had been delayed until July 31st, to
convince the British Cabinet of French good faith; and the French fleet
had been left in the Mediterranean to guard the interests of England no
less than those of France. We can imagine how bitter was the
disappointment with which France received the English answer of July
31st.

But we were loyal to our obligations as we understood them. If our
answers to France were guarded, our answers to the German overtures of
July 29th and August 1st show that we were fighting the battle of France
with diplomatic weapons. On August 2nd we went still further, by
undertaking to defend the French coasts and shipping, if the German
fleet should come into the Channel or through the North Sea. To justify
our position of reserve from July 31st to August 4th we may quote what
Mr. Asquith said the other day (September 4th):--

'No one who has not been in that position can realize the strength,
the energy, and the persistence with which we laboured for peace. We
persevered by every expedient that diplomacy could suggest,
straining almost to breaking-point our most cherished friendships
and obligations.'

Those efforts failed. We know to-day that mediation had never any
prospects of success, because Germany had resolved that it should not
succeed. Ought we to have known this from the first? It is easy to be
wise after the event. But in England we have Cabinet government and we
have Parliamentary government. Before an English minister can act, in a
matter of national importance, no matter how positive his own
convictions may be, he must convince his colleagues, and they must feel
certain of convincing a democracy which is essentially pacific,
cautious, slow to move. Nothing short of the German attack on Belgium
would have convinced the ordinary Englishman that German statesmanship
had degenerated into piracy. That proof was given us on August 4th; and
on that day we sent our ultimatum to Berlin.

To-day all England is convinced; and we are fighting back to back with
the French for their national existence and our own. Our own, because
England's existence depends not only on her sea-power, but upon the
maintenance of European state-law. The military spirit which we have
described above (Chap. VI) tramples upon the rights of nations because
it sees a foe in every equal; because it regards the prosperity of a
neighbour as a national misfortune; because it holds that national
greatnes