understood and consistently sustained, been so commandingly vital.

What do we mean by our Empire, and what is its relation to that
universal desire of mankind, the permanent rule of peace and justice in
the world? The whole world will be the better for a very plain answer to
that question.

Is it not time for us British not merely to admit to ourselves, but to
assure the world that our Empire as it exists to-day is a provisional
thing, that in scarcely any part of the world do we regard it as more
than an emergency arrangement, as a necessary association that must give
place ultimately to the higher synthesis of a world league, that here we
hold as trustees and there on account of strategic considerations that
may presently disappear, and that though we will not contemplate the
replacement of our flag anywhere by the flag of any other competing
nation, though we do hope to hold together with our kin and with those
who increasingly share our tradition and our language, nevertheless we
are prepared to welcome great renunciations of our present ascendency
and privileges in the interests of mankind as a whole. We need to make
the world understand that we do not put our nation nor our Empire before
the commonwealth of man. Unless presently we are to follow Germany along
the tragic path her national vanity and her world ambitions have made
for her, that is what we have to make clear now. It is not only our duty
to mankind, it is also the sane course for our own preservation.

Is it not the plain lesson of this stupendous and disastrous war that
there is no way to secure civilization from destruction except by an
impartial control and protection in the interests of the whole human
race, a control representing the best intelligence of mankind, of these
main causes of war.