Have we really a quarrel with Germany?  Is she doing us any wrong?  Some of our people seem to think so, though I find it hard to say in what the wrong consists.  Are we doing her any wrong?  Some Germans seem to think so, and it behoves us, if we can, to find out what the German grievance is.

Suppose that there is a cause for quarrel, hidden at present but sooner or later to be revealed.  What likelihood is there that we shall be able to make good our case in arms, and to satisfy the world and posterity that we deserved to win?

Germany can build fleets as fast as we can, and although we have a start the race will not be easy for us; she has the finest school of war that ever existed, against which we have to set an Admiralty so much mistrusted that at this moment a committee of the Cabinet is inquiring into its efficiency.

Is it not time for us to find the answer to the question raised by Lord Salisbury nine years ago, to ascertain what it is that interferes with the perfection of the British constitution as an instrument of war, and to set right what is wrong with our machinery?

The truth is that we have ceased to be a nation; we have forgotten nationhood, and have become a conglomerate of classes, parties, factions, and sects.  That is the disease.  The remedy consists in reconstituting ourselves as a nation.

What is a nation?  The inhabitants of a country constituted as one body to secure their corporate being and well-being.  The nation is all of us, and its government is trusteeship for us all in order to give us peace and security, and in order that in peace and security we may make each other’s lives worth living by doing each the best work he can.  The nature of a nation may be seen by distinguishing it from the other nations outside and from the parties within.  The mark of a nation is sovereignty, which means, as regards other nations, the right and the power to make peace with them or to carry on war against them, and which means, as regards those within, the right and the power to command them.

A nation is a people constituted as a State, maintaining and supporting a Government which is at once the embodiment of right and the wielder of force.  If the right represented by the Government is challenged, either without or within, the Government asserts it by force, and in either case disposes, to any extent that may be required, of the property, the persons, and the lives of its subjects.

A party, according to the classical theory of the British constitution, is a body of men within the State who are agreed in regarding some measure or some principle as so vital to the State that, in order to secure the adoption of the measure or the acceptance of the principle, they are willing to sink all differences of opinion on other matters, and to work together for the one purpose which they are agreed in regarding as fundamental.