proposed it must have had the poorest opinion of the intelligence of English statesmen if they thought it was likely to be accepted.  For observe that it left Germany, in conjunction with Austria, free to attack France and Russia.  It left the formidable Triple Alliance unimpaired.  But it tied the hands of Britain, who had no existing European alliances, enforced neutrality upon her in such a war, and compelled her to look on idly and wait her turn.  In the present war, Germany could have pleaded that she was bound to take part by the terms of her alliance with Austria, who began it; but Britain would have been compelled to stand aloof.  A very convenient arrangement for Germany, but not an arrangement that promised well for the peace of the world!

Even this rebuff did not dishearten Britain.  Feeling that Germany might have some reasonable ground of complaint in the fact that her share of the extra-European world was so much less than that of France or of Britain herself, Britain attempted to come to an agreement on this head, such as would show that she had no desire to prevent the imperial expansion of Germany.  A treaty was proposed and discussed, and was ready to be submitted to the proper authorities for confirmation in June 1914.  It has never been made public, because the war cancelled it before it came into effect, and we do not know its terms.  But we do know that the German colonial enthusiast, Paul Rohrbach, who has seen the draft treaty, has said that the concessions made by Britain were astonishingly extensive, and met every reasonable German demand.  This sounds as if the proposals of the treaty, whatever they were, had been recklessly generous.  But this much is clear, that the government which had this treaty in its possession when it forced on the war was not to be easily satisfied.  It did not want merely external possessions.  It wanted supremacy; it wanted world-dominion.

One last attempt the British government made in the frenzied days of negotiation which preceded the war.  Sir Edward Grey had begged the German government to make any proposal which would make for peace, and promised his support beforehand; he had received no reply.  He had undertaken that if Germany made any reasonable proposal, and France or Russia objected, he would have nothing further to do with France or Russia.  Still there was no reply.  Imagining that Germany might still be haunted by what Bismarck called ‘the nightmare of coalition,’ and might be rushing into war now because she feared a war in the future under more unfavourable conditions, he had pledged himself, if Germany would only say the word which would secure the peace, to use every effort to bring about a general understanding among the great powers which would banish all fears of an anti-German combination.  It was of no use.  The reply was the suggestion that Britain should bind herself to neutrality in this war on the following conditions:  (a) that Germany should be given a free hand to violate