If you examine the difficulties enumerated by the sponsors of great centralizing measures, such as national prohibition, the national child labor amendment, federal control of education or the nationalization of railroads, they are reducible, I think, to one dominating idea: that it is necessary to extend the area of control over all the factors in a problem or the problem will be insoluble anywhere. It was to this idea that Mr. Lloyd George appealed when he faced his critics at the end of his administration. While his words are the words of a skilful debater, the idea behind them might almost be called the supreme motive of all the imperial and centralizing tendencies of the Great Society: “Lord Grey sought to make peace in the Balkans. He made peace. That peace did not stand the jolting of the train that carried it from London to the Balkans. It fell to pieces before it ever reached Sofia. That was not his fault. The plan was good. The intentions were excellent. _But there were factors there which he could not control._ He tried to prevent the Turks from entering the war against us, a most important matter. German diplomacy was too strong for him. He tried to prevent Bulgaria from entering the war against us. There again German diplomacy defeated us. Well, now I have never taunted Lord Grey with that. I do not taunt him now, but what I say is that when you get into the realm of foreign affairs there are things I will not say you cannot visualize, because you do, but there are factors you cannot influence.”[38] Mr. Lloyd George might have said the same of domestic affairs. There, too, factors abound which you cannot influence. And as empires expand to protect their frontiers, and then expand further to protect the protections to their frontiers, so central governments have been led step by step to take one interest after another under their control. 2 For the democracies are haunted by this dilemma: they are frustrated unless in the laying down of rules there is a large measure of assent; yet they seem unable to find solutions of their greatest problems except through centralized governing by means of extensive rules which necessarily ignore the principle of assent. The problems that vex democracy seem to be unmanageable by democratic methods. In supreme crises the dilemma is presented absolutely. Possibly a war can be fought for democracy; it cannot be fought democratically. Possibly a sudden revolution may be made to advance democracy; but the revolution itself will be conducted by a dictatorship. Democracy may be defended against its enemies but it will be defended by a committee of safety. The history of the wars and revolutions since 1914 is ample evidence on this point. In the presence of danger, where swift and concerted action is required, the methods of democracy cannot be employed.