Hapsburgs, and their relations, set up a constellation of more cheating
little subordinate kings, and reinstate that system of diplomacies and
secret treaties and secret understandings, that endless drama of
international threatening and plotting, that never-ending arming, that
has led us after a hundred years of waste and muddle to the supreme
tragedy of this war, then the world is not good enough for me and I
shall be glad to close my eyes upon it. I am not alone in these
sentiments. I believe that in writing thus I am writing the opinion of
the great mass of reasonable British, French, Italian, Russian, and
American men. I believe, too, that this is the desire also of great
numbers of Germans, and that they would, if they could believe us,
gladly set aside their present rulers to achieve this plain common good
for mankind.

But, the reader will say, what evidence is there of any republican
feeling in Germany? That is always the objection made to any reasonable
discussion of the war--and as most of us are denied access to German
papers, it is difficult to produce quotations; and even when one does,
there are plenty of fools to suggest and believe that the entire German
Press is an elaborate camouflage. Yet in the German Press there is far
more criticism of militant imperialism than those who have no access to
it can imagine. There is far franker criticism of militarism in Germany
than there is of reactionary Toryism in this country, and it is more
free to speak its mind.

That, however, is a question by the way. It is not the main thing that I
have to say here. What I have to say here is that in Great Britain--I
will not discuss the affairs of any of our Allies--there are groups and
classes of people, not numerous, not representative, but placed in high
and influential positions and capable of free and public utterance, who