Much of this unrest is healthy.  We shall never make a lasting peace by attempting to restore the conditions of 1914.  But there is a danger that we may throw the masses of the population throughout Europe into the arms of the extremists, whose only idea for regenerating mankind is to destroy utterly the whole existing fabric of society.  These men have triumphed in Russia.  They have done so at a terrible price.  Hundreds and thousands of the population have perished.  The railways, the roads, the towns, the whole structural organization of Russia has been almost destroyed, but somehow or other they seem to have managed to keep their hold upon the masses of the Russian people, and what is much more significant, they have succeeded in creating a large army which is apparently well directed and well disciplined, and is, as to a great part of it, prepared to die for its ideals.  In another year Russia, inspired by a new enthusiasm, may have recovered from her passion for peace and have at her command the only army eager to fight, because it is the only army that believes that it has any cause to fight for.

The greatest danger that I see in the present situation is that Germany may throw in her lot with Bolshevism and place her resources, her brains, her vast organizing power at the disposal of the revolutionary fanatics whose dream it is to conquer the world for Bolshevism by force of arms.  This danger is no mere chimera.  The present government in Germany is weak; its authority is challenged; it lingers merely because there is no alternative but the Spartacists, and Germany is not ready for Spartacism, as yet.  But the argument which the Spartacists are using with great effect at this very time is that they alone can save Germany from the intolerable conditions which have been bequeathed her by the War.  They offer to free the German people from indebtedness to the Allies and indebtedness to their own richer classes.  They offer them complete control of their own affairs and the prospect of a new heaven and earth.  It is true that the price will be heavy.  There will be two or three years of anarchy, perhaps of bloodshed, but at the end the land will remain, the people will remain, the greater part of the houses and the factories will remain, and the railways and the roads will remain, and Germany, having thrown off her burdens, will be able to make a fresh start.

If Germany goes over to the Spartacists it is inevitable that she should throw in her lot with the Russian Bolshevists.  Once that happens all Eastern Europe will be swept into the orbit of the Bolshevik revolution, and within a year we may witness the spectacle of nearly three hundred million people organized into a vast red army under German instructors and German generals, equipped with German cannon and German machine guns and prepared for a renewal of the attack on Western Europe.  This is a prospect which no one can face with equanimity.  Yet the news which came from