These are not Lord Roberts' words, but the proposition is the clear underlying assumption of his speech. And his critics do not seriously challenge it. Mr. Churchill by implication warmly supports it. At Glasgow he said: "The whole fortune of our race and Empire, the whole treasure accumulated during so many centuries of sacrifice and achievement would perish and be swept utterly away, if our naval supremacy were to be impaired." Now why should there be any danger of Germany bringing about this catastrophe unless she could profit enormously by so doing? But that implies that a nation does expand by military force, does achieve the best for its people by that means; it does mean that if you are not stronger than your rival, you carry on your trade "on sufferance" and at the appointed hour will have it taken from you by him. And if that assumption--plainly indicated as it is by a Liberal Minister--is right, who can say that Lord Roberts' conclusion is not justified? Now as to the means of preventing the war. Lord Roberts' formula is:-- "Such a battle front by sea and land that no power or probable combination of powers shall dare to attack us without the certainty of disaster." This, of course, is taken straight from Mr. Churchill, who, at Dundee, told us that "the way to make war impossible is to be so strong as to make victory certain." We have all apparently, Liberals and Conservatives alike, accepted this "axiom" as self-evident. Well, since it is so obvious as all that we may expect the Germans to adopt it. At present they are guided by a much more modest principle (enunciated in the preamble of the German Navy Law); namely, to be sufficiently strong to make it _dangerous_ for your enemy to attack. They must now, according to our "axiom," be so strong as to make our defeat certain. I am quite sure that the big armament people in Germany are very grateful for the advice which Mr. Churchill and Lord Roberts thus give to the nations of the world, and we may expect to see German armaments so increased as to accord with the new principle. And Lord Roberts is courageous enough to abide by the conclusion which flows from the fundamental assumption of Liberals and Conservatives alike, _i.e._, that trade and the means of livelihood can be transferred by force. We have transferred it in the past. "It is excellent policy; it is, or should be, the policy of every nation prepared to play a great part in history." Such are Lord Roberts' actual words. At least, they don't burke the issue.