nteresting incident. THE NEW YORK TIMES
printed recently what the British call their "White Paper," as well as
the German "White Paper." The editors of our most important journals
announced that they had read and studied those papers with care, and
that on the face of those papers, beyond any peradventure, Germany was
the aggressor. German militarism had flaunted itself as an insult in the
face of Europe. Germany had violated neutrality, Germany had committed
almost every sin known to international law, and therefore the whole
German procedure was to be reprobated.

Within a very short time a Labor member of Parliament, J. Ramsay
Macdonald, rises in his place, able and fearless, and, on the basis of
the "White Paper," as published and put in the hands of the British
public, attacks Sir Edward Grey for having so committed Great Britain in
advance to both Russia and France that, in spite of the representations
of the German Ambassador, he dared not discuss the question of
neutrality. This member of Parliament manifestly belongs to the powerful
anti-war party of Great Britain, a party two of whose members, John
Burns and Lord Morley, resigned from the Cabinet rather than condone
iniquity; a party which before the outbreak of the war made itself
heard and felt, and protested against the participation of Great
Britain, desiring localization of the struggle.

Mr. Macdonald says that in his opinion this talk about the violation of
Belgian neutrality, from the point of view of British statesmen, is
absurd, because as long ago as 1870 the plans for the use of Belgium,
both by France and by Germany--in other words, the violation of its
neutrality--were in the British War Office, and that Mr. Gladstone rose
in his place and said he was not one of those whose opinion was that a
formal guarantee should stand so far in thwarting the natural course of
events as to commit Great Britain to war; and that has been the
announced and avowed policy of Great Britain all the way down since
1870, and that therefore talk about the violation of Belgian neutrality
is a mere pretext.

That is another instance of this secret agreement that goes on, which so
commits a man like Sir Edward Grey that in the pinch, when the German
Ambassador substantially proposed to yield everything to him and asked
him for his proposition, he cannot make any.

These facts are in the "White Paper." As far as I know, no editor in the
United States who claims to have