far we were from success lies in minds of scores of thousands of 
our fellow-citizens, who alone can tell us how near they were to 
saying to their rulers: “Stop!“ Remember that most of these 
people would now say“ Quite right to go on. We always knew 
we should win.'' That, however, wasn't at all their humour many 
times during the war. All 1 can say to Prince Max is that he 
was trying to do the one thing which in England could have 
created a new atmosphere. If a German Government, when it 
offered to try and negotiate a peace, had equally definitely) 
guaranteed Belgian independence and sovereignty, it would have 
changed the whole issue here. It would have created a powerful 
peace party, backed by many of the opportunists. It must be 
said, however, that as the war went on it would have been harder, 
not easier, to get peace even by the clear surrender of Belgium. 
Reasonable public opinion grew less powerful in Britain, the 
custom of the war grew upon people, they set their teeth and 
thought less. But even after America came in, the tide might have 
been turned to peace by so startling a falsification of what was 
represented by our war-mongers as being the attitude of the 
German governing powers. If the offer had been made dra- 
matically enough by Prince Max as Chancellor, it would have 
been increasingly difficult to maintain the position that victory 
Was essential to a reasonable peace. To my mind the only proof 
that there was a volume of moderate opinion capable of action 
under more favourable conditions is the Lansdowne Letter and 
movement. I even think that it might have gone much further 
than it did, if Lansdowne had been a more vigorous and popular 
personality, less conservative and cautious in his methods. His 
position made it impossible for him to be silenced or misrepre- 
sented. And, if his proposition, that a reasonable peace was 
actually attainable, had been proved by the open abandonment 
by the German Government of the one thing which the British 
rulers had persistently taught the British public was the main 
reason of the war on the part of Germany, he would have been 
the leader of a powerful party. 
In history the importance of the part played by Prince Mazx 
and his associates in Germany and by ourselves in Great Br’tain 
does not lie in how near we came to success under the conditions 
in which we strove for a policy of reconciliation. It lies in the 
existence in both countries of bodies of men, pursuing under such 
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