Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/95

 the press, and upon the restraints which they may freely and wisely accept.

But diplomacy will still remain, It will still be a means to ends. Those who have to conduct business between nations cannot, without detriment and disaster, violate the rules and methods that are essential to the conduct of business and to success. Instruments and agents may vary with conditions. They may come to be quite unexceptionable in work and character. But the need for circumspection is not likely to become less. For the conduct of international business, in whatsoever atmosphere of mind and morals, men who understand men and affairs will still be required. A Duke of Albany as drawn by the Earl of Surrey, son of the victor of Flodden, may still have a place and successors, but his is not the place of a discreet diplomatist.

Is it the picture of an open diplomatist? Travesty let it be: by no accession of the merit of plainness can the conduct of