SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude eub.7e2usnt review.] La Write. By J. Bertourieux. (Geneva : Imprimerie Jent.)–s This substantial book of respectable outward appearance reaches us from Switzerland. The author dates it from "Paris, Octobre, 1915-- Janvier, 1916." It is addressed to his compatriots in beloved, misguided, mutilated France. The argument is that English machinations brought about the unhappy alliance between bemused France and the Russian barbarian : that King Peter and the Pan-Slav element, who stood to profit by the Serajevo murders, brought Russia into war : England arranged the Belgian resistance, and France was merely dragged in to fight for England's economic domination of the world. After the war, England, who is careful to lose only a hundred men to every thousand French lives lost, and is profiting enormously by making her Allies take her munitions and other goods, will be left in secure possession of North- Western France and the ports there—a poor exchange for France, even if she regains Alsace and Lorraine. It is painful reading, and one cannot even enjoy the absurdities about our " plethore maritime," nor such ridiculous points as " l'English Channel—Le Canal Anglais- tel est le nom que nos allies donnent In Manche avec un orgueil etrange. ment significatif " ; or the referent:* to Calais, engraved on the heart of Queen Elizabeth Most of the evidence produced in support of the argument is taken from the official documents " discovered " by the Germans in Brussels, a proceeding which the writer compares with the English action in publishing the private papers of passengers who put into" Falsmouth " (sic), i.e., von Papen. There is something more venom- ous in the hints that poor France is being deluded by M. Poincare and his Government to the destruction of the Republic, and in the sinister insinuation of the view expressed that in the Presidential office "un homme habile pourrait, grace a la guerre, jouer an Cromwel (sic) ou au Monk." Whether M. Bertourieuxs of Paris is a renegade, a dupe, or a fictitious character we do not know. Whether the appeal to France to withdraw from the war is inspired by her enemy's desire for peace we cannot say. Possibly a clue to the real source of the book is to be found in the portion that treats of Italy's part. There she is described as succumbing to the histrionic appeals of Signor d'Annunzio instead of listening to the wisdom of "un homme de noble caractere comma le Prince de Billow." Such works as La Tr&ite can of course be called into existence by any Secret Service Department with a long purse like that of Berlin. Whether the money is well expended is another matter. Anyway, it is good to think that the British Govern- ment have not stooped to producing such prostituted and malignant literature.
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