not? As mere competitors in a race of armaments and an Olympic game
conducted with ball cartridge, or as plaintiffs in a technical case of
international law (already decided against us in 1870, by the way, when
Gladstone had to resort to a new treaty made _ad hoc_ and lapsing at the
end of the war) we might as well be beaten as not, for all the harm that
will ensue to anyone but ourselves, or even to ourselves apart from our
national vanity. It is as the special constables of European life that
we are important, and can send our men to the trenches with the
assurance that they are fighting in a worthy cause. In short, the Junker
case is not worth twopence: the Democratic case, the Socialist case, the
International case is worth all it threatens to cost.


*The German Defence to Our Indictment.*

What is the German reply to this case? Or rather, how would the Germans
reply to it if their official Militarist and Kaiserist panjandrums had
the wit to find the effective reply? Undoubtedly they would say that our
Social-Democratic professions are all very fine, but that our conversion
to them is suspiciously sudden and recent. They would remark that it is
a little difficult for a nation in deadly peril to trust its existence
to a foreign public opinion which has not only never been expressed by
the people who really control England's foreign policy, but is flatly
opposed to all their known views and prejudices. They would ask why,
instead of making an _Entente_ with France and Russia and refusing to
give Germany any assurance concerning its object except that we would
not pledge ourselves to remain neutral if the Franco-Russian _Entente_
fell on Germany, we did not say straight out in 1912 (when they put the
question flatly to us), and again last July when Sazonoff urged us so
strongly to shew our hand, that if Germany attacked France we should