its decrees upon recalcitrant States. Sovereignty and independence,
however, are not, as we have seen, essential to full nationhood, provided
the nation possesses a certain amount of "home-rule" and regards the
government under which it lives as a true expression of its genius and
will. For example, from 1809 till the setting in of Russian reaction in
1899, the Finnish nation enjoyed all the privileges of complete nationhood
except actual sovereignty. There is, therefore, a future for small nations,
either as autonomous protégés of great powers, like Russia, or as partners
in some commonwealth of nations, like the British Empire.

But there is yet another consideration to be faced. Why, it is asked,
should we trouble ourselves about the preservation of small nationalities
at all? "The State is power," and it is only the really powerful State,
therefore, that can and ought to survive. There is something laughable in
the idea of a small State; it is weakness trying to pose as strength. And
as for nations which have lost their independence and have bowed to the
yoke of the conqueror, their fate is incorporation. How can they hope or
expect to retain their separate existence and their peculiar culture when
they have surrendered the power upon which these privileges depend? "No
nation can permit the Jews to have a double nationality"; and the same
applies to Poles, Finns, Alsatians, Irishmen, and Belgians.[1] This is the
point of view of Bernhardi, Treitschke, and the German Government. This
is the theory which is said to justify the practice of Prussianisation,
Russianisation, Magyarisation, and so on. It raises the whole question
of the value and significance to civilisation of the existence of small
nations. Treitschke, of course, and his school are convinced that they
possess neither value nor significance. In small States there is developed
that beggarly frame of mind which judges the State by the taxes that it
raises; there is completely lacking in small States the ability of the
great State to be just; all real masterpieces of poetry and art arose upon