cticable or as an
illusion. His spirit will glow at the thought of it. The magnitude of
the proposal will encourage him rather than check him. As to the
difficulties in the way, he will tackle them with a confident smile.
The tenacity and high-mindedness of President Wilson are qualities
which will especially appeal to him. He will be able to supplement
them with that ingenuity and practicalness which are an integral part
of his genius for getting things done. I can see these two men,
therefore, as collaborators in days not so very far ahead. In the
collaboration Lloyd George will probably find his culminating task.

APPENDIX

MR. LLOYD GEORGE ON AMERICA AND THE EUROPEAN WAR

On the anniversary of President Lincoln's birthday, February 12, 1916,
Mr. Lloyd George sent a remarkable message to the American people
comparing the American Civil War with the European conflict. By the
courtesy of the New York _Times_ this message is presented here.

A LINCOLN DAY MESSAGE

I am very glad to respond to your request for a message for publication
on Lincoln Day. I am glad because to my mind Abraham Lincoln has
always been one of the very first of the world's statesmen, because I
believe that the battle which we have been fighting is at bottom the
same battle which your countrymen fought under Lincoln's leadership
more than fifty years ago, and most of all, perhaps, because I desire
to say how much I welcome the proof which the last few days have
afforded that the American people are coming to realize this, too.

Lincoln's life was devoted to the cause of human freedom. From the day
when he first recognized what slavery meant he bent all his energies to
its eradication from American soil. Yet after years of patient effort
he was driven to realize that it was not a mere question of abolishing
slavery in the Southern States, but that bound up with it was a larger
issue: That unless the Union abolished slavery, slavery would break up
the Union.

Faced by this alternative, he did not shrink, after every other method
had failed, from vindicating both Union and freedom by the terrible
instrument of war. Nor after the die for war had been cast did he
hesitate to call upon his countrymen to make sacrifice upon sacrifice,
to submit to limitation upon limitation of their personal freedom,
until, in his own words, there was a new birth of freedom in your land.

Is there not a strange similarity between this battle, wh