RACIAL UNTRUTHS

This is trivial enough, but what would you have? If Admirals will not
strike the proper attitudes, nor Lieutenants emit the appropriate
sentiments, one is forced back on the truth, which is that the men at
the heart of the great matters in our Empire are, mostly, of an even
simplicity. From the advertising point of view they are stupid, but
the breed has always been stupid in this department. It may be due,
as our enemies assert, to our racial snobbery, or, as others hold, to
a certain God-given lack of imagination which saves us from being
over-concerned at the effects of our appearances on others. Either
way, it deceives the enemies' people more than any calculated lie.
When you come to think of it, though the English are the worst
paper-work and _viva voce_ liars in the world, they have been
rigorously trained since their early youth to live and act lies for
the comfort of the society in which they move, and so for their own
comfort. The result in this war is interesting.

It is no lie that at the present moment we hold all the seas in the
hollow of our hands. For that reason we shuffle over them shame-faced
and apologetic, making arrangements here and flagrant compromises
there, in order to give substance to the lie that we have dropped
fortuitously into this high seat and are looking round the world for
some one to resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, had we used the
Navy's bare fist instead of its gloved hand from the beginning, we
could in all likelihood have shortened the war. That being so, we
elected to dab and peck at and half-strangle the enemy, to let him go
and choke him again. It is no lie that we continue on our inexplicable
path animated, we will try to believe till other proof is given, by a
cloudy idea of alleviating or mitigating something for somebody--not