accept a bribe, than be the objects of a dispassionate judgement,
however kindly. They feel this so strongly that they experience a dull
discomfort in any relationship that is not tinctured with passion. As
there are many such relationships, not to be avoided even by the most
emotional natures, they escape from them by simulating lively feeling,
and are sometimes exaggerated and insincere in manner. They issue a very
large paper currency on a very small gold reserve. This, which is
commonly known as the Irish Question, is an insoluble problem, for it is
a clash not of interests but of temperaments. The English, it must in
fairness be admitted, do as they would be done by. No Englishman pure
and simple is incommoded by the coldness of strangers. He prefers it,
for there are many stupid little businesses in the world, which are
falsified when they are made much of; and even when important facts are
to be told, he would rather have them told in a dreary manner. He hates
a fuss.

The Germans, who are a highly emotional and excitable people, have
concentrated all their energy on a few simple ideas. Their moral outlook
is as narrow as their geographical outlook is wide. Will their faith
prevail by its intensity, narrow and false though it be? I cannot prove
that it will not, but I have a suspicion, which I think has already
occurred to some of them, that the world is too large and wilful and
strong to be mastered by them. We have seen what their hatchets and
explosives can do, and they are nearing the end of their resources. They
can still repeat some of their old exploits, but they make no headway,
and time is not their friend.

One service, perhaps, they have done to civilization. There is a growing
number of people who hold that when this War is over international
relations must not be permitted to slip back into the unstable condition