given to any country. Its verdict, too, is that: "The peace that Germany craves still is a peace that will enable her to begin the next war in five or ten years, with a certainty of immediate victory and complete conquest of the overlordship of Europe, if not America.' The Brooklyn Daily Eagle writes: 'If an inconclusive peace, a peace based upon the theory that the war is a draw, a peace fertile in the liabilities to future trouble, is not in the mind of the German Chancellor, what is in his mind? He should speak out. He will never have a better opportunity to be specific. The whole neutral world is listening, ready to give careful and intelligent consideration to his words.'

"More important than these and other utterances of the papers which follow in our enemies' wake is the trenchant leading article of the World, which on foreign questions generally expresses the point of view of the Administration. This paper says: 'If Germany is ready to end the war, the first thing for the Imperial Government to do is to make definite proposals for peace. Those proposals need not be made officially to the Allies, to the United States, or any other intermediary. They could be made to the world at large. The Chancellor could describe to the Reichstag the conditions under which Germany would regard her Existence and Future assured.' 'Germany began the war. It is proper that Germany should take the first steps towards ending the war, but something more than vague generalizations is necessary. At present there is nothing to talk about. There are no terms, not even extravagant and ridiculous terms, that can be discussed as a possible basis of settlement. Thus far there has been no evidence of good faith in the repeated German professions of a desire for peace. In consequence nobody takes them seriously until there is at least a tentative proposal of terms. When that is made, the responsible Ministers of other belligerent Gov

ernments will be forced to meet the issue. Public opinion in Great Britain and France, no less than in Germany and Austria-Hungary, will have a chance to make itself heard. When peace comes it cannot be merely the peace of diplomats and of Governments. It must be a peace in which popular sentiment has the final word, and popular sentiment has no means of expression until there is something tangible to discuss.'

"The general impression left by the utterances of the American Press on the subject of peace is that on the one hand-apart from a small number of influential papers-it is anxious for peace, from which anxiety it is obvious that it intends to pass over the extravagant war aims so often heard from the Entente statesmen; but that on the other hand it cannot as yet find any practicable way of bringing about an early conclusion of peace, and also that it cannot see any advance in this direction in the last statements of Your Excellency, which only a few papers have discussed to any extent.

"The change in the direction of the Foreign Office has been discussed at comparative length in the leading articles of the important newspapers, which, as a rule, deal with European Ministerial changes only in their news columns-less with regard to the personality of the retiring Minister, who was not very well known here, than that of the new Secretary of State. The only paper which devoted a few friendly words to Herr von Jagow was the New York Times, which described him, in connection with his conferences with Baron Beyens and Sir Edward Goschen at the outbreak of war, as a 'Gentleman in War and Peace,' and also recognized his sympathetic attitude during the negotiations on the submarine war controversy. Herr Zimmermann's appointment as Secretary of State, on the other hand, was greeted by many papers, and indeed by the Press in general-only a few papers

were made somewhat uneasy by the news received lately by telegram, of his attitude towards the question of armed merchantmen-with great applause. The tone of these comments must have been set by the flattering and sympathetic utterances of Ambassador Gerard and the journalist Swope, on the subject of the new Secretary of State, and a longer article by Gilbert Hirsch published by the New York Evening Post and other papers under the heading 'Our Friend Zimmermann.' The note struck by this article and by the German Press comments transmitted and printed everywhere over here, that Herr Zimmermann is a particularly warm friend of the United States, was joyfully echoed by the whole American Press. Also the fact was everywhere emphasized that in Herr Zimmermann the important post of chief of the Foreign Office, hitherto reserved for 'Prussian Junkerdom,' had been given to a member, not of the diplomatic, but of the humbler consular service, and indeed, to a bourgeois. Here and there speculation was indulged in as to whether this appointment might not be interpreted as the first step towards a 'Liberal régime,' in which a not unimportant section of the American Press still sees the future salvation of Germany and of the world.

"The announcement of autonomy for Poland is, to say the least of it, received with scepticism by the American Press, which is comparatively well informed on the Polish question. The words of the virtuoso Paderewski, who is working here in the interests of the Polish sufferers through the war: "This means only more suffering for my people; it means that another army will be raised, and that there will be more killing and more devastating,' were reproduced by many newspapers and regarded as an authoritative statement of what might be expected from the German-Austrian proclamations. Many papers declared it to be simply a move to raise more recruits.

Others sarcastically pointed out that the proclamation left the most vital questions, such as the boundaries of the new State and its form of government, to be settled later. Only a few of the leading newspapers, among them the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia North American, allowed the Allied Governments a certain modicum of recognition, for, as they pointed out, in no case could the heavy hand of Russia, which had so long oppressed the country, be forgotten. The Polish Press here was at first very reserved. Their point of view is represented by the following leading article of the weekly paper Free Poland, founded since the war and published by the Polish National Council of America: 'What the Poles desire is an independent Poland. The Powers have acknowledged Poland's right to live, but either with a limitation of independence or diminution of territory. The Russians would fain lop off eastern Galicia. And now the Germans grant Poland an autonomy, but without Posen, West Prussia, or Silesia, in return demanding a Polish army to take up their cause against Russia. Though this move on the part of Germany will at least draw the world's attention to the inalienable rights of Poland as a nation, and make of the Polish question an international one, yet it must not be forgotten that the Poles in Europe will vehemently protest against any curtailment of their national aims and aspirations.

"The impression, on the whole unfavorable, made by the Polish measures on the American Press was gradually in part balanced by the announcement that the Polish Jews had been recognized as an independent religious community. Since it was thought in many quarters that this might be taken to be the first step towards cultural and political emancipation of the Eastern Jews, it was discussed with great interest, in view of the strong influ

ence exerted by the American Jewish community on an important section of the American Press, particularly that of New York.

"Finally, there remains to be examined the attitude of the Press towards one question, in itself of a purely domestic, economic interest, but which promises to become of the most wide-reaching importance for foreign politics, namely, that of an embargo on corn. The price of most articles of food has risen to such an abnormal height during the last few months that the New York Sun can say without too great exaggeration, that if the war had lasted two more years the cost of living in Berlin and Vienna would have risen to the level of that of New York. In particular the serious position of the wheat market and the fairly certain prospect of an acute rise in the price of wheat in the course of the winter or next spring prompt the Press to constant discussion, the burden of which is the question whether the Government of the United States should or should not prohibit the exportation of corn. The opponents of such a measure, among which are the World, New York Times, New York Evening Post, Journal of Commerce, the Boston Evening Transcript, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, the Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, the Pittsburg Post, the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, the Indianapolis News and many others, maintain that the supporters of the embargo, whose main object is to injure the Allies, represent the situation as much more threatening than it is in reality. The World tries to console its readers by explaining that the high price of food represents the American people's contribution to the cost of the greatest war of destruction in the history of the world; while the New York Times points out the danger of estranging the Allies through an embargo. The newspapers which are friendly to Germany, particularly the Hearst newspapers, and the Milwaukee