There is no trace of a design for this new instrument in any
of the German shops. The governors of Alsace-Lorraine offer no
suggestions. The bald fact is that there is no spot in the world where
the Germans govern another race and are not hated. They know this, and
are disquieted; they meet with coldness on all hands, and their remedy
for the coldness is self-assertion and brag. The Russian statesman was
right who remarked that modern Germany has been too early admitted into
the comity of European nations. Her behaviour, in her new international
relations, is like the behaviour of an uneasy, jealous upstart in an
old-fashioned quiet drawing-room. She has no genius for equality; her
manners are a compound of threatening and flattery. When she wishes to
assert herself, she bullies; when she wishes to endear herself, she
crawls; and the one device is no more successful than the other.
Might is Right; but the sort of might which enables one nation to govern
another in time of peace is very unlike the armoured thrust of the
war-engine. It is a power compounded of sympathy and justice.
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