But here in England our land is fruitful and productive, owing to the pressure of the submarine campaign, as it never was before; British farming and the American fields have cause to bless rather than to curse the war.

Only in France has the tormented and poisoned earth itself been blasted by the war, and only in France, even where there are no trenches, have whole countrysides gone out of cultivation, so that in the course of a long motor drive, the sight of a solitary plough at work, or merely a strip of newly ploughed land amid the rank and endless waste, makes one's heart leap.
No!--France is quite right.

Her suffering, her restoration, her future safety, as against Germany, these should be, must be, the first thought of the Allies in making peace.

And it is difficult for those of us who have not seen, _to feel_, as it is politically necessary, it seems to me, we should feel.
Since I was in France, however, a fortnight ago, the proceedings in connection with the extension of the Armistice, and the new restrictions and obligations laid on Germany, have profoundly affected the situation in the direction that France desires.

And when the President returns from the United States, whither he is now bound, he will surely go--and not for a mere day or two!--to see for himself on the spot what France has suffered.