international idea.  The great danger of setting up “an effective machine for regulating the affairs of Europe” is that the machine may get into the wrong hands.  The Holy Alliance is a warning, which should not be forgotten.  It became an obstruction to progress, a strait-waistcoat which threatened to strangle the liberties of Europe, because it got into the hands of a “vested interest,” the dynastic interest, which was hostile both to nationalism and democracy.

Since 1814, however, there have been great strides along the paths both of democracy and of nationalism.  And if Germany loses this war, the congress of the settlement will meet in a very different atmosphere from that in which its predecessor assembled at Vienna.  It will be a conference of powers victorious over Reaction not Revolution, and pledged to the support of a liberal programme.  And yet if such a conference became a permanent feature of European life, if, in other words, a new attempt were made to set up an international tribunal, it might easily become as dangerous to the liberties of the people as ever was the Holy Alliance.  The dynastic principle it is to be hoped, will never again threaten the world’s peace or progress; but there are other vested interests besides the dynastic one.  During the nineteenth century economic development has given an enormous impetus to international movements and cosmopolitanism generally.  Unfortunately political development, though great, has not by any means kept pace with the economic; in other words, it is still possible in most countries, and in some more possible than in others, for a small oligarchy to gain control of the political machine.

Again, if there is one thing in the world more international than Labour, it is Capital; and, as Mr. Norman Angell has shown, it is the capitalist who is hardest hit by international war and who stands to gain most from its abolition.  European capital is almost certain to have a large say in the settlement, and considerable influence in the counsels of any new Concert of Europe that might come into existence.  Now suppose—­a not impossible contingency—­that a ring of capitalists gained complete control of some politically backward country like Russia, and suppose a grave crisis arose in the Labour world in England or France, what would be easier than for arrangements to be made at the international conference for the transference of Russian troops to the west, “to preserve the sacred rights of property and the peace of Europe”?  This may seem a somewhat fantastic supposition, yet it was precisely in this way and on grounds like these that the Holy Alliance interfered with the internal affairs of European countries during the second and third decade of last century, and even as late as 1849 we have Russia, still faithful to the principles of thirty years before, coming to the assistance of Austria in her suppression of the liberties of Hungary.  It was a healthy instinct in the English people that