Those who had to make the effort to keep the peace failed. But that
neither shows that they ought not to have tried with all the strength
they possessed in the way they did, nor that they would have done better
had they discussed delicate details in public. There are topics and
conjunctures in the almost daily changing relations between Governments
as to which silence is golden. For however proper it may be in point of
broad principle that the people should be fully informed of what
concerns them vitally, the most important thing is those to whom they
have confided their concerns should be given the best chance of success
in averting danger to their interests. To have said more in Parliament
and on the platform in the years in question, or to have said it
otherwise, would have been to run grave risks of more than one sort. It
is my strong impression that Lord Grey of Fallodon took the only course
that was practicable, and that, had the danger of the catastrophe to be
faced again and for the first time, the course he took would, even in
the light of all we know to-day, again afford the best chance of
avoiding it. He succeeded in improving greatly for the time the
relations between this country and Germany, and but for the outbreak in
the Near East he would probably have succeeded in navigating the
dangerous waters successfully. The chance was far from being a hopeless
one, and subsequent study of the facts has strengthened my impression
that down to at least about the middle of the year 1913 the chances were
substantially in his favor. A sufficiency at least of the leaders in
other countries were co-operating with him, not all the leaders, but
those who were in reality most important. The war when it came was due,
not only to the failure of certain of the prominent men in the capitals
of the Central Powers to adhere to principles to which for a long time
they had held fast, but to the accident of untoward circumstances and
the contingency that is inseparable from human affairs.