The worst sin of those who desire or seem to desire such a change is that of effecting a deterioration of the moral ideal of the Allies. This is no affair of fine words but of abiding realities. Either this is on our part a war into which we were forced by aggressive militarism--come to overt baseness in the Prussian breach of faith with Belgium and assault on peaceful France, and the Austrian blow of destruction at Serbia--or else it is a mere struggle for domination between greedy Powers. If it were the latter it would be wise to say no more of the antithesis between barbarism and civilisation. It would be wise to finish the nightmare of blood as well as we could, to pouch the spoils, and be silent. But since it is the former we must resist any debasement of purpose. Since it is a war for the ending of militarism it must include in its ultimate historical sweep the liberation of all peoples who desire liberation, even the Germans. So long as it continues unwarped from its original intention that hope may be fulfilled. Not only is a _locus pœnitentiæ_ left for the democracy which must one day arise even in Prussia, but much more is involved. An opportunity is given for that immediate repudiation of a government by a people which in the past has always taken the form of a revolution. Nobody is able to say dogmatically that there is any prospect of such a development within the Central Powers, and nobody is able to say dogmatically that there is not: we are not allowed to know. It is the habit of those countries to surround their frontiers with a wall of brass. We do catch, through the species of man like Liebknecht and Haase, certain rumblings and rumours of discontent, but cannot even guess at their significance. When certain writers profess to find the solidarity in crime of the whole body of the Germanic populations established by the absence of protest against notorious outrages they show little acquaintance with the condition of public opinion in these countries. Prussian militarism and intellectualism begin by lying to and mentally debauching their own citizens. Every German newspaper has represented the Zeppelin raids as successful attacks on purely military and naval establishments, any other damage being incidental and not designed. Till the end of the war the average ignorant peasant and mechanic will have heard no other story than that the _Lusitania_ was a war-ship treacherously disguised. One has only to read the German White Book on Belgium, as translated by Professor Morgan, to understand the sort of scientific denigration of that little people that has been invoked to justify so much of the tale of Louvain and Aerschot and the rest as has been allowed to penetrate to the masses. Penny editions of the Bryce Report do not circulate under either Habsburgs or Hohenzollerns. If fragments of the truth do find a surreptitious way in, the police are there to see that natural indignation shall not express itself.