The German Government, in spite of Herr Stresemann, having backed
up the President's protest, apparently do not contemplate any diplomatic movement in the matter of war-guilt. The President, we imagine, intended simply to get the subject " off his chest." Although it was natural for him to do this it was by no means, in a Euro- pean sense, helpful. The truth is that all these sugges- tions of an impartial inquiry into war-guilt would lead nowhere. How could there possibly be an impartial inquiry ? Every nation that might be represented would make its own special inferences and deductions from the facts, and even nations which might fairly be considered " neutral " would have their bias determined by geographical position and so forth. There is only one verdict worth having, and that is the verdict of the diStant future. The Gibbons and Monimsens, the Brandenburgs and Trevelyans of a hundred years hence will try the case and deliver judgment. We shall all be brought before that bar, and no nation will escape whatever degree of blame may justly belong to' it. Even the English his torians will deal as freely with the Englishmen of our Own time as they now deal with John -and. Stephen, or even with George
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