stion. This much, however, may be said--that, even taking
the most unfavourable view of the results achieved by diplomacy, there
is nothing whatever in Mr. Miller's history to engender the belief that
better results would have been obtained by shifting the responsibility
to a greater degree from the shoulders of the executive to those of
Parliament. The evidence indeed rather points to an opposite conclusion.
For instance, Mr. Miller informs us that inopportune action taken in
England was one of the causes which contributed to the outbreak of
hostilities between Greece and Turkey in 1897. "An address from a
hundred British members of Parliament encouraged the masses, ignorant of
the true condition of British politics, to count upon the help of Great
Britain."

It is, however, quite true that a moralist, if he were so minded, might
in Mr. Miller's pages find abundant material for a series of homilies on
the vanity of human wishes, and especially of diplomatic human wishes.
But would he on that account be right in pronouncing a wholesale
condemnation of diplomacy? Assuredly not. Rather, the conclusion to be
drawn from a review of past history is that a small number of very
well-informed and experienced diplomatists showed remarkable foresight
in perceiving the future drift of events. So early as 1837 Lord
Palmerston supported Milosh Obrenovitch II., the ruler of Servia,
against Turkey, as he had "come to the conclusion that to strengthen the
small Christian States of the Near East was the true policy of both
Turkey and Great Britain." Similar views were held at a later period by
Sir William White, and were eventually adopted by the Government of Lord
Beaconsfield. An equal amount of foresight was displayed by some Russian
diplomatists. In Lord Morley's _Life of Gladstone_ (vol. i. p. 479) a
very remarkable letter is given, which was addressed to the Emperor
Nicholas by Baron Brunnow, just before the outbreak of the Crimean War,
in which he advocated peace on the ground that "war would not turn to
Russian advantage.... The Ottoman Empire may be transformed into
independent States, which for us will only become either burdensome
clients or hostile neighbours." It may be that, as is now very generally
thought, the Crimean War was a mistake, and that, in the classic words
of Lord Salisbury, we "put our money on the wrong horse." But it is none
the less true that had it not been for the Crimean War and the policy
subsequently