On March 2nd we wrote an article called " A
Moral Test," in which we foresaw that this issue of befriending or abandoning Russia would soon have to be settled. We cannot repeat all our arguments now, but the gist of the article was that Germany might be expected sooner or later to make very attractive proposals for peace on the principle that she should give us and our friends in Western and South-Eastern Europe all that we wanted, on condi- tion that she shall be allowed a free hand in Russia. Our comment WWI :—
" If the war is a war of principles, it will remain every hit as much a war of principles after the Germans have made such an offer. We have talked for over three and a half years about destroying German militarism, and the hideous atmosphere of insincerity, wrangling, and rapacious dishonesty which militarism' imposes upon the world. Are we to yield to that system because Russia has committed suicide ? Are we to tell ourselves that the German principle has become a whit less dangerous now than it was three and a half years ago ? Surely it will be obvious that if Germany gets peace when she wants it and as she wants it, militarism will be enthroned. Once more German rulers will be able to tell the German people that it has paid to make war."
