s and digestions
were in better order. Nothing calms the nerves, increases confidence,
and lessens the chance of promiscuous quarrelling better than hard
work.

Even if what the German army has accomplished along these lines were
not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or
experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation,
when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies.
Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and
autocratic government, or she is lost. "Ohne Armee kein Deutschland."
She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her
safety as a nation. If Germany were governed as is France, where they
have had nine new governments since the beginning of the twentieth
century, and forty-four since the republic replaced the empire forty-one
years ago -- not counting six dismissals of the cabinet when the
prime minister remained -- or fifty changes of government in less than
that number of years, Germany would have lost her place on the map.
France remains only because, so far as defence is concerned, France is
France plus the British fleet.

Political geography is the sufficient reason for Germany's army and
navy. Let us be fair in these judgments and admit at once, that if
Japan were where Mexico is, and Russia where Canada is, and Germany
separated from us by a few hours' steaming, certain peace-mongers
would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would
have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb
runs, "It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window," and we indulge in
not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the
world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no
such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared
at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why
Germany offers little resistance to the ruling of an autocratic
militarism. The sailors and the stokers would rather obey captain and
officers, however they may have been chosen for them, than to be sunk
at sea; and nowadays Germany is ever on the high seas, battling hard
to protect and to increase her commerce abroad, and to protect her
huge industrial population at home. Germany can take no chances for
the moment, for only "Wer sich regiert, der ist mit Zufall fertig."

One wishes often that one's lips were not sealed, one's pen not stayed
by the imper