political discipline of the Indian Civil Service than some of the
generous and clean-run spirits who have come from the Dominions to help
in this war. They could be introduced to a share of our responsibilities
without impeding or retarding the movement to give to selected natives
of India a larger share in the government of their country.

But the war is not over, so I return to the main issue--the conflict
between the English idea and the German idea of world government. It is
not an accident, as Baron von Hügel remarks in his book on _The German
Soul_, that the chief colonizing nation of the world should be a nation
without a national army. We have depended enormously in the past on the
initiative and virtue of the individual adventurer; if our adventurers
were to fail us, which is not likely, or if the State were to supersede
them, and attempt to do their work, which is not conceivable, our
political power and influence would vanish with them. The world might
perhaps be well ordered, but there would be no freedom, and no fun. The
beauty of the adventurer is that he is practically invincible. He does
not wait for orders. Under the most perfect police system that Germany
could devise, he would be up and at it again. We are not so numerous as
the Germans, but there are enough and to spare of us to make German
government impossible in any place where we pitch our tents. We are
practised hands at upsetting governments. Our political system is a
training school for rebels. This is what makes our very existence an
offence to the moral instincts of the German people. They are quite
right to want to kill us; the only way to abolish fun and freedom is to
abolish life. But I must not be unjust to them; their forethought
provides for everything, and no doubt they would prescribe authorized
forms of fun for half an hour a week, and would gather together their
subjects in public assembly, under municipal regulations, to perform
approved exercises in freedom.