HE world is ripe for a new social programme. The War, with its unparalleled carnage and bloodshed, has materially altered the map of Europe, and it has similarly altered the map of men's minds. The great world-war has swept away old crusted conventions which cobwebbed the mind, and false foundations of social science upon which men laboured vainly to build Utopia. Now that a new mentality has been created, all these things must be reassessed at new values. All the great problems call for a broader view, a larger concept, and a more general action with the dawn of this newer social consciousness. We are coming to realise, indeed, that we cannot severally play our part as citizens of our respective countries if we forget that we are also citizens of the world. This new spirit is arising everywhere, founding a New Era of international relationship, and the thrills of international goodwill are even now stealing across a war-weary world.

Never before, however, has there been such hopefulness. The world may seem in disruption, and be hungry and sick, burdened with debt, and afflicted by the weight of its new problems. Nevertheless, the power of organised human resources has been amazingly shown, both for the arts of war and peace. The uprisings of the European peoples, and the political advances of organised democracy, open up an entirely new prospect for the employment of these illimitable resources. The cynic, of course, will say that the better world to come lacks nothing for its construction except the better men. The spirit of the masses, with all its faults, however, is a more fraternal spirit than any previously abroad on the earth, and undoubtedly this spirit is almost daily making history for itself.

For four years the evil shadow of War has

spoiled our outlook. Now that peace has dawned, we look with faith to the future, trusting that the terrible lessons of the catastrophe will not have been learned in vain. If the result of the terrible carnage and desolation is the birth of a real League of Nations-not one built on words, but on the desire to do what is right and just to all, irrespective of race or creed-then the War will not have proved ineffectual. For helpful co-operation in the task of making this world safe for the common people by whom it is inhabited is, after all, the all-important duty.

This great crisis, therefore, seems to be the great opportunity for which we have prayed. The old world is a ruin; a new world must be built. In former days, our home was indeed our world; in these days the world must be our home. Cooperation alone offers to the world a complete philosophy of life and a working model of a noble and enduring civilisation. The peace of the world entirely depends upon the universal application of these principles. For there is no choice except that which lies between co-operation and chaos, between associated freedom and Imperial despotism.

If Wordsworth could write one hundred years ago, as he saw the beginning of a new day of hope and liberty

"Bliss were it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young, 'twere very heaven" with what added meaning may we quote these words as we herald the New Age! Let us not forget, however, that the foundations of the New World have been well and truly laid by myriads of heroic men and women, and that this task must be approached with the spirit of sincerity. Peace has her tasks not less arduous than those of War, and this present occasion is a time for the casting away of all those sordid desires which

are incompatible with the grand purpose of rebuilding human society on a stable foundation of mutual aid and wholesome rivalry.

Let us welcome the disappearance of racial, class and sex distinctions. For there are battles other than inter-racial. There are wars in social, mental and religious realms. In the religious world, few things have been more pitiful, more humiliating than sectarian squabbles and differences over long-drawn-out controversies. Men will become more and more impatient in the future over the relatively frivolous issues which have distressed and divided the religious world; the core of the world's new creed will be:

"For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of man's mind."

The work of reconstruction calls for a continu. ance of the spirit of self-sacrifice, self-restraint,

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and a realisation of a great end, which have stilled the cries of faction during the war and inspired all with a common aim. We shall certainly miss the central spiritual lesson of Germany's downfall if in our schemes of reconstruction we fail to realise that religion and morality, faith and idealism, are the only foundations on which national stability and progress can endure,

The fortunes of mankind, as never before, are now in the hands of the democracy. The select classes of mankind, in fact, are no longer its governors. For the real strain of four year's unparalleled slaughter and bloodshed, as President Wilson has so ably reminded us, has come where the eye of Government could not reach, but where nevertheless the heart of of humanity beats. We are bidden by these people to see that this strain does not come again.

R. GRANT ROBERTSON has produced a timely book. The present is a time when as a result of the prejudices generated by the War, the world in general has lost the right perspective concerning the German Empire. The utter disgust and repugnance with which civilized humanity has viewed the barbarous conduct of the German War-Lords has had the effect of war retrospectively distorting historic judgments. The opinion has often been expressed of late, even in quarters which ought to have known better, that the real source of the European conflagration was the refoundation of the German Empire in 1871. It has been widely held that the real originator of the war is not really the autocracy of the present day Germany. but the man of blood and iron who founded the German Empire under the hegemony of Prussia

* Bismark: By Grant Robertson, M.A., C.U.O. Fellow of all Souls. Constable & Co., London,

and on the ruins of Napoleonic France. Mr. Robertson, though he claims that his is by no means a war-production, is a firm believer in this theory and has in the book under review produced a historical justification for it.

The

1871, the history of secular Europe is dominated by the personality of this single individual. To write the life of Bismark from the time of the Schelswig Holstein question to his dismissal in 1890 is to write the history of European Diplomacy in the latter half of the 19th century. The proper grouping of historical facts, the correct analysis of the interplay of complicated factors, the close study of the sensitiveness of national opinion in every country, during a period of 30 years, cannot be lightly undertaken or easily realised, This difficult task Mr. Grant Robertson has successfully fulfilled.

