Suppose the Allies had said in December, 1918 (as they are in effect being brought to say in 1920): 'We are not going to play into the hands of your militarists by demanding the surrender of the Kaiser or the punishment of the war criminals, vile as we believe their offences to be. We are not going to stimulate your waning nationalism by demanding an acknowledgment of your sole guilt. Nor are we going to ruin your industry or shatter your credit. On the contrary, we will start by making you a loan, facilitating your purchases of food and raw materials, and we will admit you into the League of Nations.' We are coming to that. If it could have been our policy early instead of late, how different this story would have been. And the tragedy is this: To do it late is to cause it to lose its effectiveness, for the situation changes. The measures which would have been adequate in 1918 are inadequate in 1920. It is the story of Home Rule. In the eighties Ireland would have accepted Gladstonian Home Rule as a basis at least of co-operation. English and Ulster opinion was not ready even for Home Rule. Forty years later it had reconciled itself to Home Rule. But by the time Britain was ready for the remedy, the situation had got quite beyond it. It now demanded something for which slow-moving opinion was unprepared. So with a League of Nations. The plan now supported by Conservatives would, as Lord Grey has avowed, have assuredly prevented this War if adopted in place of the mere Arbitration plans of the Hague Conference. At that date the present League of Nations Covenant would have been adequate to the situation. But some of the self-same Conservatives who now talk the language of internationalism--even in economic terms--poured contumely and scorn upon those of us who used it a decade or two since. And now, it is to be feared, the Government for which they are ready will certainly be inadequate to the situation which we face. _'An evil idealism and self-sacrificing hates.'_