The British nation is loath to think evil of its neighbours. It generously credits them with the best--or at any rate the least wicked--motives, and, even when the evidence on the other side is overwhelming, gives them the benefit of the doubt. How strong the evidence was in this case I pointed out over and over again. In 1911, for instance, I wrote: “Since Europeanism was killed at Sedan and buried at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, over forty years ago, international treaties have been steadily losing their binding force. Their significance has been gradually transformed into that of historic souvenirs, symbolizing a given political conjuncture. To-day they are nothing more. The unique, solid foundation of peace that remains is readiness on the part of the peace Powers to defend it on the battlefield.” Optimists in this country objected that the German people and their Chancellor were peacefully disposed, and utterly averse to letting loose the horrors of an unparalleled war. And I replied that even if in a certain sense the optimists were right, the attitude of the German nation was beside the question. Nobody ever wants war, but only the spoils it brings. “Germany,” I explained, “having spent fabulous sums of money and human labour in creating an army greater in numbers and more formidable than that of any of her rivals, would consider the military superiority which this weapon bestows upon her as a title-deed to property belonging to her competitors. She would, accordingly, demand a return for her outlay, would call for the neighbour’s territory she coveted, and expect to receive it as a propitiatory sacrifice. War would not be her main object, but only the fruits of war, extorted by threats which are more than mere words. She would virtually say to France, Belgium, or Holland, ‘I have it in my power to take what I want from you, and to ruin you over and above. But I trust I may receive amicably from your sagacity what I should be forced to wrest violently from your shortsightedness.’ That is at bottom a modified form of the line of action pursued by the bandit barons of mediæval Germany, a robust survival into the twentieth century.” And it is exactly what has since happened. The White Paper tells the story of the German Kaiser’s attempt to induce our Government to connive at the seizure of France’s colonies, which Germany needed for her enterprising people.