Well!—I thought—if it is sacrifice you want, look at that horse! Look at all the people who have stood before this poster! They will take all your powers of sacrifice before you have done with them! And I, myself, looked at the horse; with his bleared eyes and the curves at the corners of his mouth, I thought I had never seen such a cynical-looking creature. “What are you, after all,” he seemed to be saying to me, “but a set of sanguinary tailless animals?” But suddenly the eyes of my mind travelled beyond sight of that poster, and as in a vision I seemed to see all the great lives men have lived, all the high thoughts they have conceived, all their wonderful ingenuity and perseverance and strength of will; how they have always found a way to fulfil that on which they have set their hearts. And as background to that vision there seemed disclosed to me the untold, unexploited wealth of the fields, woods, and waters under the sun. And I thought: “What that poster says is only true of such as _will_ it to be true. _Where there is a will to peace there is a way._[7] War between two such countries, two trustees of civilization need not be inevitable. To believe that is to blaspheme; to belittle human nature, to deny the Earth.” ----- [7] I recollect that the journal which this poster served to sell contained an article proposing to prove that war between England and Germany was inevitable, because of the rivalry between their trades. I thought then, and think now, that such a reason was revolting. In spite of all the bitter cry for commercial war that has now arisen, we did not begin, we never should have begun a war with Germany for such a reason alone. The war that—alas!—has come, has for us a better cause. None the less, I freely admit not gauging rightly the state of mind of Germany’s ruling classes. I always thought the question of war or no war was a great “toss-up” between the craze for armament and the growth of international feeling through social democracy. I thought the latter would win if people would set their wills on peace, and we could tide over the next few years. I was wrong.—J. G. II PEACE OF THE AIR (A Letter to _The Times_, 1911.) Beyond all the varying symptoms of madness in the life of modern nations the most dreadful is this prostitution of the conquest of the air to the ends of warfare.