There is no doubt about the truth of this. To get the voluntary gift of three million lives within one year, to get the voluntary loan of £600,000,000 in less than one month is probably an unparalleled achievement. Great Britain has done far more than her duty to others called for. And yet the question will not be smothered: Is she doing all that is called for by a strong, far-seeing nation's duty to itself? She has thrown into the scales all the peculiar assets of a democracy in spontaneous zeal and voluntary sacrifice. But can a really great nation in such a crisis as this afford to be the recipient of only those contributions, no matter how prodigal, which are spontaneous and voluntary? Can a really proud nation afford to base its career at such a time upon the charity of its citizens? With Russia on the one hand purging herself of the bureaucratic evils of absolutism and forcing upon herself the pains of democratization, with France, on the other hand, sacrificing for the time her most cherished principles of republicanism in order to substitute the efficiency of Authority for the waste motions of Democracy, can England afford to remain complacently convinced that she represents the happy mean between these two extremes--a mean which needs no modifying? Can England as a nation continue with admiring acquiescence to watch the cream of her manhood spend itself in Flanders and the Dardanelles; continue with deprecating acquiescence to watch the skimmed milk of her manhood preserve itself at home for the sacred duty of fathering a future generation? Can England acquiesce placidly in the professional, the business, the financial sacrifices generally which so many Englishmen are splendidly making, and acquiesce plaintively in the disgusting treason whose guilt was shared in varying measure by the gouging coal-owners and the striking coal-miners of Wales? Can England set out to curb the drunkenness which in certain parts is crippling her ammunition production and then sink back into acquiescence in the temporizing compromise which taxed drunkenness instead of terminating it? Can England, in fine, afford to preserve Personal Liberty at the slightest risk of imperilling National Liberty? Perhaps England can. Perhaps England must. So long as England fulfils and far exceeds her covenants with her allies it is not a question for them to answer. It is assuredly not a question to which any neutral visitor can with seemliness hazard a solution. It is not even a question, in my opinion, which is apt to affect the ultimate outcome of this particular war. But it is a question to which on some future day Macaulay's New Zealander will, with positiveness and propriety, be in a position to find the answer. * * * * * Transcriber's note: