Manifestly because a small minority of people in positions of peculiar advantage, in positions of trust and authority, and particularly the German reactionaries, prevent or delay its assembling.

The answer which seems to suffice in all the Allied countries is that the German Imperial Government—­that the German Imperial Government alone—­stands in the way, that its tradition is incurably a tradition of conquest and aggression, that until German militarism is overthrown, etc.  Few people in the Allied countries will dispute that that is broadly true.  But is it the whole and complete truth?  Is there nothing more to be done on our side?  Let us put a question that goes to the very heart of the problem.  Why does the great mass of the German people still cling to its incurably belligerent Government?

The answer to that question is not overwhelmingly difficult.  The German people sticks to its militarist imperialism as Mazeppa stuck to his horse; because it is bound to it, and the wolves pursue.  The attentive student of the home and foreign propaganda literature of the German Government will realize that the case made by German imperialism, the main argument by which it sticks to power, is this, that the Allied Governments are also imperialist, that they also aim at conquest and aggression, that for Germany the choice is world empire or downfall and utter ruin.  This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly united.  For most men in most countries it would be a convincing argument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong.  I find that I myself am of this way of thinking, that whether England has done right or wrong in the past—­and I have sometimes criticized my country very bitterly—­I will not endure the prospect of seeing her at the foot of some victorious foreign nation.  Neither will any German who matters.  Very few people would respect a German who did.  But the case for the Allies is that this great argument by which, and by which alone, the German Imperial Government keeps its grip upon the German people at the present time, and keeps them facing their enemies, is untrue.  The Allies declare that they do not want to destroy the German people, they do not want to cripple the German people; they want merely to see certain gaping wounds inflicted by Germany repaired, and beyond that reasonable requirement they want nothing but to be assured, completely assured, absolutely assured, against any further aggressions on the part of Germany.

Is that true?  Our leaders say so, and we believe them.  We would not support them if we did not.  And if it is true, have the statesmen of the Allies made it as transparently and convincingly clear to the German people as possible?  That is one of the supreme questions of the present time.  We cannot too earnestly examine it.  Because in the answer to it lies the reason why so many men were killed yesterday on the eastern and western front, so many ships sunk, so much property destroyed, so much human energy wasted for ever upon mere destruction, and why to-morrow and the next day and the day after—­through many months yet, perhaps—­the same killing and destroying must still go on.