god will never relax that
struggle which is for the State's true welfare"--"the contest in which
citizen vies with citizen who shall best serve the State."

_B.--POLITICAL PEACE_

CHAPTER VIII

PEACE AND THE CONSTITUTION

_The question for the British nation is--Can we work our
course pacifically on firm land into the New Era, or must
it be for us as for others, through the black abysses of
Anarchy, hardly escaping, if we do with all our struggles
escape, the jaws of eternal death?_--THOMAS CARLYLE.

It is not only international peace that must be assured. As a necessary
condition for reconstruction comes the need for Peace, peace real and
lasting, and peace all round. There may be times when the nation or the
individual needs the bracing stimulus, if not of war, at least of
competition and of conflict in the realm of thought and in the realm of
action; times when old institutions, old creeds, old systems, old
customs, are fiercely attacked and vigorously defended. The storm clears
the air, and the struggle ends in the survival of the fittest. After the
War the nations, and our own not least, wearied of strife, exhausted by
losses, will need all their energies to repair those losses, to rebuild,
often in quite new form, what the havoc of war has destroyed, and to
adapt themselves to the changed conditions of an altered world. It will
be a time neither for contest nor for rest, but for co-operation, mutual
help in the work, not merely of restoration, but of building up
something better in its place, where the old has been destroyed, or
shown its defects under the strain. For this, Peace is needed, peace not
only between the nations, but peace between different classes and
opposing parties, and even divergent Churches; international,
industrial, political and religious peace. There will be so much that
ought by general agreement to be done, the ideals to be set before us
will have so much in common, their realisation will need so much work in
concert, such concurrence as to the practical steps to be taken, such
goodwill among those who must work together with a common aim, that a
"truce of God" between those who were once opponents may be called for.
For a time at least old shibboleths might be forgotten, and the old
so-called "principles," round which so many barren contests of the past
have been waged, might cease to hamper us in adopting the practical
measures which the exig