The Committee was maintained by Mr. Balfour's successors, and was not allowed (as too often happens when there is a change of government) to fall into discredit and disuse.[4] But in order that this body of statesmen and experts might achieve the ends in view, it was essential for them to have realised clearly, not only the general object of British policy--which indeed was contained in the single word 'Security'--but also the special dangers which loomed in the near future. They had then to consider what reciprocal obligations had already been contracted with other nations, whose interests were to some extent the same as our own, and what further undertakings of a similar character it might be desirable to enter {234} into. Finally, there were the consequences which these obligations and undertakings would entail in certain contingencies. It was not enough merely to mumble the word 'Security' and leave it at that. What security implied in the then existing state of the world was a matter which required to be investigated in a concrete, practical, and business-like way. Unfortunately, the greater part of these essential preliminaries was omitted, and as a consequence, the original idea of the Committee of Imperial Defence was never realised. Harmonious, flexible, and of considerable utility in certain directions, it did not work satisfactorily as a whole. The trend of policy was, no doubt, grasped in a general way; but, as subsequent events have proved, the conditions on which alone that line could be maintained, and the consequences which it involved, were not at any time clearly understood and boldly faced by this august body in its corporate capacity. The general direction may have been settled; but certainly the course was not marked out; the rocks and shoals remained for the most part uncharted. The committee, no doubt, had agreed upon a certain number of vague propositions, as, for example, that France must not be crushed by Germany, or the neutrality of Belgium violated by any one. They knew that we were committed to certain obligations--or, as some people called them, 'entanglements'--and that these again, in certain circumstances, might commit us to others. But what the whole amounted to was not realised in barest outline, by the country, or by Parliament, or by the Government, or even, we may safely conjecture, by the Committee itself. {235} We have the right to say this, because, if British policy had been realised as a whole by the Committee of Imperial Defence, it would obviously have been communicated to the Cabinet, and in its broader aspects to the people; and this was never done. It is inconceivable that any Prime Minister, who believed, as Mr. Asquith does, in democratic principles, would have left the country uneducated, and his own colleagues unenlightened, on a matter of so great importance, had his own mind been clearly made up. [Sidenote: CONFUSION WHEN WAR OCCURRED]