The question of the future relations of England and Germany may, indeed, be said to lie on a higher plane than that of interest and policy, vitally urgent as their claims may be. It is the merit of Goldscheid's little book that--with faith in a future United States of Europe in which every country would develop its own peculiar aptitudes freely and harmoniously--he is able to look at the War from that European standpoint which is so rarely attained in England. He sees that more is at stake than a mere question of national rivalries; that democracy is at stake, and the whole future direction of civilisation. He looks beyond the enmities of the moment, and he knows that, unless we look beyond them, we not only condemn Europe to the prospect of unending war, we do more: we ensure the triumph of Reaction and the destruction of Democracy. "War and Reaction are brethren"; on that point Goldscheid is very sure, and he foretells and laments the temporary "demolition of Democracy" in England. We have only too much reason to believe his prophetic words, for since he wrote we have had a Coalition Government which is predominantly democratic, Liberal and Labour, and yet has been fatally impelled towards reaction and autocracy.[8] That the impulse is really fatal and inevitable we cannot doubt, for we see exactly the same movement in France, and even in Russia, where it might seem that reaction has so few triumphs to achieve. "The blood of the battlefield is the stream that drives the mills of Reaction." The elementary and fundamental fact that in Democracy the officers obey the men, while in Militarism the men obey the officers, is the key to the whole situation. We see at once why all reactionaries are on the side of war and a military basis of society. The fate of democracy in Europe hangs on this question of adequate pacification. "Democratisation and Pacification march side by side."[9] Unless we realise that fact we are not competent to decide on a sound European policy. For there is an intimate connection between a country's external policy and its internal policy. An internal reactionary policy means an external aggressive policy. To shut out English influence from Germany, to fortify German Junkerism and Militarism, to drive Germany into the arms of a yet more reactionary Russia, is to create a perpetual menace, alike to peace and to democracy, which involves the arrest of civilisation. However magnanimous the task may seem to some, it is not only the interest of England, but England's duty to Europe, to take the initiative in preparing the ground for a clear and good understanding with Germany. It is, moreover, only through England that France can be brought into harmonious relations with Germany, and when Russia then approaches her neighbour it will be in sympathy with her more progressive Western Allies and not in reactionary response to a reactionary Germany. It is along such lines as these that amid the confusion of the present we