“One must admire the consistent fidelity and patriotism of the English race, as compared with the uncertain and erratic methods of the German people, their mistrust, and suspicion....  In spite of numerous wars, bloodshed, and disaster, England always emerges smoothly and easily from her military crises and settles down to new conditions and surroundings in her usual cool and deliberate manner, so different from the German.”—­Berliner Tageblatt, March 14, 1911.

Presumably each doughty warrior knows his own country better than that of the other, which would carry a conclusion directly contrary to that which he draws.

But note also where this idea that it is necessary artificially to stimulate the defensive zeal of each country by resisting any tendency to agreement and understanding leads.  It leads even so good a man as Lord Roberts into the trap of dogmatic prophesy concerning the intentions of a very complex heterogeneous nation of 65 million people.  Lord Roberts could not possibly tell you what his own country will do five, ten, or fifteen years hence in such matters as Home Rule or the Suffragists, or even the payment of doctors, but he knows exactly what a foreign country will do in a much more serious matter.  The simple truth is, of course, that no man knows what “Germany” will do ten years hence, any more than we can know what “England” will do.  We don’t even know what England will be, whether Unionist or Liberal or Labour, Socialist, Free Trade or Protectionist.  All these things, like the question of Peace and War depends upon all sorts of tendencies, drifts and developments.  At bottom, of course, since war, in Mr. Bonar Law’s fine phrase, is “never inevitable—­only the failure of human wisdom,” it depends upon whether we become a little less or a little more wise.  If the former, we shall have it; if the latter, we shall not.  But this dogmatism concerning the other man’s evil intentions is the very thing that leads away from wisdom.[10] The sort of temper and ideas which it provokes on both sides of the frontier may be gathered from just such average gems as these plucked recently from the English press:—­

Yes, we may as well face it. War with Germany is inevitable, and the only question is—­Shall we consult her convenience as to its date?  Shall we wait till Germany’s present naval programme, which is every year reducing our advantage, is complete?  Shall we wait till the smouldering industrial revolution, of which all these strikes are warnings, has broken into flame?  Shall we wait till Consols are 65 and our national credit is gone?  Shall we wait till the Income Tax is 1s. 6d. in the pound?  OR SHALL WE STRIKE NOW—­finding every out-of-work a job in connection with the guardianship of our shores, and, with our mighty fleet, either sinking every German ship or towing it in triumph into a British port? Why should we do it? Because the command of the seas is ever