who owed France a return for her assistance in the creation of a unified Italy. France had forgotten that both had grievances against her, for in that war France had dismembered Austria in favour of Italy and Italy in favour of herself, another fact which was present to the minds of Englishmen, who could not see why what was right when she won should be wrong when she lost.

At dinner at an Alsatian friend's house some years I sat next an old Alsatian Roman Catholic priest.

ago

By the way, I may mention that my friend was a

Protestant Alsatian and that he was and is a friend and supporter of the well-known French Pastor Wagner. We spoke about the feeling in Alsace, and he told me it was very difficult to say what the true feeling was. This, however, he thought might be taken for granted: nobody in Alsace wanted the problems of its political status to be solved by war. Every Alsatian was sensible enough to see that to reunite Alsace to France, as the result of a French victory over Germany, would only move the spirit of revanche from one side of the Rhine to the other. Alsatians were not unhappy under the French régime, with all its faults-one of which was that under Napoleon III. Alsace had been as much subject to the French "foreigner" who did not understand their language as to the German "foreigner" now who does not understand their feelings. The cast-iron PolizeiVerordnungen of the German régime the Alsatians, however, find it very hard to bear. But, he added, the cast-iron method was necessary at first. Under the French the reins of government had got out of

hand, and at Mulhouse the rowdyism of the " young bloods" had become scandalous. The Germans soon put an end to it, and military discipline quenched their super-abundant high spirits with ruthless severity. "Na," he wound up, "es ist ja nix volkommen in der Welt. Die Franzosen sind ei' gutes aber närrisches Volk. Die Deutschen meinen es auch gut. Ein bischen närrischer könnten sie sein." ("Aye, there is no perfection in the world. The French are good folk, though a bit crazy. The Germans mean well, but might be a bit crazier.")

In an Australian matter I had to advise upon at the beginning of the present century, I had an opportunity of hearing the views of an Alsatian for whom I was acting. His firm had its factory in Alsace and a large place of business in the Quartier du Sentier in Paris. The French and German consuls were vying with each other to help him in the Australian city where the trouble had arisen. He had served as a volunteer in one of Gambetta's improvised armies and was still a Frenchman, and in his family in Alsace kept alive the French tradition, but, he added, that did not mean that Alsace cherished any desire to be the subject-matter (l'enjeu) of a war. Alsace had never been so prosperous as she had become. She had a larger and expanding market for her goods, and practically no competition in Germany, and abroad in neutral markets the German Empire was not a bad trade-mark.

"Then, if there were a referendum, would Alsace vote for re-annexation to France ?"

"Monsieur," he answered, "Vous me posez une question bien cruelle !"

I remember once at lunch M. Grévy discussing a matter of internal policy on which it was desirable that two leading men should agree and whose disagreement was a source of embarrassment in the Republican party.

66 Que conseillez vous, Monsieur le Président?" asked a perplexed statesman.

"Les faire causer."

"Mais ils ne s'entendraient jamais?"

"C'est une bonne chose même de constater pourquoi."

It was very wise advice and a coalition followed.

I often wonder whether, if on the same wise plan four wise Frenchmen and four wise Germans met and talked over Franco-German relations the result would be entirely negative. Ils ne s'entendraient pas, no doubt, and yet they might constater pourquoi.

Suppose they met in London as the guests of Lord Rosebery, one of the wise men of this country and an independent one. Suppose they did not agree, but Lord Rosebery, in the abundance of his wisdom, suggested that they tried again six months or so later, and that this time they added a few more men to the council, and if they could not come to a conclusion they adjourned again and tried a third time, no results to be made known, no banquets to be given in their honour, no histrionic mise-en-scène to encourage interest or criticism!

"A pretty dream!" as Count Moltke said of trying to make wars less necessary, but it is not psycho

logically wrong, if there be any truth in the adage

about forteresse qui parle, femme qui écoute !

幣

England, it seems to me, is at present in such a position that she might play the part between France and Germany that France has played between England and Russia. Her place in contemporary diplomacy as the friend of both is unique. May God give her the statesmen capable of fulfilling the noblest mission which has ever come within the scope of her destiny.

CHAPTER XXVII

AFTERWORDS

ONE night in October, 1909, in the lift ascending to my room at the National Liberal Club, I met Mr. Gulland, M.P., now the Scottish Whip. Gulland and I had raided the Edinburgh schools together a couple of years before. We were both educationists, as all true Scots are. He asked me where I was going to stand as if it were a foregone conclusion that I should be a candidate somewhere. As I was not, he asked me whether he might speak to the Whips on the subject. The next day I had a letter from Mr. Pease, the Chief Liberal Whip, who told me that the Blackburn Liberals wanted a Liberal candidate to wrest the seat from the Conservatives. It is a double-barrelled constituency, which had been represented by Sir H. Hornsby, who was retiring, and Mr. Philip Snowden, who represented it as Labour member. A deputation, headed by my now good friend, Alderman Hamer, came to see me in London, and I went down to Blackburn and was adopted. I had a vague idea that my knowledge of British international trade relations and foreign policy might be useful, being, in a sense, unique, and I had chosen a Lancashire division, though the chances in a general way were not as great as in some other possible constituencies. But I had had some experience of Blackburn men. A couple of years before over a hundred of its citizens under the guidance of the Rev.