re an enhanced national ascendancy, the
case for a neutral peace immediately becomes critical. And the greater
the number and diversity of pretensions and interests that are conceived
to be bound up with the national honour, the more unstable will the
resulting situation necessarily be.

The upshot of all this recital of considerations appears to be that a
neutral peace compact may, or it may not, be practicable in the absence
of such dynastic States as Germany and Japan; whereas it has no chance
in the presence of these enterprising national establishments.

No one will be readier or more voluble in exclaiming against the falsity
of such a discrimination as is here attempted, between the democratic
and the dynastic nations of the modern world, than the spokesmen of
these dynastic Powers. No one is more outspoken in professions of
universal peace and catholic amity than these same spokesmen of the
dynastic Powers; and nowhere is there more urgent need of such
professions. Official and "inspired" professions are, of course, to be
overlooked; at least, so charity would dictate. But there have, in the
historic present, been many professions of this character made also by
credible spokesmen of the German, and perhaps of the Japanese, people,
and in all sincerity. By way of parenthesis it should be said that this
is not intended to apply to expressions of conviction and intention that
have come out of Germany these two years past (December 1916). Without
questioning the credibility of these witnesses that have borne witness
to the pacific and genial quality of national sentiment in the German
people, it will yet be in place to recall the run of facts in the
national life of Germany in this historical present and the position of
these spokesmen in the German community.

* * * * *

The German nation is of a peculiar composition in respect of its social
structure. So far as bears on the question in hand, it is made up of
three distinctive constituent factors, or perhaps rather categories or
conditions of men. The populace is of course the main category, and in
the last resort always the main and decisive factor. Next in point of
consequence as well as of numbers and initiative is the personnel of the
control,--the ruling class, the administration, the official community,
the hierarchy of civil and political servants, or whatever designation
may best suit; the category comprises that pyramidal s