DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE. WAR.
Mr. M. P. Price's Diplomatic History of- the War (George Allen and Unwin, 7s. 6d. net) is the kind of book which we should expect to be dated from the. Press Bureau in Berlin rather than from an English country house. The author's anti-patriotic bias has led him into misrepresentations which are so glaring that we are tempted to call them either stupid or dishonest. For instance, be says on p. 85 that Sir Edward Grey, in his historic speech of August 3rd, described the question of Belgian neutrality as "an important point to consider "—the obvious inference being that this phrase, given as a literal quotation from Sir Edward Grey, implied that the Government had not then made up their minds whether or not to stand by their treaty obligations ; on p. 88 Mr. Price actually asserts that England bad, up to August 3rd, been in doubt whether she would fulfil these obligations. But the only sentence in Sir Edward Grey's speech from which the alleged quotation can be derived runs as follows : " And, Sir, there is the more serious consideration—becoming more serious every hour—there is the question of the neutrality of Belgium." This, as the context shows; has a totally different meaning from that which Mr. Price wrests from it ; and his use of inverted commas for what is not a quotation but a garbled and misleading paraphrase can only be described as disingenuous.
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