Other nations certainly could not have done the same, for the reason that there are some things which one cannot do twice over, some things which one cannot give a second time--one's life for example, or the flower of the manhood of a nation to be made into soldiers. Other nations could not have done what we were doing, because they had done it already. They had their men prepared when the need arose--which we had not. Other nations were engaged in holding the common enemy at enormous sacrifices until we made ourselves ready; until we--triumphing in our {377} voluntary system, covering ourselves in self-praise, and declaring to the world, through the mouths of Sir John Simon and other statesmen, that each of our men was worth at least three of their 'pressed men' or conscripts--until we came up leisurely with reinforcements--six, nine, or twelve months hence--supposing that by such time, there was anything still left to come up for. If the Germans were then in Paris, Bordeaux, Brest, and Marseilles, there would be--temporarily at least--a great saving of mortality among the British race. If, on the other hand, the Allies had already arrived at Berlin without us, what greater triumph for the voluntary principle could possibly be imagined? [Sidenote: A FRENCH VIEW] Putting these views and considerations--which have so much impressed us all in our own recent discussions--before a French officer, I found him obstinate in viewing the matter at a different angle. He was inclined to lay stress on the case of Northern France, and even more on that of Belgium, whose resistance to the German invasion we had wished for and encouraged, and who was engaged in fighting our battles quite as much as her own. The voluntary principle, in spite of its triumphs at home--which he was not concerned to dispute--had not, he thought, as yet been remarkably triumphant abroad; and nine months had gone by since war began. He insisted, moreover, that for years before war was declared, our great British statesmen could not have been ignorant of the European situation, either in its political or its military aspects. Such ignorance was inconceivable. They must have suspected the intentions of Germany, and they must have known the numbers of her army. England had common {378} interests with France. Common interests, if there be a loyal understanding, involve equal sacrifices--equality of sacrifice not merely when the push comes, but in advance of the crisis, in preparation for it--a much more difficult matter. Why then had not our Government told the British people long ago what sacrifice its safety, no less than its honour, required of it to give?