ii8 



The Review op Reviews. 



This Ministry of all the talents began well with a 

 brief dignified speech by M. Poincare, in which he 

 declared that he intended " to organise in Morocco 

 a Protectorate, which is the natural outcome of our 

 African policy." Speaking of the relations with other 

 nations, M. Poincare' said, " As fully as ever do we 

 intend to remain faithful to our alliances and our 

 friendships. We shall make it our endeavour to 

 cultivate them with that perseverance and that 

 continuity which in diplomatic action are the best 

 pledge of straightforwardness and uprightness." Let 

 us hope that if M. Poincare should lure Sir Edward 

 Grey into any other policy of adventure none of his 

 colleagues will emulate M. Caillaux's e.\ample, and 

 arrange to sell us behind our backs. 



Lord Rosebery on January 12 th 



Lord Rosebery' made a speech at Glasgow which 



Warning. has excited much attention 



abroad. He said : — 



We are now embraced in the midst of the Continental system. 

 We are for good or for evil involved in a Continental system 

 which may at any time bring ns into conflict with armies 

 numbering millions, We have entered into liabilities thenature 

 and extent of which I for one do not know, but which are not 



M. Poincar6. 



The WCH- KiCLich I'lcmicr. 



the less stringent and liinding because they are unwritten, and 

 which at any moment may lead us into one of the greatest 

 Arm!igeddons which sometimes ravage Europe. We have 

 certain vague obligations whicli involve an immediate liability 

 to a gigantic war in certain circumstances which are by no 

 means unlikely to occur. If you have, as you liave deliberately, 

 as I understand it, adopted a policy of perhaps large and perhaps 

 unlimited liability on the Continent, you must be prepared at 

 the proper time to make good that liability. 



The speech reads as if it were a plea for universal 

 compulsory military service. As Lord Rosebery 

 knows that is out of the question, it can only be 

 supposed that he is using this as a bogy to scare the 

 nation off from pursuing the policy of Sir Edward 

 Grey. No doubt if we were committed to send an 

 army to the Continent whenever France chose to 

 quarrel with Germany, we ought at once to make 

 preparations to enable us to fulfil our liability. But 

 as the nation does not realise that Sir Edward Grey 

 has pledged us to send an army to the Continent, we 

 make no preparations to fulfil liabilities into which 

 we do not believe we have entered. 



Some 



Unanswered 



Questions. 



Anglo-German 

 Friendship. 



Did Sir Edward Grey, supported 

 by Lord Haldane, promise M. de 

 Selves to send 150,000 British 

 troops to the Continent ? Did 

 Mr. McKenna refuse, and was Mr. McKenna on 

 that account shifted from the Admiralty ? Is Mr. 

 Winston Churchill prepared to carry out a policy 

 from which his predece.ssor recoiled and which the 

 Imperial Council for Defence never approved ? These 

 are questions which Ministers have not answered yet. 

 But they ought to be answered, and that without 

 delay. 



The efforts of well-meaning folk 

 on both sides of the North Sea to 

 lessen the exacerbation produced 

 by the recent anti-German policy 

 iA Morocco continue, regardless of the plentiful cold 

 water with which they are soused by our P'oreign 

 Oftice. Jt appears to be the opinion of Downing 

 Street that any public demonstrations in favour of 

 better relations with (Germany are to be deprecated 

 because they will be misconstrued by the Germans as 

 a sign that we are afraid. That is the ostensible 

 reason put forward. 'lihe real reason, of course, is 

 Sir Edward Grey's deadly fear that if we make up in 

 the least to the Germans the French will take offence, 

 repudiate the entente, and fling theinselves into the 

 orbit of German diplomacy. Notwithstanding these 

 warnings, the friends of an Anglo-German entente con- 

 tinue their eflbrts. On January 3rd the English Club 

 of Cologne celebrated its Jubilee. This admirable 

 institution, founded in ]S6j, has never ceased to 



