As for the undemocratic control of foreign policy, a strong point about our policy on the eve of the war is that it was dictated by public opinion. [See Grey’s dispatch to the British Ambassador at Berlin, No. 123.] Germany could have preserved peace by a single gesture addressed to Franz Josef.  She did not want peace.  Mr. Shaw said Sir Edward Grey ought to have shouted out at the start that if Germany fought we should fight.  Sir Edward Grey had no authority to do so, and it would have been foolish to do so.  Mr. Shaw also says Germany ought to have turned her whole army against Russia and left the western frontier to the care of the world’s public opinion in spite of the military alliance by which France was bound to Russia.  We have here an example of his aptitude for practical politics.

Was Belgium a Mere Excuse?

Let us now come to Belgium.  Mr. Shaw protests needlessly that he holds no brief for small States as such, and he most vehemently denies that we are bound to knight errantry on their behalf.  His objection to small States is that they are either incorrigibly bellicose or standing temptations to big powers.  Outside the Balkans no small State is bellicose.  All are eminently pacific.  That they are a standing temptation to thieves is surely no reason for their destruction.  If it is a reason Mr. Shaw ought to throw his watch down the drain.

Mr. Shaw states that Belgium was a mere excuse for our going to war.  That there was a vast deal more in the pre-war diplomacy than appears in the printed dispatches, or in any dispatches, I am as convinced as Mr. Shaw is, but I am equally convinced that so far as we are concerned there was nothing in diplomacy, however secret, to contradict our public attitude.  The chief item not superficially apparent is that the diplomats knew all along that Germany wanted war and was doing all she could to obtain war on terms most favorable to herself.  That our own interest coincided with our duty to Belgium did not by any means render our duty a mere excuse for action.  If a burglar is making his way upward in the house where Mr. Shaw lives and Mr. Shaw comes down and collars him in the flat of a defenseless invalid below and hands him over to the police Mr. Shaw would not expect the police to say, “You are a hypocrite; you only seized the burglar because you feared he would come to you next.”  I stick to the burglar simile, because a burglar is just what Germany is.

The “Infamous Proposal” Phrase.

Mr. Shaw characterizes Mr. Asquith’s phrase, “Germany’s infamous proposal,” as the “obvious barrister’s claptrap.”  Once more this is totally inexcusable.  I do not always see eye to eye with Mr. Asquith, I agree with Mr. Shaw that he has more than once sinned against democratic principles, but what has that to do with the point?  My general impression of Mr. Asquith and general impression of this country is that Mr. Asquith, in addition to being a pretty good Liberal,