A certain country, not strong enough to earn the respect of the Imperial Government, had shown that it is possible to mitigate the evils attendant on universal suffrage by means of minority representation, compulsory polling, and plural voting. In Germany, a reform involving one of these methods, or applying some other powerful brake to the electoral car, would have been easy to introduce at an auspicious moment. Even under a constitutional government, the bulk of the German nation, with many of its cravings satisfied, and with a long vista of world-wide supremacy and economic affluence before its eyes, would have offered no resistance to the Hohenzollern who returned from abroad with the laurels of a conqueror. This, I admit, is a mere hypothesis, but there is nothing improbable in it for one who knows the pugnacious bent of Prussian Conservatism. Yet every medal has its reverse, even the one stamped in advance with the effigy of William II., Emperor of Europe. If Germany emerges humbled and weakened for many a long year from a conflict in which the best-laid plans of victory will have been wrecked by unforeseen elements, the scaffolding of her ambitions will come down with a crash. When its rulers are called to account for their overweening confidence, the German people—if we exclude the chance of a revolution, an idea for which this country of innate discipline has little taste—will probably demand a limitation of the Emperor’s power in the form of a parliamentary system of real political liberty. In 1913, Count von Schwerin-Lowitz, President of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, said, in a Conservative meeting at some rural centre, that the Prussians, having been accustomed for centuries to feel themselves ruled by the iron hand of their kings, and being quite satisfied with their admirable officials, would never adapt themselves to the unstable guidance of a full parliamentary system. That may be: but Prussia proper—the Prussia that has known this “iron hand” for centuries—is not such a very large part of Germany. Of course, Parliamentarism, like every human institution, has its faults, great or small according to the temperament of the race concerned. Yet these faults, even in their worst form, seem trifling in comparison with the disasters of a European war, caused by the whim, the ambition, or the bad statesmanship of an autocrat. Few men will have done more harm to the monarchical principle than William II., who poses as its champion and knight-errant. Fortunately, the King of the Belgians, face to face with this Cæsar born out of his time, has shown how a really modern king may typify the soul of his people, a people resolved to fight to the death in order to preserve its independence.