the cowardly, pacifist methods current in Europe. The
result gives us the really military civilisations of Venezuela,
Colombia, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. And, although the English system
may have many defects--I think it has--those defects exist in a
still greater degree where force "settles" the matters in dispute,
where the bullet replaces the ballot, and where bayonets are
resorted to instead of brains. For Devonshire is better than
Nicaragua. Really it is. And it would get us out of none of our
troubles for one group to impose its views simply by preponderant
physical force, for Mr. Asquith, for instance, in the true Castro
or Zuyala manner, to announce that henceforth all critics of the
Insurance Act are to be shot, and that the present Cabinet will
hold office as long as it can depend upon the support of the Army.
For, even if the country rose in rebellion, and fought it out and
won, the successful party would (if they also believed in force) do
exactly the same thing to _their_ opponents; and so it would go on
never-endingly (as it has gone on during weary centuries throughout
the larger part of South America), until the two parties came once
more to their senses, and agreed not to use force when they
happened to be able to do so; which is our present condition. But
it is the condition of England merely because the English, as a
whole, have ceased to believe in Mr. Chesterton's principles; it is
not yet the condition of Venezuela because the Venezuelans have not
yet ceased to believe those principles, though even they are
beginning to.

Mr. Chesterton says: "Men do judge, and always will judge, by the
ultimate test of how they fight." The pirate who gives his blood
has a better right, therefore, to the ship than the merchant (who
may be a usurer!) who only gives his money. Well, that is the view
which was all but universal well into the period of what, for want
of a better word, we call civilisation. Not only was it the basis
of all such institutions as the ordeal and duel; not only did it
justify (and in the opinion of some still justifies) the wars of
religion and the use of force in religious matters generally; not
only was it the accepted national polity of such communities as the
Vikings, the Barbary States, and the Red Indians; but it is