strength of actual practice is that wars to maintain or upset the
Balance of Power between States, called by inaccurate people Balance of
Power wars, and by accurate people Jealousy of Power wars, never
establish the desired peaceful and secure equilibrium. They may exercise
pugnacity, gratify spite, assuage a wound to national pride, or enhance
or dim a military reputation; but that is all. And the reason is, as I
shall shew very conclusively later on, that there is only one way in
which one nation can really disable another, and that is a way which no
civilized nation dare even discuss.

*Are We Hypocrites?*

And now I proceed from general considerations to the diplomatic history
of the present case, as I must in order to make our moral position
clear. But first, lest I should lose all credit by the startling
incompatibility between the familiar personal character of our statesmen
and the proceedings for which they are officially responsible, I must
say a word about the peculiar psychology of English statesmanship, not
only for the benefit of my English readers (who do not know that it is
peculiar just as they do not know that water has any taste because it is
always in their mouths), but as a plea for a more charitable
construction from the wider world.

We know by report, however unjust it may seem to us, that there is an
opinion abroad, even in the quarters most friendly to us, that our
excellent qualities are marred by an incorrigible hypocrisy. To France
we have always been Perfidious Albion. In Germany, at this moment, that
epithet would be scorned as far too flattering to us. Victor Hugo
explained the relative unpopularity of _Measure for Measure_ among
Shakespeare's plays on the ground that the character of the hypocrite