ourable opportunity to begin.

"Oh, r-r-rats-s," exclaimed a harsh voice.

"That's Holtzman," said Larry to Smart.

(Cries of "Shut up!--Go on.")

"I beg the gentleman who has so courteously interrupted me," continued
Mr. Allen, "simply to wait for my facts." ("Hear! Hear!" from many parts
of the building.) The sources of his information were three: first,
his own observation during a three months' tour in Germany; second,
his conversations with representative men in Great Britain, France and
Germany; and third, the experience of a young and brilliant attache of
the British Embassy at Berlin now living in Canada, with whom he had
been brought into touch by a young University student at present in
this city. From this latter source he had also obtained possession
of literature accessible only to a few. He spoke with a full sense of
responsibility and with a full appreciation of the value of words.

The contrast between the Honourable Mr. Allen and the speaker that
preceded him was such that the audience was not only willing but eager
to hear the facts and arguments which the speaker claimed to be in a
position to offer. Under the first head he gave in detail the story
of his visit to Germany and piled up an amazing accumulation of facts
illustrative of Germany's military and naval preparations in the way
of land and sea forces, munitions and munition factories, railroad
construction, food supplies and financial arrangements in the way of
gold reserves and loans. The preparations for war which, in the world's
history, had been made by Great Powers threatening the world's freedom,
were as child's play to these preparations now made by Germany, and
these which he had given were but a few illustrations of Germany's war
preparations, for the more important of these were kept hidden by her
from the rest of the world. "My argument is that preparation by a nation
whose commercial and economic instincts are so strong as those of the
German people can only reasonably be interpreted to mean a Purpose to
War. That that purpose exists and that that purpose determines Germany's
world's politics, I have learned from many prominent Germans, military
and naval officers, professors, bankers, preachers. And more than that
this same purpose can be discovered in the works of many distinguished
German writers during the last twenty-five years. You see this pile of
books beside me? They are filled, with open and avowed declarations of
thi