Now I cannot help thinking that if those who aspire to govern men, and even to lay claim to the title of statesmen, were to study military history, they might learn enough about the moral force of nations and armies to set them thinking very seriously. It is a force that is very difficult to build up and not very difficult to destroy; and yet politicians of all parties trifle with it as though it were an insignificant matter. It is impossible to devise a form of Government or to collect an administration which will satisfy all men; but, though everyone recognises the fact in theory, few make allowances for it in practice. It is sufficient for politicians of all ways of thinking in these days to say solemnly that the will of the majority must prevail. But why must it prevail? Because the majority is more likely to be right than the minority? Far from it: if we could believe that this were the rule, the government of the world would be much easier than it is. No, the will of the majority must prevail because it can be enforced on the minority, which is only another way of saying that Might is Right. See how in this world of cant the terrible maxim, which men think applicable to war only, is daily in force all round us. Wise men therefore will be always moderate in their dealing with honest and respectable minorities, whether they differ from the majority in matters of religious, political or social faith, provided always that their dissent is not merely a cloak for evading the obligations of ordinary morality. Yet such moderation, though of the last importance towards amity and good understanding in a community and therefore towards its moral force in the event of war, is little more common to-day than at other periods of human history. There is really only one political or social principle which has any permanent worth, and it is expressed in the homely proverb "Give and take."