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 except the lofty ambition, as Mr. Joseph Choate said, "to establish a world-empire upon the ruins of the British Empire." Those who had this information could not make themselves heard; and thus it was that the propagandists had no need to vary the one story that was most useful to their purpose of keeping us in a state of unreasoning indignation, and accordingly they did not vary it.

In Europe and in England, however, the case was different. International relations were better understood by those who were closer to them than we were; more questions were raised and more demands made. Hence the Allied politicians and propagandists were kept busy upon the defensive. When from time to time the voice of popular discontent or of some influential body of opinion insisted on a statement of the causes of the war or of the war-aims of the Allies, they were confronted with the politician's traditional difficulty. They had to say something plausible and satisfactory, which yet must be something that effectively hid the truth of the situation. As the war hung on, their difficulty became desperate and they threw consistency to the winds, telling any sort of story that would enable them for the moment to "get by." The publication of the secret treaties which had been seined out [37]