Great said. It is ultimately the actual strength of a nation to which
the opponent's purpose yields. When, therefore, the threat of war is
insufficient to call attention to its own claims the concert must begin;
the obligation is unconditional, and the _right_ to fight becomes the
_duty_ to make war, incumbent on the nation and statesman alike.

Finally, there is a third point to be considered. Cases may occur where
war must be made simply as a point of honour, although there is no
prospect of success. The responsibility of this has also to be borne. So
at least Frederick the Great thought. His brother Henry, after the
battle of Kolin, had advised him to throw himself at the feet of the
Marquise de Pompadour in order to purchase a peace with France. Again,
after the battle of Kunersdorf his position seemed quite hopeless, but
the King absolutely refused to abandon the struggle. He knew better what
suited the honour and the moral value of his country, and preferred to
die sword in hand than to conclude a degrading peace. President
Roosevelt, in his message to the Congress of the United States of
America on December 4, 1906, gave expression to a similar thought. "It
must ever be kept in mind," so the manly and inspiriting words ran,
"that war is not merely justifiable, but imperative, upon honourable men
and upon an honourable nation when peace is only to be obtained by the
sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare. A just war
is in the long-run far better for a nation's soul than the most
prosperous peace obtained by an acquiescence in wrong or injustice....
It must be remembered that even to be defeated in war may be better than
not to have fought at all."

To sum up these various views, we may say that expediency in the higher
sense must be conclusive in deciding whether to undertake a war in
itself morally justifiable. Such decision is rendered more easy by the