We gather from Liebknecht that the official shepherding of opinion in this regard goes as far as penal servitude and even capital punishment. The actual state of mind of a democratic remnant that may exist is, therefore, to us a clasped and sealed book. But we do know by the mere inner light of our own principles a great deal that is relevant. The decree of democracy to a whole nation, however bedevilled and misled, can never be one of unconditional destruction. It is not our message to the Germans. So long as their populations identify themselves with the policy of their present miscreant governments they must share their fate. Defeat and, after defeat, outlawry will be their portion. That outlawry will continue until the historical crime of 1914 is purged by chastisement. But the moment the first internal fissure appears a new order has begun. A Germany that has punished her own crowned and helmeted criminals will come before Europe in a very different guise from one that has naturally adopted them. The breaking away of Austria from Prussia--an unnatural alliance--will fix for us a very wide gulf between Austrian and Prussian. There have been wars in which the greatest internal changes took place without influencing the course of the conflict. The fall of Napoleon III did not bring the struggle of 1870 to an end. But the fall of Wilhelm II would undoubtedly bring this war to an end. If the Teutonic masses desire an early peace, and an early re-entry into the fabric of civilisation, they have but to destroy the false gods they adored. The diplomatist of the old pattern will tell us that these are fantastic suggestions. But the truth is that nothing could seem to our awakened eyes half as fantastic as the old diplomacy, with its suave blindness and sham omniscience. The new diplomacy should help to release imprisoned forces. The inner disruption of the Central Alliance is never very far from practical politics. When the full toll of blood and disillusionment, exacted by Hohenzollernism, comes to be realised, strange births may issue into being. So many men have died for liberty that we have no right to disbelieve in any of its possibilities. And so long as we adhere, as we must adhere, with a loyalty even meticulous, to the true cause and first spirit of the Allies, no such possibility is ruled out.