Well, as I said, we, as a people, do not believe in gambling in human misery to attain uncertain speculative gains.  We hold that war can be justified only by a good cause, not by a lucky event.  The German doctrine seems to us impious and wicked.  Though we have defined our war aims in detail, and the Germans have not dared publicly to define theirs, our real and sufficient war aim is to break the monstrous and inhuman doctrine and practice of the enemy—­to make their calculations miscarry.  And observe, if their calculations miscarry, they have fought and suffered for nothing.  They entered into this War for profit, and in the conduct of the War, though they have made many mistakes, they have made none of those generous and magnanimous mistakes which redeem and beautify a losing cause.

The essence of our cause, and its greatest strength, is that we are not fighting for profit.  We are fighting for no privilege except the privilege of possessing our souls, of being ourselves—­a privilege which we claim also for other weaker nations.  The inestimable strength of that position is that if the odds are against us it does not matter.  If you see a ruffian torturing a child, and interfere to prevent him, do you feel that your attempt was a wrong one because he knocks you down?  And if you succeed, what material profit is there in saving a child from torture?  We have sometimes fought in the past for doubtful causes and for wrong causes, but this time there is no mistake.  Our cause is better than we deserve; we embraced it by an act of faith, and it is only by continuing in that faith that we shall see it through.  The little old Army, when they went to France in August 1914, did not ask what profits were likely to come their way.  They knew that there were none, but they were willing to sacrifice themselves to save decency and humanity from being trampled in the mud.  This was the Army that the Germans called a mercenary Army, and its epitaph has been written by a good poet: 

     These, in the day when heaven was falling,
     The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
     Followed their mercenary calling,
     And took their wages, and are dead.

     Their shoulders held the heavens suspended,
     They stood, and earth’s foundations stay,
     What God abandoned these defended,
     And saved the sum of things for pay.

We must follow their example, for we shall never get a better.  We must not make too much of calculation, especially when it deals with incalculable things.  Nervous public critics, like Mr. H.G.  Wells, are always calling out for more cleverness in our methods, for new and effective tricks, so that we may win the War.  I would never disparage cleverness; the more you can get of it, the better; but it is useless unless it is in the service of something stronger and greater than itself, and that is character.  Cleverness can grasp; it is only character that can hold.  The Duke of Wellington was not a clever man; he was a man of simple and honourable mind, with an infinite capacity for patience, persistence, and endurance, so that neither unexpected reverses abroad nor a flood of idle criticism at home could shake him or change him.  So he bore a chief part in laying low the last great tyranny that desolated Europe.