Russian phantom has given a foreboding of unwonted freedom to the _Welt-
politik_. According to the national tendency this assumption of Imperial
impulses would run into the grotesque were it not for the spikes of the
_pickelhaubes_ peeping out grimly from behind. Germany's attitude proves
that no peace for the earth can be found in the expansion of material
interests which she seems to have adopted exclusively as her only aim,
ideal, and watchword. For the use of those who gaze half-unbelieving at
the passing away of the Russian phantom, part Ghoul, part Djinn, part Old
Man of the Sea, and wait half-doubting for the birth of a nation's soul
in this age which knows no miracles, the once-famous saying of poor
Gambetta, tribune of the people (who was simple and believed in the
"immanent justice of things"), may be adapted in the shape of a warning
that, so far as a future of liberty, concord, and justice is concerned:
"Le Prussianisme--voila l'ennemi!"



THE CRIME OF PARTITION--1919


At the end of the eighteenth century, when the partition of Poland had
become an accomplished fact, the world qualified it at once as a crime.
This strong condemnation proceeded, of course, from the West of Europe;
the Powers of the Centre, Prussia and Austria, were not likely to admit
that this spoliation fell into the category of acts morally reprehensible
and carrying the taint of anti-social guilt. As to Russia, the third
party to the crime, and the originator of the scheme, she had no national
conscience at the time. The will of its rulers was always accepted by
the people as the expression of an omnipotence derived directly from God.
As an act of mere conquest the best excuse for the partition lay simply