564 PROFESSOR LORIMER ON THE APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF 



that the territorial divisions of lb'48 or of 1713 should have been preserved to 

 our day, would their preservation have been just? Social existence of which 

 political organisation without the State, as within the state, must strive to become 

 the expression, is very far from having culminated in any direction. Not only 

 internal development but even external aggrandisement thus frequently result 

 from causes which are not only blameless, but in the highest degree commendable. 

 Take, for example, a process which is constantly going on amongst States of kindred 

 blood. The more progressive community constantly absorbs the less progressive, 

 not by physical, but by moral and intellectual conquest. Of this we have an 

 example in the action of Germany on Denmark, and indeed, I believe, on the 

 whole of Scandinavia. Whatever may be the real boundary line, for the present, 

 between Danes and Germans, I suppose there is not the least doubt that that line 

 is gradually shifting northwards ; or, in other words, that Danes are voluntarily 

 becoming Germans, and not Germans Danes. The cause is simply the greater 

 attractive power of the more numerous and more active body. Now, this change 

 is one made, not by States or governments at all, but by private individuals, in 

 the exercise of their private rights. Berlin and Vienna are more tempting fields 

 of enterprise than Copenhagen and Stockholm : the literature of Germany is 

 cosmopolitan, that of Scandinavia is local ; and ambitious Scandinavian parents 

 educate their sons — and ambitious Scandinavian youths educate themselves— not 

 for a Scandinavian, but a German career. What I have said of Germany and 

 Denmark was alleged of France and Savoy ; and the real justification of the 

 annexation was, not the pretended plebiscite, but the fact, if fact it was, that 

 the political absorption was only a formal recognition of a moral absorption 

 which had already deprived the lesser country of all the characteristics of a 

 separate state. Many Frenchmen will tell you that a similar process of moral 

 amalgamation is going on between France and Belgium. From what I remember 

 of Savoy twenty-five years ago, I should think the allegation, as regarded it, was 

 not altogether destitute of truth. As regards Belgium I shall offer no opinion ; 

 but this I will say, that if such facts ever do become faits accomplis, the sooner 

 they become faits de droit the better. 



In the effort, then, to struggle against inevitable change, and what at any rate 

 may be legitimate progress, in the systems in question, we have got hold of the 

 principle of finality, the first of the false principles which I indicated, and the 

 presence of which alone would, in my opinion, be sufficient to account for two 

 centuries of failure. Before we proceed to consider the possibility of its elimi- 

 nation from future schemes, let us turn to the other. 



The second principle, you will remember, was the absolute equality of all recog- 

 nised States, great and small. 



As to the fact of the presence of this principle in the schemes in question. I 

 must again presume on your historical and political knowledge. It was not the 



