policy, vitally urgent as their claims may be. It is the merit of
Goldscheid's little book that--with faith in a future United States of
Europe in which every country would develop its own peculiar aptitudes
freely and harmoniously--he is able to look at the War from that
European standpoint which is so rarely attained in England. He sees
that more is at stake than a mere question of national rivalries; that
democracy is at stake, and the whole future direction of civilisation.
He looks beyond the enmities of the moment, and he knows that, unless
we look beyond them, we not only condemn Europe to the prospect of
unending war, we do more: we ensure the triumph of Reaction and the
destruction of Democracy. "War and Reaction are brethren"; on that
point Goldscheid is very sure, and he foretells and laments the
temporary "demolition of Democracy" in England. We have only too much
reason to believe his prophetic words, for since he wrote we have had
a Coalition Government which is predominantly democratic, Liberal and
Labour, and yet has been fatally impelled towards reaction and
autocracy.[8] That the impulse is really fatal and inevitable we cannot
doubt, for we see exactly the same movement in France, and even in
Russia, where it might seem that reaction has so few triumphs to achieve.
"The blood of the battlefield is the stream that drives the mills of
Reaction." The elementary and fundamental fact that in Democracy the
officers obey the men, while in Militarism the men obey the officers,
is the key to the whole situation. We see at once why all reactionaries
are on the side of war and a military basis of society. The fate of
democracy in Europe hangs on this question of adequate pacification.
"Democratisation and Pacification march side by side."[9] Unless we
realise that fact we are not competent to decide on a sound European
policy. For there is an intimate connection between a country's external
policy and its internal policy. An internal reactionary policy means an
external aggressive policy. To shut out English influence from Germany,