Well, if that view is persisted in, if in reality it is necessary for a people to have lies and nonsense told to them in order to induce them to defend themselves, some will be apt to decide that they are not worth defending.  Or rather will they decide that this phase of the pro-armament campaign—­which is not so much a campaign in favour of armament as one against education and understanding—­will end in turning us into a nation either of poltroons or of bullies and aggressors, and that since life is a matter of the choice of risks it is wiser and more courageous to choose the less evil.  A nation may be defeated and still live in the esteem of men—­and in its own.  No civilized man esteems a nation of Bashi-Bazouks or Prussian Junkers.  Of the two risks involved—­the risk of attack arising from a possible superiority of armament on the part of a rival, and the risk of drifting into conflict because, concentrating all our energies on the mere instrument of combat, we have taken no adequate trouble to understand the facts of this case—­it is at least an arguable proposition that the second risk is the greater.  And I am prompted to this expression of opinion without surrendering one iota of a lifelong and passionate belief that a nation attacked should defend itself to the last penny and to the last man.

And you think that this idea that the nations—­ours amongst them—­may drift into futile war from sheer panic and funk arising out of the terror inspired by phantoms born of ignorance, is merely the idea of Pacifist cranks?

The following, referring to the “precautionary measures” (i.e., mobilization of armies) taken by the various Powers, is from a leading article of the Times:—­

“Precautions” are understandable, but the remark of our Berlin Correspondent that they may produce an untenable position from which retreat must be humiliating is applicable in more than one direction.  Our Vienna Correspondent truly says that “there is no valid reason to believe war between Austria-Hungary and Russia to be inevitable, or even immediately probable.”  We entirely agree, but wish we could add that the absence of any valid reason was placing strict limitations upon the scope of “precautions.”  The same correspondent says he is constantly being asked:—­“Is there no means of avoiding war?” The same question is now being asked, with some bewilderment, by millions of men in this country, who want to know what difficulties there are in the present situation which should threaten Europe with a general war, or even a collision larger than that already witnessed....  There is no great nation in Europe which to-day has the least desire that millions of men should be torn from their homes and flung headlong to destruction at the bidding of vain ambitions.  The Balkan peoples fought for a cause which was peculiarly their own.  They were inspired by the memories of centuries of wrong which they were burning to avenge.