grown as accustomed to it and as
unconscious of it as of the air we breathe. Thus Englishmen, as their
attitude towards Ireland has shown, find it difficult to understand exactly
what the principle of nationality means to those who have never possessed
national freedom or are in constant danger of losing it. This is perhaps
especially true of the English working classes, who grew to the full
stature of political consciousness some fifty years after the last serious
threat to our national existence was made by Napoleon, and upon whom the
burden of the social idea presses with peculiar weight. And yet, unless
the significance of the principle of nationality and the part which it has
played in the history of modern Europe be realised, it is impossible to
enter fully into the true meaning of the present tremendous conflict.

What then is nationality? The question is more difficult to answer than
appears at first sight. A nationality is not quite the same thing as a
nation. For example, there is a German nation, ruled by the Kaiser
Wilhelm II., but this does not include twelve million people of German
nationality who are the subjects of the Emperor of Austria; or again,
there is the Swiss nation, which is made up of no less than three distinct
nationalities. Still less are the terms state and nationality synonymous;
for, if they were, then the natives of India might claim to be of the same
nationality as ourselves, or, _vice versa_, the United States would be
regarded as part of the British Empire because a large proportion of their
inhabitants happen to be of British descent. The word "race" brings us
somewhat nearer to the point, but even this will not satisfy us when we
remember that the Slavonic race, for example, consists of a large number of
nationalities, such as the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs, the Serbs, the
Montenegrins, etc., or that the English (as distinguished from the other
three nations of the United Kingdom) belong to the same Teutonic race as
the Germans. Nevertheless, a belief, whether well grounded or not, in
a common racial origin is one of the root principles of the idea of
nationality.

"What is a nation?" the great Magyar nationalist, Kossuth, asked a Serb
representative at the Hungarian Diet of 1848. The reply was: "A race
which possesses its own language, customs, and culture, and enough
self-consciousness to preserve them." "A nation must also have its own
government," objected Kossuth. "We do