enefit our
sorely-pressed country. Help is urgently needed, and there would be good
prospects of such law being passed in the Reichstag if the Government
does not disguise the true state of the political position.

Political preparations are not less essential than financial. We see
that all the nations of the world are busily securing themselves against
the attack of more powerful opponents by alliances or _ententes_, and
are winning allies in order to carry out their own objects. Efforts are
also often made to stir up ill-feeling between the other States, so as
to have a free hand for private schemes. This is the policy on which
England has built up her power in Europe, in order to continue her world
policy undisturbed. She cannot be justly blamed for this; for even if
she has acted with complete disregard of political morality, she has
built up a mighty Empire, which is the object of all policy, and has
secured to the English people the possibility of the most ambitious
careers. We must not deceive ourselves as to the principles of this
English policy. We must realize to ourselves that it is guided
exclusively by unscrupulous selfishness, that it shrinks from no means
of accomplishing its aims, and thus shows admirable diplomatic skill.

There must be no self-deception on the point that political arrangements
have only a qualified value, that they are always concluded with a tacit
reservation. Every treaty of alliance presupposes the _rebus sic
stantibus_; for since it must satisfy the interests of each contracting
party, it clearly can only hold as long as those interests are really
benefited. This is a political principle that cannot be disputed.
Nothing can compel a State to act counter to its own interests, on which
those of its citizens depend. This consideration, however, imposes on
the honest State the obligation of acting with the utmost caution when
concluding a political arrangement and defining its limits in time, so
as to avoid being forced into a breach of its word. Conditions may arise
which are more powerful than the most honourable intentions. The
country's own interests--considered, of course, in the highest ethical
sense--must then turn the scale. "Frederick the Great was all his life
long charged with treachery, because no treaty or alliance could ever
induce him to renounce the right of free self-determination."[A]

The great statesman, therefore, will conclude political _ententes_ or
alliances,