instead of by the cowardly, pacifist methods current in Europe. The result gives us the really military civilisations of Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. And, although the English system may have many defects—I think it has—those defects exist in a still greater degree where force "settles" the matters in dispute, where the bullet replaces the ballot, and where bayonets are resorted to instead of brains. For Devonshire is better than Nicaragua. Really it is. And it would get us out of none of our troubles for one group to impose its views simply by preponderant physical force, for Mr. Asquith, for instance, in the true Castro or Zuyala manner, to announce that henceforth all critics of the Insurance Act are to be shot, and that the present Cabinet will hold office as long as it can depend upon the support of the Army. For, even if the country rose in rebellion, and fought it out and won, the successful party would (if they also believed in force) do exactly the same thing to their opponents; and so it would go on never-endingly (as it has gone on during weary centuries throughout the larger part of South America), until the two parties came once more to their senses, and agreed not to use force when they happened to be able to do so; which is our present condition. But it is the condition of England merely because the English, as a whole, have ceased to believe in Mr. Chesterton's principles; it is not yet the condition of Venezuela because the Venezuelans have not yet ceased to believe those principles, though even they are beginning to.