23 DECEMBER 1916, Page 15

&RA RTSPEARE AND THE GERMAN PEACE OFFER. (To THE EDIYOR

or THE "SPECTATOR."1 Snt,—I agree with you that silence is the instinctive English atti- tude in the face of the German peace move. But something will have to be said, and—though I am writing before the event—I do not think even Mr. Lloyd George will have succeeded in hitting off the situation more exactly than did Shakespeare when the Regent of France, Richard, Duke of York, received from Cardinal Beaufort Henry YI.'s commission to make peace with the Dauphin :—

" Yonx. Is all our travail turned to this effect?

After the slaughter of so many peers, So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers, That in this quarrel have been overthrown, And sold their bodies for their country's benefit, Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace? "