is no excuse for plunging a nation into gruesome, cruel, and horrible wars.  It is when our liberties are threatened that circumstances may arise when it would be a crime not to defend them.  But where and when were any of our interests threatened by Napoleon until we became the aggressors by interfering with the policy of what he called his “Continental system”?  Even before Napoleon became Consul, First Consul, and subsequently Emperor of the French, it was deemed high policy on the part of our statesmen to take sides against the French Directorate in disputes that were caused and had arisen on the Continent out of the Revolution, and once involved in the entanglement which it is hard to believe concerned us in any degree, the nation was committed to a long and devastating debauch of crime which men who understood the real art of statesmanship would have avoided.

Many of the famous statesmen who have lived since their time would have acted differently.  Fox, with a free hand, would have saved us, and but for the senseless attitude of the Pitt-Castlereagh party, the Grey, Romilly, Horner, Burdett and Tierny combination would have prevented the last of Napoleon’s campaigns between his return from Elba and his defeat at Waterloo, which proved to be the bloodiest of all the Emperor’s wars.

Amongst a certain section of the community the belief is that they who can steer the State along peaceful lines are mediocrities, and they who involve us in war are geniuses and earn the distinction of fame and Westminster Abbey, though it may be that they are totally void of all the essentials that are required to keep on good terms, not only with other Powers, but with our own masses.  Take, first of all, the unostentatious old Scotsman, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who was regarded in the light of a mediocrity by the bellicose-minded people.  Had he lived and been in power at the time of Pitt and Castlereagh, his finely constituted, shrewd brain and quiet determined personality would have guided the State in a way that would have brought it credit and kept it out of the shambles.  Another personality who is possessed of attributes that have been scantily recognized is that of Lord Rosebery who, during his Foreign Secretaryship under Mr. Gladstone, and when he became Premier himself, saved this country more than once from war with Germany, leaving out of account the many other services rendered to his country.  It is a tragedy to allow such merits to be wasted because of some slight difference of opinion in matters that do not count compared with the advantage of having at the head of affairs a man with an unerring tactful brain who can deal with international complexities with complete ease and assurance.