A collision may occur, as we know only too well, even although one of two vessels be at anchor, if it happens to lie athwart the course of the other. It was therefore no security against war that British policy did not aim at any aggrandisement or seek for any territorial expansion. The essential questions were--had we possessions which appeared to obstruct the national aspirations and ideals of others; and did these others believe that alone, or in alliance, they had the power to redress the balance?
The real difficulty which besets the philanthropist in his endeavour to exorcise the spirit of war is caused, not by the vices of this spirit, but by its virtues. In so far as it springs from vainglory or cupidity, it is comparatively easy to deal with. In so far as it is base, there is room for a bargain. It can be compounded with and bought off, as we have seen before now, with some kind of material currency. It will not stand out for very long against promises of prosperity and threats of dearth. But where, as at most crises, this spirit is not base, where its impulse is not less noble, but more noble than those which influence men day by day in the conduct of their worldly affairs, where the contrast which presents itself to their imagination is between duty on the one hand and gain on the other, between self-sacrifice and self-interest, between their country's need and { 12} their own ease, it is not possible to quench the fires by appeals proceeding from a lower plane. The philanthropist, if he is to succeed, must take still higher ground, and higher ground than this it is not a very simple matter to discover.
[1] The increase and acceleration of German shipbuilding was discovered by the British Government in the autumn of 1908, and led to the Imperial Defence Conference in the summer of the following year.
When war came, it came suddenly. A man who had happened to fall sick of a fever on St. Swithin's day 1914, but was so far on the way to convalescence four weeks later as to desire news of the outside world, must have been altogether incredulous of the tidings which first greeted his ears.
When he fell ill the nations were at peace. The townspeople of Europe were in a holiday humour, packing their trunks and portmanteaus for 'land travel or sea-faring.' The country people were getting in their harvest or looking forward hopefully to the vintage. Business was prosperous. Credit was good. Money, in banking phraseology, was 'cheap.' The horror of the Serajevo assassinations had already faded almost into oblivion. At the worst this sensational event was only an affair of police. Such real anxiety as existed in the United Kingdom had reference to Ireland.