Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/162

 "In Spain, too, the Gothic blood long preponderated; and the same in Italy, where the Germans had also taken the lead in the northern provinces; when that died away, farewell to order. It was much the same in Russia where the German Waräger, the Ruriks, first gathered. If the national party were to overcome the Germans who have settled there, or those who cross over from the Baltic provinces, the people would not remain capable of an orderly constitution."

But he goes on to show that within their own territories the "pure-blooded Germans" had a fatal tendency to split up into what are called "parties" in politics and "sects" in religion.

"In our South and West, for example, when they were left to themselves, there was nothing but Knights of the Empire, Towns of the Empire, and Villages of the Empire; each for itself, so that the whole thing went to pieces. The Germans are all right when they are united by compulsion or by anger, then they are excellent, irresistible, invincible,—otherwise, every man 'gangs his ain gait.'"

It is suggestive that he should thus emphasise his meaning by a Lowland Scotch proverb!

On another occasion he pithily contrasts this