Even Germany has paid a lip homage to the 
principle of nationality. The Chancellor of the 
German Empire, Von Bethman-Hollweg, on No- 
vember oth, speaking before the Reichstag on the 
possibility of creating courts of arbitration and a 
permanent peace organisation, says :— . 
“Germany will honestly co-operate in the examination 
of every endeavour to find a practical solution, and will 
collaborate for its possible realisation.” 
And then he adds these momentous words :— 
“This all the more if the War, as we expect and trust, 
brings about political conditions that do full justice to the 
free development of all nations, small as well as great ” 
But as might have been expected, it is from the 
great Republic of the West that has come the most 
eloquent vindication of national liberty. In a series 
of speeches of unparalleled power President Wilson 
has insisted on Lincoln’s great principle of “Govern- 
ment by the people for the people.” 
“No peace,” he declared, “can last, or ought to last, 
which does not recognise and accept the principle that 
Governments derive all their just powers from the consent 
of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand 
peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty, as if they 
were property.” 
“There must be an inviolable security of life, of worship, 
and of industrial and social development guaranteed to all 
peoples who have hitherto been under the power of govern- 
ments devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own.” 
Finally, declaring the principles for whose mainten- 
ance America has felt constrained to enter into the 
War, he proclaims her determination 
“To fight for the ultimate peace of the world, for the 
liberation of its peoples—the German peoples included— 
the rights of nations, great and small, and the privileges of 
men everywhere to choose their way of life and obedience.