demands news-facts and figures discriminatingly presented. The banker wants the truth; he will make his own argument and reach his own conclusions. The reader will readily see that these chapters are day-to-day issues aiming to present that news from the standpoint of finance. But under all sound finance must be primarily the truth of humanity. They do not claim to be from beginning to end a harmonious book-presentation of the war, but it is believed that they contain the essential fundamental war-facts; and the aim was to present them in most condensed expression. They cover the first six months of this most Audacious War. Whether it is to continue for another six months or another sixteen months is not so material as the character of the peace and what is to follow. No greater problem can be placed before the world than that of how the peace of nations may be maintained. Having cleared my own mind upon this subject, I submit it in the final chapter, which naturally follows after that treating of the lessons for the United States from this war. Only in an international organization, with power to make decrees of peace and enforce them, and with insurance of powers above those of all dissenters, can we find the peace of nations as we have found the peace of cities. This Audacious War has forced such an alliance as can yield this power. Its transfer to the support of an International tribunal can make and keep the peace of Europe and eventually of the world. Then may the earth cease to be, in history, that steady round of Prosperity, Pride, and War. C. W. BARRON. February 15, 1915. CONTENTS 32 41 52 61 THE AUDACIOUS WAR CHAPTER I THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST The Censorship-The Warship “Audacious" Mine or Torpedo? - The Battle Line- War by Gasolene Motors - The Boys from Canada - The Audacity of it. THE war of 1914 is not only the greatest war in history but the greatest in the political and economic sciences. Indeed, it is the greatest war of all the sciences, for it involves all the known sciences of earth, ocean, and the skies. To get the military, the political, and especially the financial flavor of this war, to study its probable duration and its financial consequences, was the object of a trip to England and France from which the writer has recently returned. One can hear "war news" from the time he leaves the American coast and begins to pick up the line of the British warships - England's farflung battle line- until he returns to the dock, but thorough investigation would convince a |