not of a character that would frustrate the main
purpose by provoking, and possibly accelerating, the very calamity
against which it was designed to provide.

The situation was delicate and difficult. The public most properly
expected of British Ministers that they should spare no effort for peace
and for security. It was too sensible to ask for every detail of the
steps taken for the attainment of this end. There are matters on which
it is mischievous to encourage discussion, even in Parliament. Members
of Parliament know this well, and are sensible about it. The wisest
among them do not press for open statements which if made to the world
would imperil the very object which Parliament and the public have
directed those responsible to them to seek to attain. What is objected
to in secret diplomacy hardly includes that which from its very nature
must be negotiated in the first instance between individuals.

The policy actually followed was in principle satisfactory to the great
majority of our people. To them it was familiar in its general outlines.
But for the minority, which included both our pacifists and our
chauvinists, it was either too much or too little. For, on the one hand,
its foundation was the theory that, amid the circumstances of Europe in
which it had to be built up, human nature could not be safely relied on
unswervingly to resist warlike impulses. On the other hand, this peril
notwithstanding, it was the considered view of those responsible that
war neither ought to be regarded as being inevitable, nor was so in
fact. It was quite true that the development of military preparations
had been so great as to make Europe resemble an armed camp; but, if
actual conflict could be averted, the burden this state of things
implied ought finally to render its continuance no longer tolerable.
What was really required was that unbroken peace should be preserved,
and the hand of time left to operate.

In the course of history it has rarely been the case that any war that
has broken out was really inevitable, and there does not appear to be
any sufficient reason for thinking that the war of 1914 was an exception
to the general rule. It seems clear that, if Germany had resolved to do
so, she could quite safely have abstained from entering upon it and from
encouraging Austria in a mad adventure. The reason why the war came
appears to have been that at some period in the year 1913 the German
Government finally laid the