September 20, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
LAND & WATER 
OLD SERJEANTS' INN, LONDON, W.C. 
Telephone HOLBORN 2828. 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. 1917 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
I 
The Papal Peace Proposal. By Louis Kaemaekers 
Belgium. (Leader) 3 
Unwritten History. By Hilairc BcUoc 4 
A Journal from a Legation. By Hugh Gibson. q 
Wliy Belgium must be Free. By L. de Brouckere n 
(jerniany's Purpose towards Belgium i.! 
Life and Letters. By f. C. Squire i5 
The Future of India. By F. A. de V. Robertson i<' 
Novels of the Autumn iS 
Women's Work on the Land. (Photographs) iq 
Domestic Flconomy zo 
Kit and Equipment 23 
H Journal from a Xeoation 
in next week's " Land & Water " 
will contain Mr. Hugh Gibson's narrative of 
The Last Hours of Edith Cavell 
BELGIUM 
UNTIL recently it was obvious that in the talks of 
peace, which the fertile but corrupted brain of Ger- 
many's former Foreign Minister, Herr von Kuhl- 
mann, was busily disseminating the future position 
of Belgium was either ignored or kept in the background. 
There has now been an apparent change of policy and vague 
hints of a possible evacuation of Belgium arc uttered, but care 
is taken that^they shall have no official authority lx>hind 
them. The suggestion is made that thj time is approach- 
ing when Germany will be willing to discuss with France in a 
compromising spirit the question of Alsace-Lorraine. The 
idea, of course, is that it might be'worth while for Germany, 
now that it recognises defeat to be inevitable, to buy off 
France by surrendering her annexed Provinces provided 
it can keep a firm grip on Belgium. Should this purpose 
be achieved, it would mean a. German victory. France 
thoroughly realises this ; were it not for the innate contempt 
which Gennans of the Kuhlmann type entertain for every- 
thing French, such an insulting proposition could never be 
put forward. The future of Belgium is a determining factor 
in the enduring peace of Europe ; the reason for it is explained 
most lucidly in an article on another page written by that 
distinguished Belgian Socialist M. de Brouckere. But after 
reading this article, it is well to comprehend thoroughly 
the views entertained in Germany towards Belgium by the 
leading men of all classes, which we are enabled to publish 
to-day in the translation of the article from the pen of the 
eminent Dutch publicist. Professor van Hamcl, which apjx;ared 
in de A mnlcrdamncr last month. 
Professor van llamel, it must be remembered, is merely 
writing for his own countrymen ; were Holland to be sur- 
rounded by Germany and German-controlled territory, it 
could only be a matter of time for her to be compelled to sur- 
render that individual national existence for which she has 
fought bravely and unselfishly in the past centuries, and to 
be merged into the (jerman Confederacy, keeping to herself 
about as much independence as is permitted to Saxe- Weimar 
or Mecklenburg or any other second-class German State. 
This is entirely foreign to the Dutch spirit ; let the Kaiser 
epdeavour to cast his shoe over Holland, and he will find 
himself faced with the sanje problem which proved too hard 
for Alva to solve in the sixteenth century. This truth is 
recognised to a large extent in Germany, and they an icipate 
the absorption of Holland by a natural process of en clop- 
ment. Teuton publicists cannot conceive that any small 
State should have the desire or the right to lead a separate 
existence. Regard the brazen statement of the German 
Christian Social Party : "A Germanic kingdom of Flanders 
with a true German Prince at its head should be called into 
existence. It should, without annexation, form part of the 
German Empire." The italics are ours. In the same way. 
and at a not too distant date, were this thing to happen to 
Belgium, Holland without annexation would form part of the 
German Empire, under a true German Prince. 
M. de Brouckere explains why a German-controlled Bel- 
gium is " a moral and material impossibility." " The 
Western nations have never known repose when Belgium has 
been in a state of subjection. Her freedom is essential to the 
peace of Europe." Who will dispute this verity ? Germany 
accepts it, even as she recognises that firm peace in Europe 
is death to Pan-Gennanic ambitions and to the hopes and 
schemes of Prussian militarism. To say that the Allies are 
lighting for ix^ace, is not rhetoric ; it is a cold cast-iron fact. 
The Germans prove this. The National Liberal leader, the 
late Herr Bassermann, declared less than a year ago : " Fot 
Germany's security it is indispensable that we have our 
hand on Belgium. If we do not succeed in holding the Flemish 
coast, England has won the war." The German Navy League 
has declared, "the key of Germany's future is on the Flemish 
coast. Germany's domination over Belgium is a necessity." 
Only last week Count Reventlow reaffirmed this opinion, 
stating that by the renunciation of Belgium the ruin of the 
German Empire would be sealed? England would win the war. 
And the reason for these opinions is made as clear as the sun 
at noonday in this one .sentence which appeared in the last 
will and testament of the German Governor-General of Bel- 
gium, von Bissing : " Keep Belgium as a conquered province 
for the sake of the next war which is sure to come." ' 
Germany is fighting for " the next war which is sure to 
come." The Allies are fighting for a lasting peace— to pre- 
vent the next war which Britain has declared, through the 
mouth of her Prime Minister, shall never come. These are 
the two truths which cannot be too often repeated or too 
forcibly driven home ; they are not mere statements in the 
air ; they are based on the incontrovertible evidence of past 
events. When has German security ever been threatened 
by England through Belgian independence ? The mere 
assumption is ludicrous to English minds. We have always 
recognised that the freedom of Belgium is the strongest 
rampait of Western tranquillity, even as we have regarded 
the freedom of Serbia as a bastion against Pan-Germanic 
aggression in the East. M. de Brouckere, himself an Inter- 
national Socialist, will have no dealings with German Socialists 
until " the military domination of Prussia is completely and 
finally destroyed " — to quote Mr. Asquith's words— because 
he recognises they arc merely the tools and emissaries of the 
Kaiser. "What would it profit us," he asks, " to prevail 
.upon the Gennan Emperor to withdraw if he retained the 
power to return. Are we to go to sleep each night with the 
fear of being awakened by the hoofs of the horses of Uhlans 
ringing on the cobbles of our streets ? " This Belgian view 
of the future has not been sufficiently emphasised in the 
past. We cannot help feeling that the political position 
of the Allies would be considerably strengthened if the 
leaders of Belgium were admitted to their Councils and their 
opinions more widely published. It has long been the habit 
of the Great Powers to enter into negotiations with each other, 
irrespective of the small States, no matter how deeply the 
vital interests of the latter might be involved. This has 
been one of the weaknesses of European diplomacy, a weak- 
ness which Germany, with her unscrupulous cunning, has 
ever exploited to the uttermost. Considering the splendid 
part Belgium has played throughout the war, it would 
considerably strengthen the political position of the Allies 
if greater publicity were given to the opinions of her statesmen 
and of her Labour Organisations on the future of their native 
land and the interests which, are involved in rendering 
Belgian independence secure in the future. An inconclusive 
and negotiated peace is the peril to be avoided. Mr. Bclloc, 
in his " Chapter of Unwritten History " to-day, makes mani- 
fest all that is involved in that peril. 
