established by the State, or resting in the discretion of the
State, is necessarily of the nature of an armistice, in effect
terminable at will and on short notice. It is maintained only on
conditions, stipulated by express convention or established by custom,
and there is always the reservation, tacit or explicit, that recourse
will be had to arms in case the "national interests" or the punctilios
of international etiquette are traversed by the act or defection of any
rival government or its subjects. The more nationally-minded the
government or its subject populace, the readier the response to the call
of any such opportunity for an unfolding of prowess. The most peaceable
governmental policy of which Christendom has experience is a policy of
"watchful waiting," with a jealous eye to the emergence of any occasion
for national resentment; and the most irretrievably shameful dereliction
of duty on the part of any civilised government would be its eventual
insensibility to the appeal of a "just war." Under any governmental
auspices, as the modern world knows governments, the keeping of the
peace comes at its best under the precept, "Speak softly and carry a big
stick." But the case for peace is more precarious than the wording of
the aphorism would indicate, in as much as in practical fact the "big
stick" is an obstacle to soft speech. Evidently, in the light of recent
history, if the peace is to be kept it will have to come about
irrespective of governmental management,--in spite of the State rather
than by its good offices. At the best, the State, or the government, is
an instrumentality for making peace, not for perpetuating it.

* * * * *

Anyone who is interested in the nature and derivation of governmental
institutions and establishments in Europe, in any but the formal
respect, should be able to satisfy his curiosity by looking over the
shoulders of the professed students of Political Science. Quite properly
and profitably that branch of scholarship is occupied with the authentic
pedigree of these institutions, and with the documentary instruments in
the case; since Political Science is, after all, a branch of theoretical
jurisprudence and is concerned about a formally competent analysis of
the recorded legal powers. The material circumstances from which these
institutions once took their beginning, and the exigencies which have
governed the rate and direction of their later growth a