fundamentals of human nature.  The only possible footing upon which we could meet them with comfortable minds would be the footing that we and they were discussing the terms of the restoration of our country.  Then indeed we might almost feel friendly with them.  That is the case with all civilised “possessions.”  The only terms upon which educated British and Indians can meet to-day with any comfort is precisely that.  The living intercourse of the British and Indian mind to-day is the discussion of the restoration.  Everything else is humbug on the one side and self-deception on the other.

It is idle to speak of the British occupation of India as a conquest or a robbery.  It is a fashion of much “advanced” literature in Europe to assume that the European rule of various Asiatic countries is the result of deliberate conquest with a view to spoliation.  But that is only the ugly side of the facts.  Cases of the deliberate invasion and spoliation of one country by another have been very rare in the history of the last three centuries.  There has always been an excuse, and there has always been a percentage of truth in the excuse.  The history of every country contains phases of political ineptitude in which that country becomes so misgoverned as to be not only a nuisance to the foreigner within its borders but a danger to its neighbours.  Mexico is in such a phase to-day.  And most of the aggressions and annexations of the modern period have arisen out of the inconveniences and reasonable fears caused by such an inept phase.  I am a persistent advocate for the restoration of Poland, but at the same time it is very plain to me that it is a mere travesty of the facts to say that Poland, was a white lamb of a country torn to pieces by three wicked neighbours, Poland in the eighteenth century was a dangerous political muddle, uncertain of her monarchy, her policy, her affinities.  She endangered her neighbours because there was no guarantee that she might not fall under the tutelage of one of them and become a weapon against the others.

The division of Poland was an outrage upon the Polish people, but it was largely dictated by an entirely honest desire to settle a dangerous possibility.  It seemed less injurious than the possibility of a vacillating, independent Poland playing off one neighbour against another.  That possibility will still be present in the minds of the diplomatists who will determine the settlement after the war.  Until the Poles make up their minds, and either convince the Russians that they are on the side of Russia and Bohemia against Germany for evermore, or the Germans that they are willing to be Posenised, they will live between two distrustful enemies.

The Poles need to think of the future more and the wrongs of Poland less.  They want less patriotic intrigue and more racial self-respect.  They are not only Poles but members of a greater brotherhood.  My impression is that Poland will “go Slav”—­in spite of Cracow.  But I am not sure.  I am haunted by the fear that Poland may still find her future hampered by Poles who are, as people say, “too clever by half.”  An incalculable Poland cannot be and will not be tolerated by the rest of Europe.