And it is danger of happening.  I speak from the standpoint of a somewhat special experience.  During the last 18 months I have addressed not scores but many hundreds of meetings on the subject of the very proposition on which Lord Roberts’ speech is based and which I have indicated at the beginning of this letter; I have answered not hundreds but thousands of questions arising out of it.  And I think that gives me a somewhat special understanding of the mind of the man in the street.  The reason he is subject to panic, and “sees red” and will often accept blindly counsels like those of Lord Roberts, is that he holds as axioms these primary assumptions to which I have referred, namely, that he carries on his daily life by virtue of military force, and that the means of carrying it on will be taken from him by the first stronger power that rises in the world, and that that power will be pushed to do it by the advantage of such seizure.  And these axioms he never finds challenged even by his Liberal guides.

The issue for those who really desire a better condition is clear.  So long as by their silence, or by their indifference to the discussion of the fundamental facts of this problem they create the impression that Mr. Churchill’s axioms are unchallengeable, the panic-mongers will have it all their own way, and our action will be a stimulus to similar action in Germany, and that action will again re-act on ours, and so on ad infinitum.

Why is not some concerted effort made to create in both countries the necessary public opinion, by encouraging the study and discussion of the elements of the case, in some such way, for instance, as that adopted by Mr. Norman Angell in his book?

One organization due to private munificence has been formed and is doing, within limits, an extraordinarily useful work, but we can only hope to affect policy by a much more general interest—­the interest of those of leisure and influence.  And that does not seem to be forthcoming.

My own work, which has been based quite frankly on Mr. Angell’s book, has convinced me that it embodies just the formula most readily understanded of the people.  It constitutes a constructive doctrine of International Policy—­the only statement I know so definitely applicable to modern conditions.

But the old illusions are so entrenched that if any impression is to be made on public opinion generally, effort must be persistent, permanent, and widespread.  Mere isolated conferences, disconnected from work of a permanent character, are altogether inadequate for the forces that have to be met.

What is needed is a permanent and widespread organization embracing Trades Unions, Churches and affiliated bodies, Schools and Universities, basing its work on some definite doctrine of International Policy which can supplant the present conceptions of