outlook on life which belongs to our gilded youth (67 per cent. of the
candidates for the Diplomatic Corps being drawn from Eton alone), having
also in high degree that curious want of cosmopolitan sympathy and
adaptability which is characteristic of the English wealthy classes
(every candidate for the Corps must have at least £400 a year of his
own)--that such a type should be charged with the representation of the
United Kingdom in foreign affairs is to-day a hopeless anomaly, and
indeed a very great danger. The recommendations just published of the
Royal Commission are in the right direction, but they need urgent
reinforcement and extension by the pressure of public opinion. And if in
the present-day situation of affairs we cannot refer every question
which arises directly to the nation, we must at least do away with the
one-man-Secretary system, and have in his place a large and responsible
committee, representative, not of any one party or class but as far as
possible of the whole people. [At this moment, for instance, as far as
we know, the terms of settlement of the present war may actually be
being arranged over our heads, and yet that may be taking place quite
apart from the approval and the wishes of the most weighty portion of
the nation.]

Another thing that we must look to with some hope for the future is the
influence of Women. Profoundly shocked as they are by the senseless
folly and monstrous bloodshed of the present conflict, it is certain
that when this phase is over they will insist on having a voice in the
politics of the future. The time has gone by when the mothers and wives
and daughters of the race will consent to sit by meek and silent while
the men in their madness are blowing each other's brains out and making
mountains out of corpses. It is hardly to be expected that war will
cease from the earth this side of the millennium; but women will surely
only, condone it when urged by some tremendous need or enthusiasm; they