A Lasting . Peace. By G. W. Prothero. (Hodder and Stoughton.
2d.)—It is to be hoped that every neutral and every Pacifitist will read this book. Mr. Prothero's reasoning is not to be gainsaid. In the form of an admirable " imaginary conversation " between a Neutral and an Englishman he examines exhaustively all the arguments in favour of an immediate peace—i.e., a peace without victory for the Allied cause—and proves them to be fallacious. In the course of the discussion the Englishman brings the verdict of history to his support, and, instancing Louis XIV.'s wars, the War of the Austrian Succession, the Napoleonic Wars, and finally the two great American Wars, shows how in every case it was not until a decisive victory had been gained by one side or the other that anything in the nature of a permanent peace was achieved. In summing up the argument in the person of his Englishman, Mr. Prothero puts the case in a nutshell. These are the alternatives bofore us :— " You may have peace now," he says, " but it will not be- a peace without victory, for it will mean victory for German/ ; or you may have a peace without victory, if you mean by that phrase a return to former conditions, but it cannot be now, for the Germans, as at present situated, would not dream of allowing it. . . . The one solution which offers a real chance of permanent peace is that embodied in the terms of the Allies. But victory, even more decisive than that which might lead to a restoration of pre-war conditions is required to bring it about. And that is -why the Allies refuse to contemplate peace at. this moment, in
spite of all the sufferings they have endured and have still to endure ; and why they will not contemplate it till they have reduced Germany to such a condition as will make her ready to accept their terms."
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