Bennett believes, was lying in wait to spring on her back when Russia
had her by the throat. If Mr. Bennett is right, and I am a simpleton,
there is nothing more to be said. The Imperial Chancellor's plea of "a
state of necessity" is proved up to the hilt.

I did not omit to say that Germany regards our policy and our diplomacy
as extremely able and clear-sighted. I expressly and elaborately pointed
that out. Mr. Bennett, being an Englishman, is so flattered by the
apparent compliment from those clever Germans that he insists it is
deserved. I, being an Irishman and, therefore, untouched by flattery,
see clearly that what the Germans mean by able and clear-sighted is
crafty, ruthless, unscrupulous, and directed to the deliberate and
intentional destruction of Germany by a masterly diplomatic combination
of Russia, France and Great Britain against her, and I defend the
English and Sir Edward Grey in particular on the ground, first, that the
British nation at large was wholly innocent of the combination, and,
second, that even among diplomatists, guilty as most of them
unquestionably were and openly as our Junkers--like the German
ones--clamored for war with Germany, there was more muddle than
Machiavelli about them, and that Sir Edward never completely grasped the
situation or found out what he really was doing and even had a
democratic horror of war.

*Shaw's Excuses Scorned.*

But Mr. Bennett will not have any of my excuses for his unhappy country.
He will have it that the Germans are right in admiring Sir Edward as a
modern Caesar Bogia, and that our militarist writers are "of first class
quality," as contrasted with the "intense mediocrity" of poor Gen.
Bernhardi.

If Mr. Bennett had stopped there the Kaiser would send him the Iron
Cross, but of course, like a true born Englishman, he goes on to deny
indignantly that England has produced a militarist literature comparable
to Germany and to affirm hotly that Mr. Asquith is an honest man whose
bad arguments are "a genuine emotional expression of his convictions and
that of the whole country," and that Sir Edward Grey is an honest man,
and that he (Mr. Bennett) "strongly resents as Englishmen of all
opinions will resent any imputation to the contrary"--just what I said
he would say and that he entirely agrees with my denunciation of secret
diplomacy and undemocratic control of foreign policy and that I am a
perverse and wayward harlequin, mischievous, unveracious