War does not so much tilt the balance as accentuate the difference. One
rich British landowner sneaks off to New York State to set up a home
there and evade taxation; another turns his mansion into a hospital and
goes off to help Serbian refugees. Acts of baseness or generosity are
contagious; this man will give himself altogether because of a story of
devotion, this man declares he will do nothing until Sir F.E. Smith goes
to the front. And the would-be prophet of what is going to happen must
guess the relative force of these most impalpable and uncertain things.

This Braintree-Bocking boundary which runs down the middle of the road
is to be found all over the world. You will find it in Ireland and the
gentlemen who trade on the jealousies of the north side and the
gentlemen who trade on the jealousies of the south. You will find it in
England among the good people who would rather wreck the Empire than
work honestly and fairly with Labour. There are not only parish
boundaries, but park boundaries and class and sect boundaries. You will
find the Bocking-Braintree line too at a dozen points on a small scale
map of Europe.... These Braintree-Bocking lines are the barbed-wire
entanglements between us and the peace of the world. Against these
entanglements in every country the new spirit struggles in many
thousands of minds. Where will it be strongest? Which country will get
clear first, get most rapidly to work again, have least of the confusion
and wrangling that must in some degree occur everywhere? Will any
country go altogether to pieces in hopeless incurable discord?

Now I believe that the answer to that last question is "No." And my
reason for that answer is the same as my reason for believing that the
association of the Pledged Allies will not break up after the war; it is
that I believe that this war is going to end not in the complete
smashing up and subjugation of either side, but in a general exhaustion