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viii to be one of the cardinal points of the political firmament whenever the eye turns in search of a stable peace. It is true that the independence of Bohemia, that is, the independence and unity of the Czecho-Slovak race, involves tha "dismemberment of Austria" against which British pacifists so strangely protest. A sudden and touching solicitude for the preservation of the Habsburg realms, in some federalised form, has been noticeable of late in quartets formerly proud of their "Liberalism," Gladstone's verdict that "nowhere has Austria ever done good" seems to have been forgetten by these ultra-liberal partisans of Austrian intangibility. They have taken up the position held by the mid-Victorian Tories, against whom the famous parody of "Who is Sylvia?" was directed in Macmillan's Magazine of 1866:—

From the moment that Austria-Hungary, at the instance of Germany, decided to use the Sarajevo assassinations as a pretext far the long-planned "punitive expedition" against Serbia, I have been confirmed—as Count Albert Mensdorff,