8 Mr. H. Wickham Steed [Jan. 30, 



frowned upon less because it is falsehood than because it is blunder- 

 ing. Tlie difference between a supremely expert and a less expert 

 diplomatist may sometimes be defined in the terms of the comparison 

 once made between the methods of Talleyrand and those of Metternich. 

 " M. de Talleyrand," said a contemporary observer, " deceives without 

 lying ; M. de Metternich lies without deceiviug." But were the possi- 

 bilities of diplomacy confined to this sort of exercise, diplomacy would 

 deserve to rank with the less exalted but unquestionably dexterous pro- 

 fession of thimble-rigging. Diplomacy involves other possil)ilities, 

 and draws such respectability as it may possess from other assumptions. 

 These assumptions are that behind the words and gestures of an 

 ambassador stands the resolve of the State which he represents, 

 and that behind the State stand the people of his country, determined 

 to spend their blood and treasure in making good the claims of their 

 accredited representative. But what are to-day the causes for which 

 a nation would be ready to spend its treasure or shed its blood ? 

 What are the issues on which it would be prepared to stake its 

 existence ? The old spirit of the Crusades is dead. The old wars 

 of religion are past, the causes of oppressed nationalities no longer 

 appeal dynamically to the emotions of civilized communities. The 

 idea that war is justifiable when its object, or its effect, may be to 

 spread notions of liberty and justice among neighbouring peoples, 

 as the French Revolutionary and Xapoleonic armies spread political 

 enlightenment in several parts of Germany, now appears ridiculous. 

 For one nation to risk a conflict with another over a mere question 

 of justice or humanity seems inconceivable. To fight for a railway 

 or other industrial concession would surely be more rational and 

 legitimate. Side by side with the shrinkage of moral forces proceeds 

 the intertwining of financial and commercial interests that is supposed 

 to be making of bankers and merchants the supreme arbiters of inter- 

 national affairs. In point of fact, there are few worse guides in 

 foreign poKcy than internatioual moneylenders. While nations are 

 thus losing their moral impulses, they are piling up against each 

 other the most terrific armaments the world has yet seen, and have, 

 by thought and labour, attained a poiut of progress at which a 

 battleship stationed in Mid-Channel could effectively and simul- 

 taneously bombard both Calais and Dover, unless it were blown up 

 by an invisible submarine from below or sunk by explosives dropped 

 from an almost invisible aeroplane above. Happy the era that can 

 celebrate such triumphs I Yet the significant fact remains that 

 hardly one of the nations which wield these fearful engines of 

 destruction is, as a nation, conscious of any cause, save that of 

 eventual self-defence, for which it would employ its armaments with 

 the vigour, the spirit of organized self-sacrifice, the pertinacious 

 courage which alone could make their employment thoroughly eft'ec- 

 tive. Nations conduct their intercourse with timorous, suspicious 

 hearts, encased in iron and bristling with the means of murder. 



