And yet amid this confusion we were aware--even at the time--and can see much more clearly now the interlude is ended--that there were three great ideas running through it all, struggling to emerge, to make themselves understood, and to get themselves realised. But unfortunately what were realities to ordinary men were only counters according { 222} to the reckoning of the party mechanicians. The _first_ aim and the _second_--the improvement of the organisation of society and the conditions of the poor--the freeing of local aspirations and the knitting together of the empire--were held in common by the great mass of the British people, although they were viewed by one section and another from different angles of vision. The _third_ aim, however--the adequate defence of the empire--was not regarded warmly, or even with much active interest, by any organised section. The people who considered it most earnestly were not engaged in party politics. The manipulators of the machines looked upon the _first_ and the _second_ as means whereby power might be gained or retained, but they looked askance upon the _third_ as a perilous problem which it was wiser and safer to leave alone. The great principles with which the names--among others--of Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Roberts, and Mr. Lloyd George are associated, were at no point opposed one to another. Each indeed was dependent upon the other two for its full realisation. And yet, under the artificial entanglements of the Party System, the vigorous pursuit of any one of the three seemed to imperil the success of both its competitors.
In the post-Victorian epoch, which we have been engaged in considering, the aim of British foreign policy may be summed up in one word--Security. It was not aggression; it was not revenge; it was not conquest, or even expansion of territories; it was simply Security.
It would be absurd, of course, to imagine that security is wholly, or even mainly, a question of military preparations. "All this is but a sheep in a lion's skin, where the people are of weak courage;" or where for any reason, the people are divided among themselves or disaffected towards their government.
The defences of every nation are of two kinds, the organised and the unorganised; the disciplined strength of the Navy and the Army on the one hand, the vigour and spirit of the people upon the other.