there except passively allowing the Indians to do as they like; their native princes are even permitted to retain a regal dignity and independence; all religions, and even the caste system so intimately associated with religion, are respected and even protected by Great Britain; and their social and political institutions and organisations are likewise tolerated and even protected by Great Britain. Britain, therefore, in Prussia's eyes, retains possession of India simply because India herself prefers that Britain should; India is waiting only for that day when Britain is engaged in some great struggle for self-preservation, when her peoples will at once seize the opportunity and strike a blow for their own freedom, and watch with eager pleasure the ruin of British power.
Prussia points also to our Colonies, and laughs at the suggestion that Britain governs these Colonies. We let Canada, Australasia, British South Africa, each do as she will! Canada we allow even to negotiate and conclude commercial treaties with other States; South Africa deals with her own problems, for instance with the labour problem, entirely in her own fashion, though that be entirely different to the one adopted in Britain herself; and so on with all the Colonies. Therefore, think the Pan-Germanists, when the great day comes and Britain has to fight for her existence, she will find that she will fight as an isolated island in the North Sea, her Colonies and India quite indifferent to her fate and determined to let her fight alone and so, passively, obtain their own independence. "England," wrote Treitschke, "stronger in appearance than in reality, will, without any doubt, see her Colonies detach themselves from her and exhaust themselves in fruitless struggles." We shall see how the Kaiser himself, by continuous cunning intrigue, has done his best to assist in creating in our Colonies a spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction with British empire.
Now the characteristic absolutism of the Kaiser is quite consistent with, and is largely the source of, the political principles which are now, and have been for many years since, taught and practised in the German Empire. That teaching and practice has resolved itself into a body of doctrine and scheme of action which is called Pan-Germanism.
The first principle is one which is perhaps universally adhered to in modern international politics, and is not peculiar to the politics of the Kaiser. This principle is not perhaps often, or very widely, stated in cold print, but nevertheless it does exist as one of the fundamental principles of international dealings. It is, that international ethics are comparable to
