ng nations
of Europe knew little of the liberty of choice which has now become the
beacon of militant morality. The principle--if triumphant--will be
destructive of empire based on military force. It will be destructive of
war, for war is national compulsion in its most logical and
uncompromising form. If there is nothing and nobody to conquer, if you
may not use armies to widen your national frontiers, or to procure
valuable land for economical exploitation, the incentive to war will be
removed. The principle will be constructive of a commonwealth of
nations, and empires which have achieved a spiritual unity will survive
the change of form.

Nationality may be merely instinctive. It is characterized by the
my-country-right-or-wrong attitude, and knows not the difference between
Beelzebub and Michael. It is primitive and unreasoning. Nationality may
be compulsory--a sore grievance and a bitter reproach to existence. It
may be a matter of choice, free and deliberate, a source of joy and
social energy. Such nationality--whether inborn or acquired--is the best
and safest asset which a State can possess. It is generally supposed
that the naturalized subject must be disloyal in a case of conflict
between his country of adoption and his country of birth. Such a view
assumes that all sense of nationality is of the primitive and
unreasoning kind. It precludes all the psychological factors of
attraction, education, friendship, adoption, amalgamation. It is
ignorant of the fact that some of the bitterest enemies of Germany are
Germans, who have left Germany because they could stand her no longer.
These men have a much keener knowledge of her weak spots than the
visitors who give romantic accounts in newspapers of her internal state.
The whole process of naturalization may be rendered unnecessary and
undesirable by future developments in international co-operation. As
things are, it is a formal and legal confirmation of an allegiance which
must exist before the certificate of citizenship is sought. Once given,
the certificate should be honoured and the oath respected. To treat it
as a scrap of paper is unworthy of a State which upholds constitutional
rights. There are doubtless scoundrels amongst naturalized people. It
would be strange if there were not. But to proclaim that a naturalized
subject cannot love the country of his choice as much as the country of
his birth is as rational as the statement that a man cannot love his
wi