one which can be answered or ought to be discussed absolutely.  We often hear abstract panegyrics upon the happiness of small states.  But observe that a small state among small states is one thing, and a small state among large states quite another.  Nothing is more delightful to read of than the bright days of Athens and Florence, but those bright days lasted only so long as the states with which Athens and Florence had to do were states on a similar scale of magnitude.  Both states sank at once as soon as large country states of consolidated strength grew up in their neighbourhood.  The lustre of Athens grew pale as soon as Macedonia arose, and Charles V. speedily brought to an end the great days of Florence.  Now if it be true that a larger type of state than any hitherto known is springing up in the world, is not this a serious consideration for those states which rise only to the old level of magnitude?"[3] The answer to which is, “Yes, indeed, if
                                            the good old plan
             That he should take who has the power,
             And he should keep who can

is to be the guiding principle in European politics of the future.”  But surely Sir John Seeley’s argument, though undoubtedly telling as regards the sovereign independence of small States, tells for and not against the preservation of small nations.  Was it to the interest of the world as a whole that Athens and Florence should be crushed?  Is it not true, in spite of Treitschke, that the great things of earth have been the product of small peoples?  We owe our conceptions of law to a city called Rome, our finest output of literature and art to small communities like Athens, Florence, Holland, and Elizabethan England, our religion to an insignificant people who inhabited a narrow strip of land in the Eastern Mediterranean.  And small nations are as valuable to the world to-day as they have ever been.  Denmark has enriched our educational experience by the establishment of her famous high schools, which we can hardly imagine her doing had she been a province of Prussia; Norway has given us the greatest of modern dramatists, Henrik Ibsen; and Belgium has not only produced Maeterlinck and Verhaeren, but is industrially the most highly developed country on the continent.  The world cannot afford to do without her small peoples, who must be either independent or autonomous if they are to find adequate expression for their national genius, if they are to obtain proper conditions in which “to live, think, love, and labour for the benefit of all.”  Can we guarantee to them this freedom?  That is one of the great questions which this war will settle.[4]

[Footnote 1:  See Selections from Treitschke, translated by A.L.  Gowans, pp. 17-20, 58-61.]

[Footnote 2:  See Selections from Treitschke, pp. 17-20, 58-61.]

[Footnote 3:  The Expansion of England, p. 349.  See also p. 1, “Some countries, such as Holland and Sweden, might pardonably regard their history as in a manner wound up.”]