That

if Germany wins France is reduced to nothing. would mean the reduction of millions of French men and women to a worse position than that of the Alsatians before the war; the loss of some of the most venerated places and monuments in France, the battlefields of Valny and Montmirail, the cathedral of Rheims, the cottage of Joan of Arc, etc. So it is war for existence on our part."

"In America the feminist movement is very strong, and the question is on the lips of our people: 'How long will the women of France let this war go on?""

"I can answer that," said Madame Schneider. "Our sons are young, hardly more than boys. When the war began they enrolled at once, and, dear as they are to us, I immediately consented. France is our common mother, and no mother in France would keep her sons away from that absolute duty; to protect and save France. You should read, as I have, the letters of French mothers to their sons, and the letters of these sons to their mothers."

"May it be, then," I asked, "that this is a people's war?"

"It seems to be," answered Monsieur Schneider. "If that is so, it may last for a long time."

"It may, indeed," replied Monsieur Schneider, "though I do not know. But long or short, we shall fight to the end.”

"Yes," said Madame Schneider, "we want to finish while we are about it. We do not want our children to go through what we are going through now."

I said, "The Schneider guns are playing an important part in the war and are considered by French

military men as superior to the Krupp guns. The. world is interested in your establishment. How did

it make headway?"

"Our works made most of the French guns from the time of Louis XVI, 1782, to the end of Napoleon's reign, 1815," Monsieur Schneider explained. "Then after the final peace a law passed that no private enterprise should make guns for foreign countries. This law was enforced until after the Franco-Prussian War (one of the many reasons for France's failure in that 1870 war was the inferiority of our artillery). After the Franco-Prussian War this law was repealed. During this long period gun manufacture was a government monopoly; we then manufactured machinery, engines, metallic bridges, all kinds of iron and steel work, ships, and also a large amount of parts of guns, which were designed and mounted in government's concerns. I then said to my father: 'Artillery is the future weapon of war. So let us make guns again, not only, or even chiefly, as a good business plan, but also and principally for our country's defense.' Meanwhile, of course, the Krupps had built their great establishment, which was encouraged by the German government, whereas we were not encouraged by our own government."

"How were you not encouraged by your government, and how were you then able to make guns at all? For whom did you make guns?" I inquired.

"We always made parts of guns for the French navy and army-but we were only allowed to make parts of guns," answered Monsieur Schneider. "These parts were mounted by and in government concerns."

Shells in the making. The artillery and shell department of the celebrated Le Creusot works in full blast. The Schneiders, proprietors of these and other similar plants, have made most French artillery from the time of Louis XVI.

"How then, did you get any foothold at all?" I asked.

"Only by making better guns, and asking other governments to test our guns with any others," responded Monsieur Schneider. "It was a hard pull. I would go to a country and say: 'We have better guns.' That country's government would say: 'Why, then, does not your own government let you make its guns entirely; the Germans do that? The Kaiser says the Krupp guns are best. Your government does not say yours are best.' And all I could answer was: 'Try them. Test them. Compare them.' So, little by little, we made headway. If our artillery should prove better, it is only because I never have been satisfied that anything we did was the best that we could do; but kept on trying to do better. Now the Schneider guns have been adopted by most governments in the world, as well as by the French government; and, of course, you know, for example, in the Balkan war, the Servians, Greeks and Bulgarians proved they were the best."

"What do you expect, Monsieur Schneider, will be the result of the war?"

"Our victory," answered Monsieur Schneider. "That is settled now."

"But," I suggested, "what will you do with your victory if you get it?"

"We shall make it impossible for France to be disturbed again at least for one or two generations," responded Monsieur Schneider.

"And how will you do that if, as you seem to think possible, this is a war of peoples? There must now be shaping in the public mind some outline, however