self-government to-morrow if she did not value her feuds more than
anything else in the world. All these are peoples to whom we have been
bound by ties of kinship or trusteeship. A wider and greater opportunity
is on its way to us. We are to see whether we are capable of generosity
and trust towards peoples who are neither our kin nor our wards. Our
understanding with France and Russia will call for great goodwill on
both sides, not so much in the drafting of formal treaties as in
indulging one another in our national habits. Families who fail to live
together in unity commonly fail not because they quarrel about large
interests, but because they do not like each other's little ways. The
French are not a dull people; and the Russians are not a tedious people
(what they do they do suddenly, without explanation); so that if we
fail to take pleasure in them we have ourselves to blame. If we are not
equal to our opportunities, if we do not learn to feel any affection for
them, then not all the pacts and congresses in the world can make peace
secure.

Of Germany it is too early to speak. We have not yet defeated her. If we
do defeat her, no one who is acquainted with our temper and our record
believes that we shall impose cruel or vindictive terms. If it were only
the engineers of this war who were in question, we would destroy them
gladly as common pests. But the thing is not so easy. A single home is
in many ways a greater and more appealing thing than a nation; we should
find ourselves thinking of the miseries of simple and ignorant people
who have given their all for the country of their birth; and our hearts
would fail us.

The Germans would certainly despise this address of mine, for I have
talked only of morality, while they talk and think chiefly of machines.
Zeppelins are a sad disappointment; but if any address on the War is