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There will be a slump in that “exclusive morality” for which Lord Haldane could not find an equivalent in the English language, and for which, in his famous Montreal address, he could only find an equivalent in the German word Sittlichkeit. But, most important of all, there will be a lamentable slump in the most highly prized of all German values—German theology.
As regards Germany see, e.g., Rudeck, Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit, pp. 146-154. The custom of free marriage unions, usually rendered legal before or after the birth of children, seems to be fairly common in many, or perhaps all, rural parts of England. The union is made legal, if found satisfactory, even when there is no prospect of children.
I knew that in this same way Lord Haldane had been so captivated as to come out of the Emperor's presence unable to say anything but "Sittlichkeit" for weeks; that good old John Burns had been betrayed by a single dinner at Potsdam, and that the Sultan of Turkey had been told that his Answers to Ultimatums were the wittiest things written since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
He believed in the Sittlichkeit, which we here mean when we speak of "good form." But that was not the faith of his critics in Berlin. They wanted to have Russia, and if possible France also, along with their navies, on the side of Germany. Peace, yes, but peace compelled by fear a very unwholesome and unstable kind of peace, and deadly for the interests of an island nation. Hence the Entente!
There was at least the chance, if we strove hard enough, that we might find a response from the best in other countries, and in the end attain to a new and real Sittlichkeit which should provide a firmer basis for International Law and reverence for international obligations. But for the realization of this dream a sustained and strenuous search after fuller mutual knowledge was required.
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