American Revolution, observes that the real case for the colonists is
that they felt that they could be something which England would not help
them to be. It is, in fact, the only case for separation. What may be
called the English tradition of democracy, which we inherit, grows
through conflicts and differences, through experiments and failures and
successes, toward an intellectualized unity,--experiments by states,
experiments by individuals, a widely spread development, and new
contributions to the whole.

Democracy has arrived at the stage when it is ceasing to be national and
selfish.

It must be said of England, in her treatment of her colonies subsequent
to our Revolution, that she took this greatest of all her national
blunders to heart. As a result, Canada and Australia and New Zealand
have sent their sons across the seas to fight for an empire that refrains
from coercion; while, thanks to the policy of the British Liberals--which
was the expression of the sentiment of the British nation--we have the
spectacle today of a Botha and a Smuts fighting under the Union Jack.

And how about Ireland? England has blundered there, and she admits it
freely. They exist in England who cry out for the coercion of Ireland,
and who at times have almost had their way. But to do this, of course,
would be a surrender to the German contentions, an acknowledgment of the
wisdom of the German methods against which she is protesting with all her
might. Democracy, apparently, must blunder on until that question too,
is solved.