DEMOCRACY can only thrive in a democratic setting; and while any powerful remnants of the dynastic tradition survive in the world, it is unlikely that democracy will be able to reach the full term of its own development. For the dynastic tradition is from the nature of the case of an incurably predatory character; and democracy will be arrested in its self-realisation by so much of the dynastic habit of thought and way of life as it may be necessary to retain in order to gain immunity from attack. It has been one of the commonplaces of the Great War that the democratic countries have been compelled to defend themselves against Prussianism by adopting the familiar Prussian methods of repression and regimentation. And what the war has actually provoked is always potentially present. So long as there are dynastic nations with highly centralised and omnicompetent authority and consequently in a more or less advanced state of preparation for military enterprise, it is not to be expected that their democratic neighbours will leave themselves at their mercy; and the common democratic rights of freedom—whether of the person or of thought—have to be so far permanently subject to curtailment and even entire suspension in the event of war. It is easy to say that once the danger is past, the former liberties will be automatically restored; but it does not so work out in actual fact. For authority is ever loth to relinquish any advantage it has gained; and there are always parties in every community who either on selfish or academic grounds are favourable to the curtailment of democratic rights. The restoration of these rights has commonly to be effected against the opposition of parties interested in their curtailment. It is a matter of common knowledge that powerful interests are already at work, for instance, to secure that the hard-won privileges of the Trade Unions shall not be restored to them; and we may expect to find very considerable and dangerous opposition to the re-establishment of those civil liberties which were suspended “for the duration of the war.” It is not likely, however, that this opposition can be long maintained. But it is certain that it will be some time after the close of the war before the domestic liberties of the democratic countries will be restored to the point which they had reached at the beginning of the war; and by so much democratic advance will have been retarded. I