The German reply to the Pope's Peace Note was issued
on Friday week. To the Allied peoples it must seem the quintessence of hypocrisy, inasmuch as it represents the' aiser as 'a man of peace who was dragged into war " against his wish and desire," and who sought to gain nothing outside Germany save by pacific, means. No longer clad " in shining armour," the Kaiser welcomes " with special sympathy" the Pope's leading idea that "in the future the material power of arms must be superseded by the moral power of right." He expresses a vague approval of the limitation of armaments and " the true freedom and community of the high seas "—which Germany always had in time of peace—and of arbitration, so far as they are " compatible with the vital interests " of Germany. But he has nothing to say about the evacuation and restoration of Belgium as a preliminary to the revival of " a conciliatory and fraternal spirit" among the nations.
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