with timidity and dishonesty and uneasy braggadocio. Those who feel this
contrast as I did may be excused, I think, if they come to the
conclusion that to talk about war is an accursed trade, and that to
fight well, whether on the one side or the other, is the only noble
part.

Yet there is no escape for us; if we are to avoid chaos, if the daily
life of the world is to be re-established and carried on, there must be
an understanding between nations, and there is no possible way to come
to an understanding save by the action and words of representative men
on the one side and the other. Such representative men there are; there
is no reason to doubt that they do in the main truly express the
aspirations and wishes of their people, and on both sides they have
either explicitly or virtually made offers. The offer of the Allied
Powers is on record. What does Germany offer? She has refused to make a
definite statement, but her rulers have talked a great deal, and what
she intends is not really in doubt; only she is not sure whether she can
get it, and still clings to the hope that a favourable turn of events
may relieve her of the duty of making proposals, and put her in a
position to dictate a settlement. We all know what that settlement would
be.

The German offer for a solution of the problem of world-government is
German sentiments, German racial pride, German manners and customs, an
immense increase of German territory and German influence, and above all
an acknowledged supremacy for the German race among the nations of the
world. She thinks she has not stated these aims in so many words; but
she has. When it was suggested that the future peace of the world might
be assured by the formation of a League to Enforce Peace, Germany,
through her official spokesmen, expressed her sympathy with that idea,