Second, it must be clear that we do not desire the destruction of Germany--a futile desire, even if not wicked--but its regeneration. No doubt for a time, whatever happens in Germany, it will be impossible to forget the crimes that have been committed. British sailors will naturally refuse all association with those who have been guilty of the series of murders at sea. Any attempt, however, to exclude Germany from the markets of the world, permanently to destroy German commerce for all time, would make permanent peace impossible. To make that a war aim would be to strengthen every evil influence in Germany, and if done with the object of securing gain to ourselves by forcible means, would degrade us almost to the level of those who forced this War upon the world. It was the purity of our aims that united all the best elements of the nation in entering upon and in prosecuting the War, and in facing its losses. It was that which has confirmed the stability of the alliance, and from the beginning of the War made the best and most enlightened Americans earnest supporters of our cause, and has finally brought in the whole American nation, sworn to see the accomplishment of those aims. The aims with which Britain entered on the War appealed irresistibly to the people of the whole Empire, and not least to the imagination of the Indian races. An Indian friend of wide experience and calm and independent judgment wrote to me at the time, saying he had never seen anything like the spirit of intense loyalty called out by the belief of Indians that Britain was taking up a heavy burden to protect weaker nations from aggression and to maintain justice.[4] Let us keep those aims pure to the end. It would, of course, be affectation to suggest that our object in the War is now simply a chivalrous desire to protect the weak or maintain justice. We now know that it is also to preserve our own existence as a nation, and that it would be better for us and our children that Britain should be sunk beneath the sea than that Germany should achieve a complete victory. It must be reiterated that until Germans and Austrians can be admitted to free intercourse with other nations we can have no complete world peace. For such admission the conditions precedent above stated are essential. But if these are complied with, we must make our choice between the possibility of general peace with a League of Nations embracing all and a state of "veiled and suspended warfare." This pregnant phrase caught my eye after the foregoing paragraphs were written. It is one to be remembered.