It is impossible to go into detail, but Mr. Robertson comes to a conclusion different from that held by most historians on one of the most critical events in the German history of the 19th century. The Frankfurt Parliament of 1848-the great convention on which the hopes of the liberals in Germany rested-ended in an absolute failure. The opinion generally held which seems to us to be entirely wrong, is that the Frankfurt Parliament failed because of the academic amateurism of its authors who wasted their time in threshing out fundamental rights. Mr. Robertson holds the view that such criticism is really amateur and ignorant of what revolution by liberal methods from an old to a new system implies. 'The scheme of 1848' was, as Mr. Robertson remarks, 'a noble and imaginative effort in constructive statesmanship which bore the stamp of an inspiring belief in the capacity of the race for achieving salvation when men build upon the uplands and not the lowlands of human end

eavour.

Had the unification of 1848 been given a fair trial, it would have moulded the German mind and directed German destinies and ambition into paths of self-development of incalculable benefits to Germany and the world. Its failure was a tragedy for German and European civilisation.'

The remarkable feature of the solution of 1848 was, he says, 'the rapidity with which in the

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smoke and dust of bewildering revolution, the liberal majority hammered out by argument and under conditions of Government by public meeting a scheme of unification that probed deeper and was more complete than the constitution of 1867.' Historical hypothetics is perhaps the most useless form of speculation, and it may be permitted for us to doubt if the historical evolution of Europe in general and Germany in particular would have followed any very different course had the scheme of 1848 been worked out and a unification of Germany based on it achieved.

Mr. Robertson's object in this book has been to study the effect of Bismark's achievement on the history of the 19th century rather than to write a biography of the great chancellor. Therefore, naturally enough, the picture of Bismark is very incomplete, and we see very little of that disease peculiar to biographers which Macaulay has called Leus Boswilliana. All the same, Mr. Robertson is one who appreciates the great merits of the Iron-Chancellor. Indeed, it is impossible for any one to withhold a great amount of genuine appreciation for this Brandenbrug junker. For after all, from the historical point of view, a man can be judged only from his achievement and the amount of dynamic force that his personality generates in its relation to the general current of events, In this sense, post-Napoleonic 19th century cannot boast of a greater man than Otto Von Bismark who raised Prussia from the humiliation of Olmutz to the hegemony of the continent, upset the time-honoured balance of power which lay in an entente between England and Austria against France, humbled the pride of Napoleon and the virtual dictator of European affairs for nigh 20 years. The age of which he was the founder has closed with the collapse of Imperial Germany; but his historical greatness remains embodied in the policy of Europe during the last 50 years,

was

It will be now easy to see why I consider the Bills to be an unmistakable symptom of a deepseated disease in the governing body. It needs, therefore, to be drastically treated. Subterranean violence will be the remedy applied by impetuous, hot-headed youths who will have grown impatient of the spirit underlying the Bills and the circumstances attending their introduction. The Bills must intensify the hatred and ill-will against the State of which the deeds of violence are undoubtedly an evidence. The Indian covenanters, by their determination to undergo every form of suffering make an irresistible appeal to the Government, towards which they bear no ill-will, and provide to the believers in the efficacy of violence, as a means of securing redress of grievances with an infallible remedy, and withal a remedy that blesses those that use it and also those against whom it is used. If the covenanters know the use of this remedy, I fear no ill from it, I have no business to doubt their ability. They must ascertain whether the disease is sufficiently great to justify the strong remedy and whether all milder ones have been tried. They have convinced themselves that the disease is serious enough, and that milder measures have utterly failed. The rest lies in the lap of the gods.

The Pledge.

Being conscientiously of opinion that the Bills known as the Indian Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill No. 1 of 1919, and the Criminal Law (Emergency Powers) Bill No. 11 of 1919, are unjust, subversive of the principle of liberty and justice, and destructive of the elementary rights of individuals on which the safety of the community as a whole and the State itself is based, we solemnly affirm that in the event of these Bills becoming law and until they are withdrawn, we shall refuse civilly to obey these laws and such other laws as a committee to be hereafter appointed may think fit and further affirm that in this struggle we will faithfully follow truth and refrain from violence to life, person or property.

ii. Mr. Gandhi's Message at Allahabad.

There is no conception of defeat in Satyagraha. A Satyagrahi fights even unto death. It is thus not an easy thing for everybody to enter upon it. It therefore behoves a Satyagrahi to be tolerant of those who do not join him. In reading reports of Satyagraha'meetings I often notice that ridicule is poured upon those who do not join our movement. This is entirely against the spirit of the pledge. In Satyagraha we expect to win over our opponents by self-suffering i. e, by love. The process whereby we hope to reach our goal is by so conducting ourselves as gradually and in an unperceived manner to disarm all opposition. Opponents as a rule expect irritation even violence from one another when both parties are equally matched. But when Satyagraha comes into play the expectation is transformed into agreeable surprise in the mind of the party towards whom Satyagraha is addressed till at last he relents and recalls the act which necessitated Satyagraha. I venture to promise that if we act up to our pledge day after day, the atmosphere around us will be purified and those who differ from us from honest motives, as I verily believe they do, will perceive that their alarm was unjustified. The violationists wherever they may be, will realize that they have in Satyagraha a far more potent instrument for achieving reform than violence whether secret or open, and that it gives them enough work for their inexhaustible energy. And the Government will have no case left in defence of their measures if as a result of our activity the cult of violence is notably on the wane if it has not entirely died out. I hope therefore that at Satyagraha meetings we shall have no cries of shame, and no language betraying irritation or impatience either against the Government or our countrymen who differ from us and some of whom have for years been devoting themselves to the country's cause according to the best of their ability.