A quarter of an hour passed, while the young man’s cigarette grew moister, and the elder man’s cigar shorter. Then the latter stirred, took it from under his grey moustache, looked critically at it, held it out a little way towards the other with the side which was least burned-down foremost, and said: “Unless you’d like to take it from the edge.” On the other hand one has often travelled in these last years with extreme embarrassment because our soldiers were so extraordinarily anxious that one should smoke their cigarettes, eat their apples, and their sausages. The marvels of comradeship they have performed would fill the libraries of the world. The second main new factor in the world’s life is the disappearance of the old autocracies. In 1910, walking in Hyde Park with a writer friend, I remember saying: “It’s the hereditary autocracies in Germany, Austria, and Russia which make the danger of war.” He did not agree――but no two writers agree with each other at any given moment. “If only autocracies go down in the wreckage of this war!” was almost the first thought I put down in writing when the war broke out. Well, they are gone! They were an anachronism, and without them and the bureaucracies and secrecy which buttressed them we should not, I think, have had this world catastrophe. But let us not too glibly assume that the forms of government which take their place can steer the battered ships of the nations in the very troubled waters of to-day, or that they will be truly democratic. Even highly democratic statesmen have been known to resort to the way of the headmaster at my old school, who put a motion to the masters’ meeting and asked for a show of hands in its favour. Not one hand was held up. “Then,” he said, “I shall adopt it with the greater regret.” Nevertheless, the essential new factor is, that, whereas in 1914 civilisation was on two planes, it is now, theoretically, at least, on the one democratic plane or level. That is a great easing of the world-situation, and removes a chief cause of international misunderstanding. The rest depends on what we can now make of democracy. Surely no word can so easily be taken in vain; to have got rid of the hereditary principle in government is by no means to have made democracy a real thing. Democracy is neither government by rabble, nor government by caucus. Its measure as a beneficent principle is the measure of the intelligence, honesty, public spirit, and independence of the average voter. The voter who goes to the poll blind of an eye and with a cast in the other, so that he sees no issue clear, and every issue only in so far as it affects him personally, is not precisely the sort of ultimate administrative power we want. Intelligent, honest, public-spirited, and independent voters guarantee an honest and intelligent governing body. The best men the best government is a truism which cannot be refuted. Democracy to be real and effective must succeed in throwing up into the positions