MILITARISM AND PARTY-POLITICS 391 



men to stay the German torrent, and it was swept back like 

 a broken branch in a spate, leaving brave Belgium to her 

 fate. When history comes to tell the whole story it will not 

 exonerate us. Certainly the chief offender was the aggressive 

 one ; but the rich man who remains unarmed in the presence of 

 thieves cannot pass altogether unblamed. As our soldiers 

 pointed out over and over again, the international equilibrium 

 was rendered unstable by the excessive weakness of any one 

 nation. Especially if that nation was the richest of all did she 

 invite attack if unprepared. Every possible means was at- 

 tempted to persuade our politicians of our military weakness. 

 Leagues were formed for the purpose, innumerable meetings 

 were held, and our most distinguished soldier led the way in 

 his Cassandra-like prophecies. They all failed ; our politicians 

 pinned their faith upon the navy ; but they gave guarantees and 

 formed tacit alliances without having sufficient means to meet 

 their obligations ; and they will be judged accordingly. 



Just as there is a good and a bad militarism, so there is a 

 good and a bad popular government. Aggressive militarism is 

 a disease of aristocratic government and party-politics is a 

 disease of democracy. Neither is essential to the form of govern- 

 ment concerned. Democracy is government by free discussion ; 

 but free discussion does not necessarily imply party discussion — 

 on the contrary it excludes it. As every man of science knows, 

 in order to reach the truth free discussion must first consider all 

 the related facts and then form an unbiassed judgment. But the 

 very nature of party-politics is that the final judgment should be 

 trammelled by the exigencies of the party. Thus party-politicians 

 seldom judge honestly and therefore seldom reach the truth. It 

 is absolutely allowable that two parties may form themselves in 

 the discussion of a single question ; but in the discussion of two 

 independent questions, there should therefore be four parties, 

 and in the discussion of three independent questions there should 

 be eight parties. How comes it then that, however many inde- 

 pendent questions there may be before the country, only two 

 parties exist ? Because the politicians throw over some of their 

 convictions in order to keep well with their side. Thus truth 

 is never reached, and the utterance of a party-politician is utterly 

 worthless on any question which is touched by his politics. We 

 cannot trust him, for we never know whether his professed 

 opinion is genuine. It is useless for him to declare that his 



