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In this article the author takes a full view of the panorama of events that arose in Europe after the Boer War. The Entente Cordiale was regarded by many Europeans as a pitiful confession of Great Britain's weakness. However, it should not be considered an agreement shaped by the administrations. For, in France King Edward VII was acclaimed the author of it. This the author may assert without fear of contradiction, for much of his life at the beginning of the century was spent among men of great influence in the political parties of Great Britain and France. In 1900 the author became stage director of the Royal Opera, which position gave me many chances of hearing what was said in high social circles about the politics of the day. It is true many of these people knew the author was labeled a pro-Boer, but somehow, in my case, that did not seem to Concern them much, for they were chiefly interested in my work behind the curtain and the part the author played in the then promising movement for a national opera.

The article reports that isolated for centuries between two oceans, the American people are now abruptly compelled to find their way in a new and strange world shaken by social and economic revolution. Leftward trends in Europe and Asia make evident the impossibility of return to pre-war conditions; while, more particularly, the marked reaction in Great Britain against the ancient regime of Toryism suggests that the Anglo-Saxon peoples are not likely to cooperate in restoring the economic patterns of the past. But the economic relation between Britain and America is more intimate than the relation of either to any third power; and therefore the American people must now readjust themselves to conditions obtaining in the mothercountry. The pressure for a new orientation is the more compelling in view of the financial assistance which Great Britain obviously needs. No academic argument should stand in the way of such aid. The long-drawn-out socialist program is intended to give the general public a title to all the industrial equipment of Britain. And since "industrial equipment" is only another term for productive machinery, the central issue between socialists and their opponents appears to be the simple question whether machines ought to be owned by private individuals or by the State.