l of perjury
in the present. Those interested in human origin may refer to an old
Victorian writer of English, who, in the last and most restrained of his
historical essays, wrote of Frederick the Great, the founder of this
unchanging Prussian policy. After describing how Frederick broke the
guarantee he had signed on behalf of Maria Theresa, he then describes how
Frederick sought to put things straight by a promise that was an insult.
"If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her
against any power which should try to deprive her of her other dominions,
as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise
could be of more value than the old one." That passage was written by
Macaulay, but so far as the mere contemporary facts are concerned, it might
have been written by me.

Upon the immediate logical and legal origin of the English interest there
can be no rational debate. There are some things so simple that one can
almost prove them with plans and diagrams, as in Euclid. One could make a
kind of comic calendar of what would have happened to the English
diplomatist if he had been silenced every time by Prussian diplomacy.
Suppose we arrange it in the form of a kind of diary.

July 24. Germany invades Belgium.

July 25. England declares war.

July 26. Germany promises not to annex Belgium.

July 27. England withdraws from the war.

July 28. Germany annexes Belgium. England declares war.

July 29. Germany promises not to annex France. England withdraws from the
war.

July 30. Germany annexes France. England declares war.

July 31. Germany promises not to annex England.

Aug. 1. England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England...

How long is anybody expected to go with that sort of game, or keep peace at
that illimitable price? How long must we pursue a road in which promises
are all fetishes in front of us and all fragments behind us? No: upon the
cold facts of the final negotiations, as told by any of the diplomatists in
any of the documents, there is no doubt about the story. And no doubt about
the villain of the story.

These are the last facts--the facts which involved England. It is equally
easy to state the first facts--the facts which involved Europe. The Prince
who practically ruled Austria was shot by certain persons whom the Austrian
Government believed to be conspirators from Servia. The Austrian Government
piled up arms and armies, but said n