* * * * *

As a matter of fact the General Staff had got ahead of the diplomatists, and the German columns were already over the border while the point was being debated at Berlin.  There was no retreat from the position which had been taken up.  “It is to us a vital matter of strategy and is beyond argument,” said the German soldier.  “It is to us a vital matter of honor and, is beyond argument,” answered the British statesman.  The die was cast.  No compromise was possible.  Would Britain keep her word or would she not?  That was the sole question at issue.  And what answer save one could any Briton give to it?  “I do not believe,” said our Prime Minister, “that any nation ever entered into a great controversy with a clearer conscience and stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance of its own selfish interest, but in defense of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world.”  So he spoke, and history will indorse his words, for we surely have our quarrel just.

* * * * *

So much for the events which have led us to war.  Now for a moment let us glance at what we may have to hope for, what we may have to fear, and, above all, what we must each of us do that we win through to a lasting peace.

What have we to gain if we win?  That we have nothing material to gain, no colonies which we covet, no possessions of any sort that we desire, is the final proof that the war has not been provoked by us.  No nation would deliberately go out of its way to wage so hazardous and costly a struggle when there is no prize for victory.  But one enormous indirect benefit we will gain if we can make Germany a peaceful and harmless State.  We will surely break her naval power and take such steps that it shall not be a menace to us any more.  It was this naval power, with its rapid increase and the need that we should ever, as Mr. Churchill has so well expressed it, be ready at our average moment to meet an attack at their chosen moment—­it was this which has piled up our war estimates during the last ten years until they have bowed us down.  With such enormous sums spent upon ships and guns, great masses of capital were diverted from the ordinary channels of trade, while an even more serious result was that our programmes of social reform had to be curtailed from want of the money which could finance them.  Let the menace of that lurking fleet be withdrawn—­the nightmare of those thousand hammers working day and night in forging engines for our destruction—­and our estimates will once again be those of a civilized Christian country, while our vast capital will be turned from measures of self-protection to those of self-improvement.  Should our victory be complete, there is little which Germany can yield to us save the removal of that shadow which has darkened us so long.  But our children and our children’s children will never, if we do our work well now, look across the North Sea with the sombre thoughts which have so long been ours, while their lives will be brightened and elevated by money which we, in our darker days, have had to spend upon our ships and our guns.