t Britain shall endure. If the
Germans are thrashed to a frazzle (and we haven't altogether done
that yet) and we set about putting the world in order, when we come
to discuss Disarmament, the British Fleet will be the most
difficult item in the world to dispose of. It is not only a Fact,
with a great and saving history, it is also a sacred Tradition and
an Article of Faith.

The first reason, therefore, why the British general mind has not
firmly got hold on a league is the instinctive fear that the
formation of any league may in some conceivable way affect the
Grand Fleet. Another reason is the general inability of a somewhat
slow public opinion to take hold on more than one subject at a time
or more than one urgent part of one subject. The One Subject, of
course, is winning the war. Since everything else depends on that,
everything else must wait on that.

The League, therefore, has not taken hold on the public imagination
here as it has in the United States. The large mass of the people
have not thought seriously about it: it has not been strongly and
persistently presented to the mass of the people. There is no
popular or general organization to promote it. There is even, here
and there, condemnation of the idea. The (London) _Morning Post_,
for example, goes out of its way once in a while to show the
wickedness of the idea because, so it argues, it will involve the
sacrifice, more or less, of nationality. But the _Morning Post_ is
impervious to new ideas and is above all things critical in its
activities and very seldom constructive. The typical Tory mind in
general sees no good in the idea. The typical Tory mind is the
insular mind.

On the other hand, the League idea is understood as a necessity and
heartily approved by two powerful sections of public opinion--(1)
the group of public men who have given attention to it, such as
Bryce, Lord Robert Cecil, and the like, and (2) some of the best
and strongest leaders of Labour. There is good reason to hope that
whenever a fight and an agitation is made for a League these two
sections of public opinion will win; but an agitation and a fight
must come. Lord Bryce, in the intervals of his work as chairman of
a committee to make a plan for the reorganization of the House of
Lords, which