Conclusion—Results Recapitulated.

I may recapitulate in conclusion the results to which I have wished to bring my readers.

1.	That there is no reason to fear that this country, which is now so largely democratic, and which will, like all other European communities become in the next two or three generations more decisively democratic than it is now, should find itself at all hampered thereby in carrying on its international affairs.
2.	That the methods which have hitherto been approved for the carrying on of our international affairs are not in all respects appropriate to our altered circumstances, but require some revision and improvement.
3.	That the improvements chiefly wanted are these:— (a) That our statesmen should try to become more and more international in the sense in which M. Drouyn de Lhuys called Mr. Cobden an international man. (b) That they should not only know more than they do of foreign countries, foreign modes of thought, and foreigners generally, but be known by their countrymen, to have a real knowledge of these things. (c) That they should act upon clear, well-understood principles, never laying themselves open to the charge, as the present Government has clone, of involving the nation in new and tremendous liabilities, not only behind the back of Parliament page 56 and without having given any opportunity for their schemes being discussed, but under circumstances which involved a complete abandonment of principles which have hitherto been considered sacred by both parties in the state. (d) That the good-ordering of the Diplomatic Service should be recognised as a matter of supreme national importance—of as great importance as the good-ordering of the army or the navy; that no expense and no trouble should be spared for the attainment of this object; and that we should set before ourselves no lower ideal than that suggested by Lord Odo Russell when he said, in 1871, to the Diplomatic Committee, "Our Diplomatic Service ought to be as well organized for its purposes as the 'Prussian army or the Society of Jesus' are for theirs." (e) That our statesmen should remember that they have now to deal with a far more mobile constituency than that which existed before 1868, and that they should take much greater trouble than formerly to be thoroughly intelligible; that alike by their own speeches and by all other legitimate agencies they should keep their views upon our foreign relations clearly before the people, not trusting merely to being right, but remembering the words of a wise man: "Reality and Appearance. Things do not pass for what they are, but for what they seem. Few be those who look at the inside, and many be those who are contented with what is on the surface."