inister before a large meeting of preachers of the "free" churches
about a League of Nations reminds me to write you about the state
of British opinion on that subject. What Lloyd George said to these
preachers is regrettable because it showed a certain impatience of
mind from which he sometimes suffers; but it is only fair to him to
say that his remarks that day did not express a settled opinion.
For on more than one previous occasion he has spoken of the subject
in a wholly different tone--much more appreciatively. On that
particular day he had in mind only the overwhelming necessity to
win the war--other things, _all_ other things must wait. In a way
this is his constant mood--the mood to make everybody feel that the
only present duty is to win the war. He has been accused of almost
every defect in the calendar except of slackness about the war.
Nobody has ever doubted his earnestness nor his energy about
_that_. And the universal confidence in his energy and earnestness
is what keeps him in office. Nobody sees any other man who can push
and inspire as well as he does. It would be a mistake, therefore,
to pay too much heed to any particular utterance of this electrical
creature of moods, on any subject.

Nevertheless, he hasn't thought out the project of a league to
enforce peace further than to see the difficulties. He sees that
such a league might mean, in theory at least, the giving over in
some possible crisis the command of the British Fleet to an officer
of some other nationality. That's unthinkable to any red-blooded
son of these islands. Seeing a theoretical possibility even of
raising such a question, the British mind stops and refuses to go
further--refuses in most cases even to inquire seriously whether
any such contingency is ever likely to come.

The British Grand Fleet, in fact, is a subject that stands alone in
power and value and in difficulties. It classifies itself with
nothing else. Since over and over again it has saved these islands
from invasion when nothing else could have saved them and since
during this war in particular it has saved the world from German
conquest--as every Englishman believes--it lies in their reverence
and their gratitude and their abiding convictions as a necessary
and perpetual shield so long as Grea