy to identify itself closely with their well-meant and much more legitimate activities. He valued their enthusiastic support of the British cause. Many of them were his own oldest friends; but for that very reason, and because some were known to be political opponents of the existing American administration, he felt, and often frankly told them, that the less intimate their association with the British Embassy, the more effective their efforts would be. He believed in the high purpose of the President; he knew himself to possess the confidence and respect of the United States Government; and he felt that, whenever the time arrived for Mr Wilson to carry the American people with him into the war, the greatest service which the British Ambassador could then be found to have rendered, would be to have made it impossible for any American to charge the Head of the State with having yielded to British pressure, direct or indirect. This may well have been in President Wilson's mind when he bade Spring-Rice, who was paying him his farewell visit, remember that he would be always his friend-simple words, which, however, coming from so reserved a man as the President, had their own special significance.

To Spring-Rice the alliance of the two great Englishspeaking nations was the fulfilment of a life's dream, and its fulfilment in the noblest of causes. For him the

great war was no mere clash of worldly ambitions. It was a phase of the eternal struggle between light and darkness. It was only a short time before his death that in a speech to the Canadian Club at Ottawa he revealed his innermost soul:

6 The world has many ideals. Two of the most prominent are present in the minds of all. We have seen the relics of Egypt and of Assyria. We have seen the emblem of the ancient religions, the ancient monarchies-the king on his throne; the badge of sovereignty in his hand, the scourge. We have read of the ruins of a palace once decorated with pictures of burning cities, troops of captives, victims being tortured to death. That was the banquet-hall of the King of Assyria. That is one type of civilisation. There is another, the sign of which is the Cross. I need not tell you what that means, but I must say this: the Cross is a sign of patience under suffering, but not of patience under wrong. The Cross, gentlemen, is on the banner under which we fight--the Cross of St George, the Cross of St Andrew, the Cross of St Patrick ; different in form, in colour, in history, yes, but the same in spirit, the spirit of sacrifice.

We are all subjects of the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Peace who fought the greatest fight ever fought upon this earth, who won the greatest victory, and won it by His Blood. That is the Cross; that is the sign under which we fight against this hideous enemy. That is the sign under which we fight, and by which we shall conquer.'

About a fortnight later, Spring-Rice, who was waiting at Ottawa for the steamer that was to carry him home to England, went out skiing with his children, and spent the evening as usual, and in very good spirits, with his wife and his kindly hosts at Government House. He had not long retired to bed when his brave heart suddenly failed, and he passed away without a struggle to the rest he had well earned. The following lines, though written by an English poet, Alfred Noyes, were first published in the New York Times,' and afterwards so widely reproduced all over America that they may stand for the epitaph placed by the American people themselves upon the grave of one who had held the banner of England high amongst them at the most solemn hour of their national fortunes and our own.

I.

'Steadfast as any soldier of the line

He served his England, with the imminent death Poised at his heart; nor did the world divine

The constant peril of each burdened breath.

'England, and the honour of England, he still served,
Walking the strict path, with the old high pride
Of those invincible knights who never swerved

One hair's-breadth from the way until they died.
'Quietness he loved, and books, and the grave beauty
Of England's Helicon, whose eternal light
Shines like a lantern on that road of duty,
Discerned of few, in this chaotic night.

'And his own pen, foretelling his release,
Told us that he foreknew the end was peace.

II.

Soldier of England, he shall live, unsleeping,

Among his friends, with the old proud flag above; For, even to-day, her honour is in his keeping ;

He has joined the hosts that guard her with their love

They shine like stars, unnumbered, happy legions,

In those high realms where all our darkness dies;
He moves, with honour, in those loftier regions,
Above this "world of passion and of lies."

'For so he called it, keeping his own high passion
A silent flame before the true and good;

Not fawning on the throng in this world's fashion,
To come and see what all might see who would.

'Soldier of England, perfect, gentle knight,
The soul of Sidney welcomes you to-night.'

VALENTINE CHIROL.

Art. 5.-GERMAN PROPAGANDIST SOCIETIES.

In most countries propaganda is more or less of an accident, but in Germany it is a science. There the greatest importance is attached to propaganda, and it is developed with Teutonic thoroughness. Official propaganda in Germany is issued by the different Government departments, by the Foreign Office, the War Office, and the Admiralty, each of which has a special section for the purpose. There is also a Press Department for influencing Neutral Countries (Presseabteilung zur Beeinflussung der Neutralen), presided over by the wellknown Roman Catholic member of the Reichstag, Dr Matthias Erzberger. A vast amount of propaganda, however, is done by those private organisations, many of them established long before the war, which originated in the desire of the German industrialists to encourage commercial relations between Germany and foreign countries, and to influence public opinion abroad in favour of German interests. These have combined to form an Union of German Associations for Economic Activity in Foreign Countries (Verband Deutsch-Ausländischer Wirtschaftsvereine) for the settlement of questions jointly affecting them-a very useful scheme, but one from which little has resulted, owing to the divergence of interests between the constituent bodies. Besides the purely economic associations, there are others which concern themselves only indirectly with trade, and whose primary aim is to spread Kultur in foreign countries. Since the outbreak of war, these associations have worked hand in hand, devoting themselves but little to their original functions, and, together with those more recently founded, giving all their energies to furthering the general propaganda of the Fatherland. It is to an examination of these societies and their labours that this article is confined.

The most important and the most active of all the private propagandist organisations was the Deutscher Ueberseedienst Transozean, Berlin, which was founded in the spring of 1914 by a number of important industrialists, one of the most important shareholders being August Thyssen, the well-known German coal and iron-master. One of the principal objects of the founders