quite certain that until it becomes as voluntary as the parliamentary
government of Australia, and has been modified accordingly, it will
remain an artificial, precarious, and continually threatening political
structure. Nevertheless, we need not go to the opposite extreme and
conclude that a political constitution must fit a country so accurately
that it must be home-made to measure. Europe has a stock of ready-made
constitutions, both Monarchical and Republican, which will fit any
western European nation comfortably enough. We are at present
considerably bothered by the number of Germans who, though their own
country and constitution is less than a day's journey away, settle here
and marry Englishwomen without feeling that our constitution is
unbearable. Englishmen are never tired of declaring that "they do things
better abroad" (as a matter of fact they often do), and that the ways of
Prussia are smarter than the ways of Paddington. It is therefore quite
possible that a reach-me-down constitution proposed, not by the
conquerors, but by an international congress with no interest to serve
but the interests of peace, might prove acceptable enough to a nation
thoroughly disgusted with its tyrants.


*Physician: Heal Thyself.*

Now a congress which undertook the Liberalization of Germany would
certainly not stop there. If we invite a congress to press for a
democratization of the German constitution, we must consent to the
democratization of our own. If we send the Kaiser to St. Helena (or
whatever the title of the Chiselhurst villa may be) we must send Sir
Edward Grey there, too. For if on the morrow of the peace we may all
begin to plot and plan one another's destruction over again in the
secrecy of our Foreign Office, so that in spite of Parliament and free