this connection is to be
taken as connoting the English-speaking countries rather than as
applying to the United Kingdom alone; since the entrance of the British
into the league would involve the entrance of the British colonies, and,
indeed, of the American republic as well.

The temper and outlook of this British community, therefore, becomes a
matter of paramount importance in any attempted analysis of the
situation resulting after the war, or of any prospective course of
conduct to be entered on by the pacific nations. And the question
touches not so much the temper and preconceptions of the British
community as known in recent history, but rather as it is likely to be
modified by the war experience. So that the practicability of a neutral
league comes to turn, in great measure, on the effect which this war
experience is having on the habits of thought of the British people, or
on that section of the British population which will make up the
effectual majority when the war closes. The grave interest that attaches
to this question must serve as justification for pursuing it farther,
even though there can be no promise of a definite or confident answer to
be found beforehand.

Certain general assertions may be made with some confidence. The
experiences of the war, particularly among the immediate participants
and among their immediate domestic connections--a large and increasing
proportion of the people at large--are plainly impressing on them the
uselessness and hardship of such a war. There can be no question but
they are reaching a conviction that a war of this modern kind and scale
is a thing to be avoided if possible. They are, no doubt, willing to go
to very considerable lengths to make a repetition of it impossible, and
they may reasonably be expected to go farther along that line before
peace returns. But the lengths to which they are ready to go may be in
the way of concessions, or in the way of contest and compulsion. There
need be no doubt but a profound and vindictive resentment runs through
the British community, and there is no reason to apprehend that this
will be dissipated in the course of further hostilities; although it
should fairly be expected to lose something of its earlier exuberant
malevolence and indiscrimination, more particularly if hostilities
continue for some time. It is not too much to expect, that this popular
temper of resentment will demand something very tangible in the way of
su