VII

REMEDIES

273

prosperous and magnificent between the ashes ofEussia and the ruin of Germany. Roumania , if onlyshe could be persuaded to keep up appearances alittle more, is a part of the same scatter-brainedconception. Yet, unless her great neighbours areprosperous and orderly, Poland is an economic im-possibility with no industry but Jew-baiting. Andwhen Poland finds that the seductive policy ofFrance is pure rhodomontade and that there is nomoney in it whatever, nor glory either, she willfall, as promptly as possible, into the arms of some-body else.

The calculations of " diplomacy" lead us, there-fore, nowhere. Crazy dreams and childish intrigue inRussia and Poland and thereabouts are the favouriteindulgence at present of those Englishmen andFrenchmen who seek excitement in its least inno-cent form, and believe, or at least behave as ifforeign policy was of the same genre as a cheapmelodrama.

Let us turn, therefore, to something more solid.The German Government has announced (October30, 1919) its continued adhesion to a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of Russia , "notonly on principle, but because it believes that thispolicy is also justified from a practical point of view."Let us assume that at last we also adopt the samestandpoint, if not on principle, at least from a prac-tical point of view. What are then the fundamental

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