Chancellor, in March 1911, speaking in the Reichstag, repeated and emphasised these views. He said that the time had passed away when European wars could be made by governments, and that nowadays wars only arose from antagonisms rooted in popular sentiment.
Lord Salisbury, throughout his career, held the same opinion, and constantly insisted upon it. As early as 1864 he wrote that "moderation has never been characteristic of democracy. In the old hemisphere, or the new, a thirst for empire and a readiness for aggression have always marked it." And to this idea he constantly recurred with all the increased authority of ripening experience, pointing out in 1888, that the real peril to peace came "from the bursts of uninformed feeling among the masses of the people"; in 1897, that it was the "unofficial people" who made war nowadays; and in 1900, that the governments are pacific, but are "always liable to be overthrown by the violent and vehement operations of mere ignorance." This devout lover of peace profoundly distrusted the international proclivities of the people, and set himself throughout his career to pluck the finest feathers from the wing of high-flying sentimentalism. He was the plumassier of democracy.
These two schools of thought, then, stand diametrically opposed. One side opines democracy to be a tree fruitful in olive-branches. To the other, it is a stem which is certain to put forth,
