them as though their own
resources were inexhaustible. They do well perhaps to make light of
the Zeppelins, but they pay far too little attention to the
submarines, and seem not to realize the magnitude of the losses which
these weapons have inflicted on our merchant shipping, nor to have
calculated how long it can hold out at the present rate of
destruction. Freights have increased enormously, and they have not yet
reached the highest point they are likely to attain. Imports have been
restricted, prices have gone up and taxation has increased. Time may
not be on the side of our enemies, but is it on ours? It is a fickle
ally at best, and to rely on its support is to lean on a split reed.

Optimism of the unreasoning kind prevalent in Great Britain is
unwarranted, whether we confine our view to the actual campaign or
extend it to the greater struggle of which that forms but an episode.
Taking the former case first, one is struck with certain
considerations which, without inspiring dismay, ought surely to
preserve us from that excessive self-confidence which is too often a
hindrance to fruitful exertion. The financial burden and its relation
to the limits of the allied nations' capacity to bear it is a fit
subject for meditation when we feel uplifted in self-complacency.
Doubtless it is encouraging to watch the symptoms of slow exhaustion
displaying themselves in the central empires and to speculate on the
consequences of the further fall of the German mark. But these
consequences we are too apt to exaggerate. For we misjudge the
character, the staying powers, the ideals, the psychology of the
German people. We fancy that because they have been reduced from
comfort to hardship therefore they are on the verge of collapse. We
imagine that because their commercial and industrial classes are keen
on making money and ardently desire peace, they are also ready to
purchase it by acquiescing in conditions which would dispel their
dreams of world power. We feel certain that if Prussia and all the
German States received genuine parliamentary government, the costly
ambitions of the military party would forthwith be dispelled for all
time.

It is by delusions such as these that the British people were
hoodwinked in the past, and it is by the same vain imaginings that
they may be victimized in the future. For they seem incapable of
gauging the German psyche. The two races meet each other in masks. The
apparent ingenuousness of the