exception of Mr. Gladstone in the cases of the Alabama and Majuba Hill, I can think of none.  Against that one possible exception place all the wars of a century past, including three that were among the most terrible in human history—­the Napoleonic war, the Franco-German, and the Russo-Japanese.  And as to the sweet influences of Christianity, remember the Russian Archbishops, how they blessed the sacred Icons that were to lead the Russian peasants to the slaughter of Japanese peasants.  Remember our Archbishop of Canterbury in February 1911 deeply regretting that a previous engagement prevented him from passing on the blessing of the Apostles to the battleship Thunderer.  Remember how he sent his wife as a substitute to occupy the Apostolic position in the hope that the hand which rocks the cradle might prove equally efficacious.

Against the pugnacity and courage which urge our rulers to send other people to die for them, the claims of humanity, reason, and religion have no effect.  The new hope is that self-interest may succeed where the motives that act upon most decent people almost invariably fail.  Norman Angell’s appeal goes straight to the pocket, and his choice of that objective inspires hope.  If rulers can no longer plead that by war they are advancing the material interests of their State, if it is recognised that even a victorious war involves as great disaster as defeat, or even greater (and it is remarkable that, in one of his latest speeches, Moltke maintained that, next to defeat, the greatest disaster which could befall any State was victory)—­if it can be shown that, in a war between great nations, trade does not follow the flag, but moves rapidly in the other direction, then one of the pretexts of our rulers will be removed, one veil of hypocrisy will be stripped off.  To that extent the hope of peace will have grown brighter, and that extent is large.

On the whole, it is the brightest hope that has lately risen—­or the brightest but one which we will speak of later on.  I would only hint at two considerations which may obscure it.  Granted that in modern times war-power or victory does not give prosperity; that the invader cannot destroy or capture the enemy’s trade; that his own finance is equally disturbed; and that the most enormous indemnity can add nothing to the victorious nation’s actual wealth—­granted all this, nevertheless, the warlike, though vicarious, heroism of our rulers might not on this account be restrained.  In many, if not most, recent wars the object has not been national aggrandisement, or even national commerce, but private gain.  We have but to think of the South African War, so cleverly engineered in the gold-mining interest, or of the Russo-Japanese war, where so many thousands died for the Russian aristocracy’s timber concessions on the Yalu.  Or, as permanent incitements to warfare, we may think of all the manufacturers of armaments, the enormous companies that fatten on blood and iron,