towards international peace or war? On this issue, so vital for ourselves, we have two diametrically opposite schools of thought to guide us. These must be interrogated and cross-examined, for, according as we answer this question, our future course in Europe depends.
One side prophesies that the people will be all for peace. If so, goodwill among the nations will be the embrocation patented by democracy. These thinkers look forward confidently to the coming advent of that time, so long wished for and never yet realised, when nations shall finally lay aside the sword. The other side asserts precisely the opposite. It declares that demos will prove the very imp of international mischief, demos who, blatant with unruly passions and windy ignorance, will seek wars and ensue them. Thus the former agree with Mazzini that democracy is progress under the best and wisest; the latter endorse the verdict of Talleyrand that it is an aristocracy of roughs.
The latter opinion has, in our epoch, found its most convinced and impressive champions in Moltke on the continent, and in Lord Salisbury here. Moltke, speaking in the Reichstag upon the Army Bill of 1890, said, "princes and governments do not really bring about wars in our day. The era of cabinet wars is over. We have now only peoples' wars. The truth is that the factors which militate against peace are to be found in the people themselves." The German Imperial
