Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/76

 as to think that those of all other nations must resemble them; the truth being that the authority which one king has within his kingdom in no way resembles that of the neighbouring monarch, although the superficial likeness between royalty in every country is obvious to every eye.

There are, for instance, countries where it is not enough to be in agreement with the prince and his ministers, because there are other parties who share the national sovereignty with him and who have the power to resist his decisions or to make him change them. Of this state of affairs we have an excellent example in England, where the authority of Parliament frequently obliges the King to make peace or war against his own wish; or again in Poland, where the general Diets have an even more extended power, in which one single vote in the Diet may bring to nought the all but unanimous resolution of the assembly itself, and thus not only defeat the deliberations of that assembly but bring to nought the policy of the King and of the Senate. Therefore the good negotiator in such a country will know where to find the balance of domestic power in order to profit by it when occasion offers.

Bésides the general public interests of the state there are private and personal interests and ruling passions in princes and in their ministers or favourites, which often play a determining part in