In a word, the magnificent organisation and ordered national devotion of the German people make the conduct of England during the first year of the war seem clumsy, lazy, and full of danger for the future. For this the chief blame quite obviously falls on our statesmen. English soldiers have at least been second to none in the field: English artisans have, since the need was acknowledged, worked magnificently. It is the directing brain that was sluggish and incompetent. The magnitude of the sudden task does not excuse our rulers, nor does the very large service that was actually done--which I do not for a moment overlook--lessen the scandal. If a political machine does not know how to enlarge itself in less than twelve months to meet a new and very urgent task, especially a task that it ought to have foreseen, it is unfit to control our national destiny. Our governmental system has proved itself most dangerously and mischievously unfit to meet such a national emergency, and this catastrophic experience may encourage the reader to examine with patience the criticisms which I propose to pass on it. Here again we submit to the tyranny of a largely obsolete tradition. When the story of the development of human institutions can be written with a detachment of which we are yet incapable, one of the strangest pages will be that which tells of the evolution of Church and State. From the early days when some exceptionally powerful warrior is raised on his shield and saluted as chief or king, and when some weird individual earns the repute of being able to control or propitiate the mighty powers of the environing world, government and religion steadily advance to a commanding position in the life of the people. The two men of power, the king and the priest, must have establishments in accord with their value to the tribe, and the palace and the temple rise in spacious dignity above the mean cluster of huts. Time after time the race turns to examine the tradition which has been so deeply impressed on it, and kings and gods are cast from their thrones; but new dynasties always arise. Of Rome, no less than of Thebes or Nineveh, it is the monuments of kings and gods that survive. Only a few centuries ago the European city consisted mainly of two institutions: the palace and the cathedral. The bulk of the citizens huddled in squalid fever-stricken houses beyond the fringe of the estates of their secular and priestly rulers.