ight and wrong is usually very clear, but it is not
so in public affairs. Even the moral aspects of political acts can
seldom be rightly estimated without the exercise of a large, judicial,
and comprehensive judgment, and the spirit which should actuate a
statesman should be rather that of a high-minded and honourable man of
the world than that of a theologian, or a lawyer, or an abstract
moralist.

In some respects the standard of political morality has undoubtedly
risen in modern times; but it is by no means certain that in
international politics this is the case. A true history of the wars of
the last half of the nineteenth century may well lead us to doubt it,
and recent disclosures have shown us that in the most terrible of
them--the Franco-German War of 1870--the blame must be much more equally
divided than we had been accustomed to believe. Very few massacres in
history have been more gigantic or more clearly traced to the action of
a government than those perpetrated by Turkish soldiers in our
generation, and few signs of the low level of public feeling in
Christendom are more impressive than the general indifference with which
these massacres were contemplated in most countries. It was made evident
that a Power which retains its military strength, and which is therefore
sought as an ally and feared as an enemy, may do things with impunity,
and even with very little censure, which in the case of a weak nation
would produce a swift retribution. Among the minor episodes of
nineteenth-century history the historian will not forget how soon after
the savage Armenian massacres the sovereign of one of the greatest and
most civilised of Christian nations hastened to Constantinople to clasp
the hand which was so deeply dyed with Christian blood, and then,
having, as he thought, sufficiently strengthened his popularity and
influence in that quarter, proceeded to the Mount of Olives, where, amid
scenes that are consecrated by the most sacred of all memories, and most
fitted to humble the pride of power and dispel the dreams of ambition,
he proclaimed himself with melodramatic piety the champion and the
patron of the Christian faith! How many instances may be culled from
very modern history of the deliberate falsehood of statesmen; of
distinct treaty engagements and obligations simply set aside because
they were inconvenient to one Power, and could be repudiated with
impunity; of weak nations annexed or plundered without a