another State, and that experience shows how very dangerous such an
interference may become." On the other hand, it must be remembered that
the dangers which may arise from non-intervention are occasionally still
graver, and that the whole discussion turns, not on an international
right, but simply and solely on power and expediency.

I have gone closely into these questions of international policy
because, under conditions which are not remote, they may greatly
influence the realization of our necessary political aspirations, and
may give rise to hostile complications. Then it becomes essential that
we do not allow ourselves to be cramped in our freedom of action by
considerations, devoid of any inherent political necessity, which only
depend on political expediency, and are not binding on us. We must
remain conscious in all such eventualities that we cannot, under any
circumstances, avoid fighting for our position in the world, and that
the all-important point is, not to postpone that war as long as
possible, but to bring it on under the most favourable conditions
possible. "No man," so wrote Frederick the Great to Pitt on July 3,
1761, "if he has a grain of sense, will leave his enemies leisure to
make all preparations in order to destroy him; he will rather take
advantage of his start to put himself in a favourable position."

If we wish to act in this spirit of prompt and effective policy which
guided the great heroes of our past, we must learn to concentrate our
forces, and not to dissipate them in centrifugal efforts.

The political and national development of the German people has always,
so far back as German history extends, been hampered and hindered by the
hereditary defects of its character--that is, by the particularism of
the individual races and States, the theoretic dogmatism of the parties,