THE PRACTICE OF DIPLOMACY
not insurmountable. The advantage of surmounting it is surely obvious. I hope therefore that the Foreign Office will make the attempt.
That this plea is no mere individual whim may be proved by calling two powerful witnesses against Sir Arthur Hardinge. On page 46 of the present volume Monsieur de Callières expresses the following opinion, and gives the following advice:—
'There are, for instance, countries where it is not enough to be in agreement with the prince and his ministers, because there are other parties who share the national sovereignty with him and who have the power to resist his Decisions or to make him change them. Of this state of affairs we have an excellent example in England, where the authority of Parliament frequently obliges the King to make peace or war against his own wish; or again in Poland, where the general Diets have an even more extended power, in which one single vote in the Diet may bring to nought the all but unanimous resolution of the assembly itself, and thus not only defeat the deliberations of that assembly but bring to nought the policy of the King and of the Senate. Therefore the good negotiator in such a country will know where to find the balance of domestic power in order to profit by it when occasion offers.'
