§1. _Democracy and Peace._--First of all, the main assumption made by Englishmen who advocate the democratisation of foreign policy is that international peace would thereby be assured. True, the extension of the democratic principle is to many men an end in itself, quite apart from the question whether it tends to peace. But great masses of men are not moved to make political demands merely by theoretical considerations; it is the pressure of definite and imminent evils which arouses them to action. In the case of England the demand for greater democratic control in the sphere of foreign policy arose in large measure from the sudden realisation, in the late summer of 1911, at the time of the so-called Agadir crisis, that war between this country and Germany was a possibility with which English statesmen and the English people had to reckon. We had felt the breath of war actually on our cheek, and a large section of English sentiment revolted from it. A demand was raised for a democratic policy of peace. Three years later, on August 3, 1914, when Parliament met to decide the happiness or sufferings of the quarter of the human race comprised in the British Empire, the same demand was voiced in a series of speeches which accurately expressed the belief that peace was the policy of the people, while war was the secret aim of their rulers. Mr. T. Edmund Harvey, M.P., spoke as follows: "I am convinced that this war, for the great masses of the countries of Europe, and not for our own country alone, is no people's war. It is a war that has been made ... by men in high places, by diplomatists working in secret, by bureaucrats who are out of touch with the peoples of the world, who are the remnant of an older evil civilisation which is disappearing by gradual and peaceful methods." Mr. Ponsonby, M.P., spoke in the same sense: "I trust that, even though it may be late, the Foreign Secretary will use every endeavour to the very last moment, disregarding the tone of messages and the manner of Ambassadors, but looking to the great central interests of humanity and civilisation to keep this country in a state of peace." Democracy means peace;--can we accept this assumption? Contrasts are sometimes illuminating, and it may be well to turn from the Parliamentary debate of August 3 to an article written sixty-two years ago in an English review by the greatest democrat of his time. In April 1852 Mazzini published in the _Westminster Review_ an appeal to England to intervene on the Continent in favour of the revolutionary movements in progress there since 1848. The following is an extract from that article: