I do most honestly believe this will be the last big war; it will be a lesson to the wide world of the cost of fighting, the cost in lives, in comforts, in money. The English will surely feel this; they are fond of luxury. When I visited England I was impressed by the almost reckless extravagance of living; money did not count so long as entertainment was obtained; women seemed to have a careless disregard of all things save pleasure. I have wondered and marvelled at the way they have acted since war broke out; now no sacrifice is too great for them to make. Truly the English are remarkable; they are on the surface lovers of ease and lazy luxury, so as to seem almost degenerate. Yet, beneath it all, there is stamina, grit, the power to bear hardship, the spirit of the real adventurer. The war will do English social life good--for a time; but though for a little while the English will eschew gaiety perhaps--I mean the recklessly extravagant gaieties which were their wont--will their phlegmatic nature presently allow this disturbance to be forgotten and the old conditions to recur? Sincerely I hope not. To end some of the senseless dissipations would be one of the best results of the war; there is no room in life for stupid extravagances, for heedless rushing after novel excitement. For English Society I hope the lesson will go too deep to be forgotten lightly. And I am interested too in the movement which is just now on foot in England to prohibit, or at least to curtail so extensive a sale of alcohol. An abstemious Europe would have made the war almost worth while. And why should it be impossible? France has closed down the sale of absinthe, Russia sells and consumes no more vodka. In England the evil is whisky. But the question of disarmament: there is so much to hinder it. Each country has a different condition of things to consider; England, for instance, has never kept her army for her own insular needs; her army has been maintained to protect and uphold the ends of her Empire--and those needs will remain; how can she disarm altogether when India has to be considered, and while she has interests to defend, not against the great Powers, but against the native insurgent in so many parts of the world, it is vital to her--and the present crisis emphasises it beyond mistake--that the seas should be kept open, and were there no force behind that need she as well as her food supply would be at the mercy of any pirate. Similarly France has colonies which call for a guard by land and sea.