Tsar has promised to give independence to the country of Poland—­a point which forms a curious analogy with the same offer originally proposed by the Tsar’s ancestor, Alexander I. Of course, these do not exhaust by any means the changes that must be forthcoming.  Finland will have to be liberated; those portions of Transylvania which are akin to Roumania must be allowed to gravitate towards their own stock.  Italy must arrogate to herself—­if she is wise enough to join her forces with those of the Triple Entente—­those territories which come under the general title of “unredeemed Italy”—­the Trentino and Trieste, to say nothing of what Italy claims on the Adriatic littoral.  Possibly the greatest changes of all will take place in reference to the Slavs.  Servia and Montenegro will clearly wish to incorporate in a great Slav kingdom a great many of their kinsmen who at present are held in uneasy subjection by Austria.[9] Nor must we forget how these same principles apply to the Teutonic States.  If the principle of nationality is to guide us, we must preserve the German nation, even though we desire to reduce its dangerous elements to impotence.  Prussia must remain the home of all those Germans who accept the hegemony of Berlin, but it does not follow that the southern states of the German Empire—­who have not been particularly fond of their northern neighbours—­should have to endure any longer the Prussian yoke.  Lastly, the German colonies can hardly be permitted to remain under the dominion of the Kaiser.[10] Here are only a few of the changes which may metamorphose the face of Europe as a direct result of enforcing the principle of nationalities.

[9] The entrance of Turkey into the quarrel of course brings new factors into the ultimate settlement.

[10] Cf. Who is Responsible? by Cloudesley Brereton (Harrap), Chapter IV, “The Settlement.”

EUROPEAN PARTNERSHIP

But there is a further point to which Mr. Asquith referred, one which is more important than anything else, because it represents the far-off ideal of European peace and the peace of the world.  “We have got to substitute by a slow and gradual process,” said Mr. Asquith, “instead of force, instead of the clash of compelling ambition, instead of groupings and alliances, a real European partnership, based on the recognition of equal right and established and enforced by a common will.”  There we have the whole crux of the situation, and, unfortunately, we are forced to add, its main difficulty.  For if we desire to summarise in a single sentence the rock on which European negotiations from 1815 to 1829 ultimately split, it was the union of two such contradictory things as independent nationalities and an international committee or system of public law.  Intrinsically the two ideas are opposed, for one suggests absolute freedom, and the other suggests control, superintendence, interference.  If the one recognises the entire