Page:The History of The Great European War Vol 1.pdf/33

 so long as they do not infringe the rights of other States, great or small. Then, too, Britain fights for the preservation of the balance of power in Europe—that such a balance should be maintained is, and has been through all modern times, a cardinal policy of Great Britain. As regards international relations, we cannot and must not, if we have due regard for our own safety, submit even to the risk of any continental Power attaining to and maintaining such a political supremacy in Europe as would allow it naturally to dominate and govern, according to the dictates of its own unrestrained impulse, the rest of the European States.

And yet another principle stands out clearly as one for which Britain fights, and it may be that this principle is fundamentally the most important of all. It is that there shall not exist in Europe any dynastic domination at all. It is terrible enough to contemplate the domination of Europe by one all-powerful State, but it is still more terrible to contemplate the possibility of the destinies of Europe, and perhaps those of the civilised world, being determined by the selfish or even any other interest of mere reigning families or dynasties. So Britain, in arms, now challenges the domination of dynasties, whether Hapsburg or Hohenzollem. In other words, Britain now fights for the rights of peoples and nationalities, as represented by constitutional government, as against the arrogant pretensions of unconstitutional thrones.

It results from the foregoing that the Powers against whom we fight, Austria and Germany, stand for principles and policies which in the eyes and conscience of the British peoples are anathema. These Powers stand for repudiation at their own sweet will of any treaty obligations into which they may have entered. Considerations of right do not enter into their policies—might and self-interest are alone to operate. The great body of international law, which has developed so slowly but regularly during the last few centuries, and which has been regarded as one of the most outstanding indications of higher civilisation, is now, by Austria and Germany, to be set at naught. When one remembers how much that is best in that law is due to jurists of Germanic nationality, now, alas! passed away from the scene of their labour, this attitude of these two great Powers is very difficult indeed to understand. These Powers have desired, also, to create in Europe a dominating State or confederation of States which, having for a main object their own particular self-aggrandisement, is to become so powerful that no outside State or States can have any effective independent power of protest or opposition whatsoever. Such policies and methods mean in the end that the