lescence, would be, e.g., the French monarchy of the
ancient regime, the Spanish Inquisition, the British corn laws and the
"rotten boroughs," the Barbary pirates, the Turkish rule in Armenia, the
British crown, the German Imperial Dynasty, the European balance of
powers, the Monroe Doctrine. In some sense, at least in the sense and
degree implied in their selective survival, these various articles of
institutional furniture, and many like them, have once presumably been
suitable to some end, in the days of their origin and vigorous growth;
and they have at least in some passable fashion met some felt want; but
if they ever had a place and use in the human economy they have in time
grown imbecile and mischievous by force of changing circumstances, and
the question is not how to replace them with something else to the same
purpose after their purpose is outworn. A man who loses a wart off the
end of his nose does not apply to the _Ersatz_ bureau for a convenient
substitute.

Now, a large proportion, perhaps even substantially the whole, of the
existing apparatus of international rights, pretensions,
discriminations, covenants and provisos, visibly fall in that class, in
so far as concerns their material serviceability to the nation at large,
and particularly as regards any other than a warlike purpose, offensive
or defensive. Of course, the national dignity and diplomatic punctilio,
and the like adjuncts and instrumentalities of the national honour, all
have their prestige value; and they are not likely to be given up out of
hand. In point of fact, however solicitous for a lasting peace these
patriotically-minded modern peoples may be, it is doubtful if they could
be persuaded to give up any appreciable share of these appurtenances of
national jealousy even when their retention implies an imminent breach
of the peace. Yet it is plain that the peace will be secure in direct
proportion to the measure in which national discrimination and prestige
are allowed to pass into nothingness and be forgot.

* * * * *

By so much as it might amount to, such neutralisation of outstanding
interests between these pacific nations should bring on a degree of
coalescence of these nationalities. In effect, they are now held apart
in many respects by measures of precaution against their coming to a
common plan of use and wont. The degree of coalescence would scarcely be
extreme; more particularly it could not