long, from the other world of Life, in which he dwells to-day.




CHAPTER I.

PRE-WAR MILITARY EXPENDITURE.


The Great War, into the whirlpool of which Nation after Nation has been
drawn, has entered on its fourth year. The rigid censorship which has
been established makes it impossible for any outside the circle of
Governments to forecast its duration, but to me, speaking for a moment
not as a politician but as a student of spiritual laws, to me its end is
sure. For the true object of this War is to prove the evil of, and to
destroy, autocracy and the enslavement of one Nation by another, and to
place on sure foundations the God-given Right to Self-Rule and
Self-Development of every Nation, and the similar right of the
Individual, of the smaller Self, so far as is consistent with the
welfare of the larger Self of the Nation. The forces which make for the
prolongation of autocracy--the rule of one--and the even deadlier
bureaucracy--the rule of a close body welded into an iron system--these
have been gathered together in the Central Powers of Europe--as of old
in Ravana--in order that they may be destroyed; for the New Age cannot
be opened until the Old passes away. The new civilisation of
Righteousness and Justice, and therefore of Brotherhood, of ordered
Liberty, of Peace, of Happiness, cannot be built up until the elements
are removed which have brought the old civilisation crashing about our
ears. Therefore is it necessary that the War shall be fought out to its