More of the nation’s life and development has been concentrated within the last four years than would occupy fifty years of Europe or a “cycle of Cathay” in ordinary times.  It has borne sorrows and losses which would have been overwhelming had it been known beforehand how great they would be; the call for tremendous efforts for which it was totally unprepared has been answered with steady resolve and heroic sacrifice.  Faith in human nature has been confirmed.  Where there has been failure it has not been through want of courage or any shrinking from duty on the part of the rank and file, but rather from deficiencies in leadership.  Imaginative grasp of a position, clear and accurate thinking, leading to prompt and definite action, can hardly be claimed as special characteristics of our race, but once satisfied that a thing has got to be done, that it is “up to them” to do it, checks or defeats, labour or risks do not count.  Sooner or later the task is performed.  The “recoil” of the British again and again after being pressed back is the striking feature in their history.  The spring is not easily wound up, but it has enormous power, and the events of to-day show that it has not lost its elasticity.  But how much more might have been accomplished, how much loss and suffering prevented, had knowledge awakened more interest and a prophetic imagination guided and inspired action directed to a definite goal, had we set our ideals clearly before us and carefully thought out the steps to be taken one by one towards their realisation!

The recognition of these conditions is needed now, and will in the coming changes be needed more and more.  Enthusiasm and sanity must be united to carry us safely forward.  Tradition and custom will count for less either in maintaining or in preventing what is evil.  Many old modes of thought, many old habits which checked us in the downward as well as hindered us in the upward path, will have been destroyed by the fire through which we have been passing.  We need a conscious plan more than ever for rebuilding and good workmanship in execution detail by detail.

    Image the whole, then execute the parts. 
        Fancy the fabric
    Quite ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
        Ere mortar dab brick.

Then take the trowel and see that brick by brick each course is truly laid.

But we are not building a new city on unoccupied ground; there are some foundations truly laid which have withstood the fire and storm and which cannot be disturbed without both risk and useless toil.  There are still edifices standing to which time has given a beauty and tradition a sanctity which newer creations cannot possess.  They cannot be removed without irreparable loss.  Like any other metaphor, that of rebuilding a city as compared with the action of a state, of a nation, after a time of change and trouble, is misleading if pressed too far.  Progress for a nation must rather be the growth and development of a living organism adapting itself to new conditions or altered environment.  We should “lop the moulder’d branch away,” amputate the diseased tissue, as the true Conservative policy, and tend and foster the healthy growths with utmost care, as the true method for the Liberal who aims at improvement and fuller life.