We may pause at this breathing-place to take note of the healing influences of time. Radical journalists of 1832, and thereabouts, were wont to say very much the same hard things of the Duke of Wellington, as those of 1912 saw fit to apply to Earl Roberts.... We may also remark in passing, upon the errors to which even the most brilliant of contemporary judgments are liable. There has never been a man in our time who set a higher value on peace than Lord Roberts did. He realised, however, not only the intrinsic value of peace, but its market cost. His real crime, in the eyes of pacifists, was that he stated publicly, as often as he had the chance, what price we must be prepared to pay, if we wanted peace and not war. It was in this sense, no doubt, that he did not know 'how to estimate and bow to the governing forces of national policy.' His blunt warnings broke in rudely and crudely upon the comfortable discourse of the three counsellors--_Simple_, _Sloth_, and _Presumption_, who, better than any others, were skilled in estimating the 'governing forces,' and the advantages to be gained by bowing to them. {338} The writer in the _Nation_ then proceeded to riddle Lord Roberts's theories of defence. "He desires us to remain a 'free nation' in the same breath that he invites us to come under the yoke of conscription"--intolerable, indeed, that the citizens of a free nation should be ordered to fit themselves for defending their common freedom--"conscription, if you please, for the unheard-of purpose of overseas service in India and elsewhere...." This invitation does not seem to be contained in this, or any other of Lord Roberts's speeches; but supposing it to have been given, it was not altogether 'unheard-of,' seeing that, under the law of conscription prevalent (for example) in Germany, conscript soldiers can be sent to Palestine, or tropical Africa as lawfully as into Luxemburg, Poland, or France. According to the _Nation_, the true theory of defence was Sea Power; but this, it appeared, could not be relied on for all time.... "While our naval monopoly--like our commercial monopoly--cannot exist for ever, our sea power and our national security depend on our ability to crush an enemy's fleet.... We were never so amply insured--so over-insured--against naval disaster as we are to-day." [Sidenote: A LIBERAL ATTACK]