An autocracy may be composed of men of the best private manners and principles. They frequently include the best poets, historians, novelists, philosophers, and teachers of the nation. It is they who encourage art, and set standards of taste in architecture, landscape gardening, and general culture. Compared with the leisure class of a prosperous industrial country they may be more courteous, more unassuming, and less given to offensive use of their wealth. They are the kind of men whom any of us could love if we knew them personally. These words do not, of course, apply to all members of the class, but to the group as a whole in ordinary conditions. Of the German autocracy most of these things can be said, and more. It is a hard working group and generally speaking it is honest. In the service of the state it has a record of efficient government that few democratic countries can show. The officials of German towns and cities, provinces and states, taken from the hereditary upper classes, are well trained, faithful, and free from the suggestion of corruption. It will take New York or Chicago many years to develop the state of good government that exists in Berlin. Moreover, the German autocracy has the respect of the German people. Up to last winter the Russian autocracy was an obstacle to peace. Many who looked forward to a reign of reason wondered how they were going to make the theory work while the largest _Entente_ nation was in the hands of an autocracy that was less tolerable than the German autocracy. Fortunately, fate has settled the question, for the time at least. So uncertain is the condition of affairs in Russia, that no one can say what will be the outcome. It is by no means certain that the peasants, workers, and soldiers, will not make actual war against the former autocrats, leading to a state of chaos like the worst phases of the French Revolution. If such a thing happens, a reaction in favor of the former ruling class may well follow. If the war ends before the newly established government is firmly seated in power some such upheaval may be expected. Certainly the time of danger is not yet passed. The German autocracy is better than that which ruled Russia. In fact, it would be less dangerous if it were less serviceable. Its sins are not the patent sins of peculation, cruelty, laziness, or despotism. It offends in that it takes away the confidence of nation in nation. It offends because it is filled with unfortunate purposes. It is possible to think of an autocracy that would be no menace for the peace of the world, an autocracy filled with no ambition for world conquest. It is true that most autocratic governments have not been of this kind, and they seem militarists by nature, whence arise the ideals with which they trouble the world.