_B.--POLITICAL PEACE_




CHAPTER VIII

PEACE AND THE CONSTITUTION

_The question for the British nation is--Can we work our
course pacifically on firm land into the New Era, or must
it be for us as for others, through the black abysses of
Anarchy, hardly escaping, if we do with all our struggles
escape, the jaws of eternal death?_--THOMAS CARLYLE.


It is not only international peace that must be assured. As a necessary
condition for reconstruction comes the need for Peace, peace real and
lasting, and peace all round. There may be times when the nation or the
individual needs the bracing stimulus, if not of war, at least of
competition and of conflict in the realm of thought and in the realm of
action; times when old institutions, old creeds, old systems, old
customs, are fiercely attacked and vigorously defended. The storm clears
the air, and the struggle ends in the survival of the fittest. After the
War the nations, and our own not least, wearied of strife, exhausted by
losses, will need all their energies to repair those losses, to rebuild,