ch. v LEGALITY OF CLAIM FOR PENSIONS 135

evidence is against me, but that there are a fewjust plausible, or just not-negligible, observationsto be made on the other side. Their contention isthat of the Jesuit professors of Probabilism in theseventeenth century, namely, that the Allies arejustified unless it is absolutely certain that theyare wrong, and that any probability in their favour,however small, is enough to save them frommortal sin.

But most people in the countries of Germany 'sformer enemies are not ready to excite themselvesvery much, even if my view is accepted. The passageat the head of this chapter describes a commonattitude. International politics is a scoundrel's gameand always has been, and the private citizen canscarcely feel himself personally responsible. If ourenemy breaks the rules, his action may furnish uswith an appropriate opportunity for expressing ourfeelings ; but this must not be taken to commit usto a cool opinion that such things have neverhappened before and must never happen again.Sensitive and honourable patriots do not like it, butthey " more or less shrug " their shoulders.

There is some common sense in this. I cannotdeny it. International morality, interpreted as acrude legalism, might be very injurious to the world.It is at least as true of these vast-scale transactions,as of private affairs, that we judge wrongly if we donot take into account everything. And it is superficial