Not at all.  But because otherwise this strange sprawling empire of ours will drop back into a secondary place in the world.  These two writers really seem to think that the slack workman, the slacker wealthy man, the negligent official, the conservative schoolmaster, the greedy usurer, the comfortable obstructive, confronted with this alternative, terrified at this idea of something or other called the Empire being “eclipsed,” eager for the continuance of this undefined glory over their fellow-creatures called “Empire,” will perceive the error of their ways and become energetic, devoted, capable.  They think an ideal of that sort is going to change the daily lives of men....  I sympathise with their purpose, and I deplore their conception of motives.  If men will not give themselves for righteousness, they will not give themselves for a geographical score.  If they will not work well for the hatred of bad work, they will not work well for the hatred of Germans.  This “Empire” idea has been cadging about the British empire, trying to collect enthusiasm and devotion, since the days of Disraeli.  It is, I submit, too big for the mean-spirited, and too tawdry and limited for the fine and generous.  It leaves out the French and the Italians and the Belgians and all our blood brotherhood of allies.  It has no compelling force in it.  We British are not naturally Imperialist; we are something greater—­or something less.  For two years and a half now we have been fighting against Imperialism in its most extravagant form.  It is a poor incentive to right living to propose to parody the devil we fight against.

The blind man must lunge again.

For when the right answer is seized it answers not only the question why men should work for their fellow-men but also why nation should cease to arm and plan and contrive against nation.  The social problem is only the international problem in retail, the international problem is only the social one in gross.

My bias rules me altogether here.  I see men in social, in economic and in international affairs alike, eager to put an end to conflict, inexpressibly weary of conflict and the waste and pain and death it involves.  But to end conflict one must abandon aggressive or uncordial pretensions.  Labour is sick at the idea of more strikes and struggles after the war, industrialism is sick of competition and anxious for service, everybody is sick of war.  But how can they end any of these clashes except by the definition and recognition of a common end which will establish a standard for the trial of every conceivable issue, to which, that is, every other issue can be subordinated; and what common end can there be in all the world except this idea of the world kingdom of God?  What is the good of orienting one’s devotion to a firm, or to class solidarity, or La Republique Francais, or Poland, or Albania, or such love and loyalty as people profess for King George or King Albert or the Duc d’Orleans—­it puzzles