15 MARCH 1919, Page 20

The Future Belongs to the People. By Karl Liebknecht. Edited

by S. Zimand. (Macmillan. 7a. 6d. net.)—The American editor of this little book has put together the speechee made by the late Dr. Liebknecht from the ()Meet of the war to June, 1916. when be was condemned by a Court-Martial to imprisonment for addressing a public meeting on May Day. He had been enrolled in the Landsturm in March, 1915, and could therefore be pre- vented from agitating outside the Reichstag and the Prussian Landtag. Dr. Liebknecht voted for the first war credits, but afterwards consistently opposed the war policy, in the face of nearly all his Socialist colleagues and the vast majority of the German people. It is impossible not to respect the fanatioai courage of the man who thus defied the monstrous power of the German Empire in days when to the Germans and their Neutral neighbours it seemed to be irresistibly victorious. The repug- nance which we feel for Dr. Liebkneoht's attempt to emulate the Bolsheviks in the closing weeks of his stormy life must not blind us to the fact that in the early part of the war he showed himself a brave and honest man. Almost all the German Socialists swallowed their principles ; Dr. Liebknecht, save for one lapse, held firmly to his creed.