r
national ruin, we ought to be in a panic. And if it is not true?
Even in that case conflict will equally be inevitable unless we
realise its falseness, for a universal false opinion concerning a
fact will have the same result in conduct as though the false
belief were true.

And my point is that those concerned to prevent this conflict seem
but mildly interested in examining the foundations of the false
beliefs that make conflict inevitable. Part of the reluctance to
study the subject seems to arise from the fear that if we deny the
nonsensical idea that the British Empire would instantaneously fall
to pieces were the Germans to dominate the North Sea for 24 hours
we should weaken the impulse to defence. That is probably an
utterly false idea, but suppose it is true, is the risk of less
ardour in defence as great as the risk which comes of having a
nation of Roberts and Churchills on both sides of the frontier?

If that happens war becomes not a risk but a certainty.

And it is danger of happening. I speak from the standpoint of a
somewhat special experience. During the last 18 months I have
addressed not scores but many hundreds of meetings on the subject
of the very proposition on which Lord Roberts' speech is based and
which I have indicated at the beginning of this letter; I have
answered not hundreds but thousands of questions arising out of it.
And I think that gives me a somewhat special understanding of the
mind of the man in the street. The reason he is subject to panic,
and "sees red" and will often accept blindly counsels like those of
Lord Roberts, is that he holds as axioms these primary assumptions
to which I have referred, namely, that he carries on his daily life
by virtue of military force, and that the means of carrying it on
will be taken from him by the first stronger power that rises in
the world, and that that power will be pushed to do it by the
advantage of such seizure. And these axioms he never finds
challenged even by his Liberal guides.

The issue for those who really desire a better condition is clear.
So long as by their silence, or by their indifference to the
discussion of the fundamental facts of this problem they create the
impression that Mr. Churchill's axioms are unchallengeable, the
panic-monger