Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/78

 approval, but require the active co-operation, of the community. In methods adopted for a definite end, democracy may be secretive, repressive, arbitrary. A 'free government' (to continue the language of an earlier day) is still government. It cannot evade the tests of success to which all government is subject. A 'government by consent' (the now approved definition of democracy) may accept a one-man power and ascendancy—a Pericles or an Abraham Lincoln, a military dictator, or a soldier-statesman, and not merely a War Cabinet. Still, a constitution that is predominantly monarchic differs from a constitution that is predominantly democratic and parliamentary in requiring less regular, less continuous, and less immediate dependence on the expressed or ascertainable will of the nation or of the majority or the stronger part of those who are invested with political rights and power. A democratic constitution may be held to be necessary in domestic government in a modern State, but may, without inconsistency, be condemned, or in essentials curtailed, in its application to international policy. The spheres of application are different. In seeking to shape and control foreign policy the politically enfranchised majority of a people are passing beyond the concerns of one nation—their own—to those of others. In these others the methods adopted may not be in consonance with freedom of discussion and unrestrained publicity. They may be methods that recognize, tacitly or frankly, that rule has its mysteries, its rites, and even its hierarchy. In them special capacity may be assigned -its sphere and may inspire confidence; or particular ways and means may be on their trial. Against monarchy and despotism, however, charges of vacillation due to whims and jealousies, as well as to limits of knowledge and capacity, have been many. The materials for such charges were abundant in Russia before she had fixed her purpose in an Eastern policy, and before she had a tradition