“The writer of the article has not studied history very deeply,” said von Kwarl.  “The impossible thing that he speaks of has been done before, and done in these very islands, too.  The Norman Conquest became an assimilation in comparatively few generations.”

“Ah, in those days, yes,” said the banker, “but the conditions were altogether different.  There was not the rapid transmission of news and the means of keeping the public mind instructed in what was happening; in fact, one can scarcely say that the public mind was there to instruct.  There was not the same strong bond of brotherhood between men of the same nation that exists now.  Northumberland was almost as foreign to Devon or Kent as Normandy was.  And the Church in those days was a great international factor, and the Crusades bound men together fighting under one leader for a common cause.  Also there was not a great national past to be forgotten as there is in this case.”

“There are many factors, certainly, that are against us,” conceded the statesman, “but you must also take into account those that will help us.  In most cases in recent history where the conquered have stood out against all attempts at assimilation, there has been a religious difference to add to the racial one—­take Poland, for instance, and the Catholic parts of Ireland.  If the Bretons ever seriously begin to assert their nationality as against the French, it will be because they have remained more Catholic in practice and sentiment than their neighbours.  Here there is no such complication; we are in the bulk a Protestant nation with a Catholic minority, and the same may be said of the British.  Then in modern days there is the alchemy of Sport and the Drama to bring men of different races amicably together.  One or two sportsmanlike Germans in a London football team will do more to break down racial antagonism than anything that Governments or Councils can effect.  As for the Stage, it has long been international in its tendencies.  You can see that every day.”

The banker nodded his head.

“London is not our greatest difficulty,” continued von Kwarl.  “You must remember the steady influx of Germans since the war; whole districts are changing the complexion of their inhabitants, and in some streets you might almost fancy yourself in a German town.  We can scarcely hope to make much impression on the country districts and the provincial towns at present, but you must remember that thousands and thousands of the more virile and restless-souled men have emigrated, and thousands more will follow their example.  We shall fill up their places with our own surplus population, as the Teuton races colonised England in the old pre-Christian days.  That is better, is it not, to people the fat meadows of the Thames valley and the healthy downs and uplands of Sussex and Berkshire than to go hunting for elbow-room among the flies and fevers of the tropics?  We have somewhere to go to, now, better than the scrub and the veldt and the thorn-jungles.”