elect them, but it will involve much more troublesome consequences if
they are not elected. This, I think, is one of the considerations for
which many people's minds are still unprepared. But unless we are to
have over again after all this bloodshed and effort some such "Peace
with Honour" foolery as we had performed by "Dizzy" and Salisbury at
that fatal Berlin Conference in which this present war was begotten, we
must sit up to this novel proposal of electoral representation in the
peace negotiations. Something more than common sense binds our statesmen
to this idea. They are morally pledged to it. President Wilson and our
British and French spokesmen alike have said over and over again that
they want to deal not with the Hohenzollerns but with the German people.
In other words, we have demanded elected representatives from the German
people with whom we may deal, and how can we make a demand of that sort
unless we on our part are already prepared to send our own elected
representatives to meet them? It is up to us to indicate by our own
practice how we on our side, professing as we do to act for democracies,
to make democracy safe on the earth, and so on, intend to meet this new
occasion.

Yet it has to be remarked that, so far, not one of the League of Nations
projects I have seen have included any practicable proposals for the
appointment of delegates either to that ultimate body or to its two
necessary predecessors, the Council of the Allies and the Peace
Congress. It is evident that here, again, we are neglecting to get on
with something of very urgent importance. I will venture, therefore, to
say a word or two here about the possible way in which a modern
community may appoint its international representatives.

And here, again, I turn from any European precedents to that political
outcome of the British mind, the Constitution of the United States.