AN AMERICAN'S VIEW.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 46, 25 February 1915, Page 4

AN AMERICAN'S VIEW.

A very well-known journal, the North' American Review, has just celebrated iLs centenary, and, in a special number to celebrate the occasion, reminds its readers thai the periodical was founded in 1815, the year of Waterloo. 1 A century later finds Europe in the throes of its most awful war, and in specifying the causes, which, in the editor's opinion,have led up to it, it is' stated (1) that Austria, not only welcomed, but sought any distraction from an internal chaos which threatened her disruption ; (2) that Russia, imminently menaced by a general strike almost certain to end in civil revolu-' tion, w*s in like case; (.'}) that Germany, ready and,, in part, willing,: L

while not instigating action on the part of Austria, permitted what slit- might have prevented under a certainty that she could never be more fully prepared, and under delusions respecting the attitude of England and Italy—in a word, over-reached: (4) that England did not seek war, did not want war, but having long regarded it as inevitable, breathed relief when it came ill such a way as to enable her to go chivalrously to the support of her Allies, instead of being compelled to ask them to come to her assistance; and (5) that France accepted with re- \ signation and fortitude, as a simple. matter of course, what she had been expecting for twenty years. However' right or wrong the above may he in some regards, it is certainly quite on the safe side in stating that Germany, suffering from delusions, took on a much bigger jo') than the strife-makers ever anticipated