up our war estimates
during the last ten years until they have bowed us down. With such
enormous sums spent upon ships and guns, great masses of capital were
diverted from the ordinary channels of trade, while an even more serious
result was that our programmes of social reform had to be curtailed from
want of the money which could finance them. Let the menace of that
lurking fleet be withdrawn--the nightmare of those thousand hammers
working day and night in forging engines for our destruction--and our
estimates will once again be those of a civilized Christian country,
while our vast capital will be turned from measures of self-protection
to those of self-improvement. Should our victory be complete, there is
little which Germany can yield to us save the removal of that shadow
which has darkened us so long. But our children and our children's
children will never, if we do our work well now, look across the North
Sea with the sombre thoughts which have so long been ours, while their
lives will be brightened and elevated by money which we, in our darker
days, have had to spend upon our ships and our guns.

Consider, on the other hand, what we should suffer if we were to lose.
All the troubles of the last ten years would be with us still, but in a
greatly exaggerated form. A larger and stronger Germany would dominate
Europe and would overshadow our lives. Her coast line would be
increased, her ports would face our own, her coaling stations would be
in every sea, and her great army, greater then than ever, would be
within striking distance of our shores. To avoid sinking forever into
the condition of a dependant, we should be compelled to have recourse to
rigid compulsory service, and our diminished revenues would be all
turned to the needs of self-defense. Such would be the miserable
condition in which we should hand on to our children that free and
glorious empire which we inherited in all the fullness of its richness
and its splendor from those strong fathers who have built it up. What
peace of mind, what self-respect could be left for us in the remainder
of our lives! The weight of dishonor would lie always upon our hearts.
And yet this will be surely our fate and our future if we do not nerve
our souls and brace our arms for victory. No regrets will avail, no
excuses will help, no after-thoughts can profit us. It is now--now--even
in these weeks and months that are passing that the final reckoning is
being taken, and