'--England, France, and Russia--have joined hands,
and have delivered Europe from the incubus of German suzerainty.
German diplomacy has strained every effort to break the Triple
Entente, in turn wooing and threatening France and Russia, keeping
open the Moroccan sore as the Neapolitan _lazzarone_ keeps open the
wound which ensures his living, and finally challenging the naval
supremacy of England, and preparing to become as powerful at sea as
she is on the Continent."

V.--THE POLITICAL PREPARATION OF WAR.

"Precisely because the final issue will largely depend on the
personality of the soldier, the moral and civic preparation must be at
least as important as the technical, and here the Government has an
important part to play through the school and through the Press. _Both
the school and the Press must both persistently emphasize the meaning
and the necessity of war as an indispensable means of policy and of
culture_, and must inculcate the duty of personal sacrifice. To
achieve that end the Government must have its own popular papers,
whose aim it will be to stimulate patriotism, to preach loyalty to the
Kaiser, to resist the disintegrating influence of Social Democracy.

But not least important is the political preparation for the war.
Statesmanship and diplomacy confine themselves too much to
consolidating alliances and entering into new understandings. Nothing
could be more dangerous than to rely too much on treaties and
alliances. Alliances are not final. _Agreements are only conditional._
They are only binding, _rebus sic stantibus_, as long as conditions
remain the same--_as long as it is in the interest of the allies to
keep them_; for nothing can compel a State to act against its own
interest, and there is no alliance or bond in the world which can
subsist if it is not based on the mutual advantage of both parties. It
is therefore essential that the war shall be fought under such
conditions that it shall be in the interest of every ally to be loyal
to his engagements; and therefore it is essential for the State so to
direct and combine political events as to produce a conjuncture of
interests and to provoke the war at the most favourable moment."

VI.--THE IMAGINARY GERMAN GRIEVANCES.

"England cannot honestly admit the truth and reality of German
grievances. England cannot admit that in the past she has ever adopted
an attitude of contemptuous superiority towards the German people.
Still less can E