December ii, 1915. 
LAND AND WATER 
unveiling with a few touches of the pencil the innermost 
character of humanity which' strikes the writer as being 
the most distinct quality of Mr. Raemaekers' art. 
In this respect, especially when the work is obviously 
humorous, as many of these cartoons are (though the 
humour is often rather grim as in the first cartoon 
reproduced here) one is reminded of Phil May. One could 
imagine that brilliant draughtsman, were he alive, giving 
work of almost equal power. 
Mr. Raemaekers is a Neutral ; his sympathies are his 
own, neither national nor racial, and he spares neither his 
own country nor the United States for their attitude 
towards the war. Also he can show certain weaknesses 
in the behaviour of the Allies as they appear to him. It 
is no e.xaggeration to say that Louib Raemaekers stands 
out to-day as the foremost champion of Civilisation 
who is not in the fighting hne. Not all the rainbow- 
tinted official books in the world can ever have one half 
rhe force of his drawings. 
Who that has once looked 
on No. 133, " Miss Cavell," 
will ever think of that crime 
in other terms. The Kaiser 
sits in his tent ; through 
the door of it one sees the 
murdered woman and the 
still smoking pistol of her 
executioner, and William 
turns to his jackbooted 
A.D.C. arid says: "Now 
you can bring me the 
American protest." 
It . would prima facie 
hardly appear a compliment 
to. call this talented artist a 
Pacifist, yet we believe that 
no man living amidst these 
surging seas of blood and 
tears comes nearer to the '. 
role of Peacemaker than he. 
But the peace that he works 
for is not a matter" of 
arrangement between the 
diplomatists and politicians 
of belligerent or friendly 
nations ; it is the peace 
which the intelligence and 
soul of the Western world 
shall insist on in the years 
to come. Mankind wearies 
of being treated as a pawn 
in the hands of the few ; 
he cries aloud for freedom, 
and the right to live an 
honest life, and to develop 
the best within him without 
hurt or prejudice to his 
neighbour, whether that 
neighbour be an individual 
or a nation. " Father, what 
have we done ? " is the 
question asked by a child 
in the pathetic cartoon 
(No. 6) entitled " The Host- 
ages." And that is the 
question which rises to the lips of every intelligent being 
who gazes on these pictures. It is a question which will 
be asked over and over again in every latitude of the earth 
after this war has ceased. " What have we done " ; 
why should these awful realities be possible ? Are men 
and women bom into the world merely to satisfy the 
ambitions of powerful schemers through the horrible 
suffering and torment of their bodies. Is " Christendom 
after Twenty Centuries " to be even as Christianity was 
in the first century— an excuse for the perpetration of 
mad cruelties by degenerate Caesars or Kaisers (spell it 
as you will) at their games ? At last are the eyes of the 
world opened. War is no longer a game or a sport. 
What war really is we see in this New Bond Street chamber, 
depicted without e.xaggeration and with that saving sense 
of humour which would otherwise have made Raemaekers 
join hands with Wierz. 
One may hope that in course of time permanent 
galleries will be formed in the capitals of thv great nations 
Christendom After Twenty Centuries. 
where representative cartoons of the war shall find an 
abiding-place. CiviKsation has finished with the fine 
feathers and plumes, with the bright scarlet and gold, 
and all the other gay and delusive upholstery of battle 
which it was the pleasure of painters to depict in the past. 
We thought, foolishly thought, when we put on simpler 
and more sensible clothes for the dirty work of slaughter 
that in some way or other we were also taming the raven- 
ing beast- within, and that henceforth armed struggles 
between . civilised nations were to be confined to ' the 
death: grips of their uniformed champions. Then came 
Germany preaching and practising ■", War is war," 
and now no matter how clement and correct may be the 
humanity of the Allies, we realise what the human race 
has to, face and endure once peace be broken. .. 
Ifis' good that we shouldairof us comprehend this 
aspect in addition to recognising the nobler quahties 
which' the struggle brings forth. ' Cannot ' the higher 
and finer attributes of man- 
kind be . developed and 
strengthened without this 
apparently n(*edless ' waste 
of agony and life ? " Is 
human nature only to be 
redeemed through the Cross, 
and must Calvary bear again 
and again its' heavj' load of 
human anguish ? Qne cannot 
escape from this inner qiies- 
tioning in' some ' form' or 
other ' as one stands before 
such of Raemaekers' car- 
toons as No. 75, 'The Ado- 
ration of the Magi, where 
the precious gifts offered 
are shells and bombs ; or, 
again. No., loi, Easter, 
1915, with , the legend : 
" And they bowed the knee 
before him " — the bound 
Christ again . . mocked by 
the soldiery, a German hel- 
met in the place of the 
crown of thorns. - 
The great achievement 
of the genius of this Dutch 
artist lies in his power to 
demonstrate t» his fellow 
creatures war in its entifgj.y, 
and not only one smdill 
part of it. Of ' the 'rnaiiy 
hundreds who visit , 148, 
New Bond Street, the great 
majority will leave with 
an entirely new compre- 
hension of the hackneyed 
Teuton phrase : Krieg ist 
Kricg. They will come 
away saddened and de- 
pressed, yet with a new 
determination to do what- 
ever lies within their power 
to prevent any return 
of even the temporary 
triumph of Prussian mili- 
tarism and all that it stands for and represents. That 
is a great gain. Only when the general or popular con- 
science is touched can we hope for the certainty of peace, 
which will be a peace in very truth, and not a mere 
truce to enable Prussia to re -arm herself and to renew 
that manhood which she has wasted so prodigally. 
" The duality in Bulgarian foreign policy which wrecked 
the Balkan Alliance " is the main theme of The Aspirations 
of Bulgaria, by Balkanicus, of which an English translation 
from the Serbian original has been published by Messrs. 
Simpkin, Marshall and Co., at 2s. 6d. net. The volume, 
obviously written before the Bulgarian entry into the war 
on the side of the Central Powers, is singularly opportune. 
Although the book is concerned with the events in the 
Balkans in July, 1913, for tlie most part, it shows how. 
by forcing the nation to remain outside and out of toucli 
w-ith the jxilitical State, Ferdinand and his advisers have 
brouglit the country to its present pass. It is an enlightcanig 
contribution to the literature on near Eastern questions. 
