the political
scheme advocated in this note.

Its success must depend on the singleness of purpose in the contracting
Powers, and on the wisdom, the tact, the abilities, the good-will of men
entrusted with its initiation and its further control. Finally it may be
pointed out that this plan is the only one offering serious guarantees to
all the parties occupying their respective positions within the scheme.

If her existence as a state is admitted as just, expedient and necessary,
Poland has the moral right to receive her constitution not from the hand
of an old enemy, but from the Western Powers alone, though of course with
the fullest concurrence of Russia.

This constitution, elaborated by a committee of Poles nominated by the
three Governments, will (after due discussion and amendment by the High
Commissioners of the Protecting Powers) be presented to Poland as the
initial document, the charter of her new life, freely offered and
unreservedly accepted.

It should be as simple and short as a written constitution can
be--establishing the Polish Commonwealth, settling the lines of
representative institutions, the form of judicature, and leaving the
greatest measure possible of self-government to the provinces forming
part of the re-created Poland.

This constitution will be promulgated immediately after the three Powers
had settled the frontiers of the new State, including the town of Danzic
(free port) and a proportion of seaboard. The legislature will then be
called together and a general treaty will regulate Poland's international
portion as a protected state, the status of the High Commissioners and
such-like matters. The legislature will ratify, thus making Poland, as
it were, a party in the establishment of the protectorate. A point of
importance.

Other general treaties will define Poland's position in the Anglo-Franco-
Russian alliance, fix the numbers of the army, and settle the
participation of the Powers in its organisation and training.

POLAND REVISITED--1915

I.

I have never believed in political assassination as a means to an end,
and least of all in assassination of the dynastic order. I don't know
how far murder can ever approach the perfection of a fine art, but looked
upon with the cold eye of reason it seems but a crude expedient of
impatient hope or hurried despair. There are few men whose premature
death could influence human affairs more than on the surface. The deeper