the least, would not be a millennial settlement.  Profoundly as we are convinced that our Government of India is far better than any native Indian government could be (the assumption that “natives” could govern at all being made for the sake of argument with due reluctance), it is quite certain that until it becomes as voluntary as the parliamentary government of Australia, and has been modified accordingly, it will remain an artificial, precarious, and continually threatening political structure.  Nevertheless, we need not go to the opposite extreme and conclude that a political constitution must fit a country so accurately that it must be home-made to measure.  Europe has a stock of ready-made constitutions, both Monarchical and Republican, which will fit any western European nation comfortably enough.  We are at present considerably bothered by the number of Germans who, though their own country and constitution is less than a day’s journey away, settle here and marry Englishwomen without feeling that our constitution is unbearable.  Englishmen are never tired of declaring that “they do things better abroad” (as a matter of fact they often do), and that the ways of Prussia are smarter than the ways of Paddington.  It is therefore quite possible that a reach-me-down constitution proposed, not by the conquerors, but by an international congress with no interest to serve but the interests of peace, might prove acceptable enough to a nation thoroughly disgusted with its tyrants.

Physician:  Heal Thyself.

Now a congress which undertook the Liberalization of Germany would certainly not stop there.  If we invite a congress to press for a democratization of the German constitution, we must consent to the democratization of our own.  If we send the Kaiser to St. Helena (or whatever the title of the Chiselhurst villa may be) we must send Sir Edward Grey there, too.  For if on the morrow of the peace we may all begin to plot and plan one another’s destruction over again in the secrecy of our Foreign Office, so that in spite of Parliament and free democratic institutions the Foreign Secretary may at any moment step down from the Foreign Office to the House of Commons and say, “I arranged yesterday with the ambassador from Cocagne that England is to join his country in fighting Brobdingnag; so vote me a couple of hundred millions, and off with you to the trenches,” we shall be just where we were before as far as any likelihood of putting an end to war is concerned.  The congress will certainly ask us to pledge ourselves that if we shake the mailed fist at all we shall shake it publicly, and that though we may keep our sword ready (let me interject in passing that disarmament is all nonsense:  nobody is going to disarm after this experience) it shall be drawn by the representatives of the nation, and not by Junker diplomatists who despise and distrust the nation, and have planned war behind its back for years.  Indeed they will probably demur to its being drawn even by the representative of the nation until the occasion has been submitted to the judgment of the representatives of the world, or such beginnings of a world representative body as may be possible.  That is the true Weltpolitik.