The justification for the attempt made in the following pages is that there are many people who have not the time or inclination to follow up special questions fully, but may be glad of a summary, and that a mere sketch-plan of the whole ground to be covered, filled in here and there in more detail, may have its use as a kind of bird's-eye view by which the relations of a number of subjects to each other and the general character of each may be seen. For convenience of treatment and as an aid to memory the various problems to be discussed are arranged under three heads; following the old Victorian watchwords of the party which claimed to be progressive--Peace, Retrenchment, Reform. The policy once indicated by these terms may in many cases have been discarded, and no doubt they were often used in a sense very different from that in which they must serve in our classification. "Peace" and "Retrenchment" have been used to cover a policy which by reducing the Navy would have left us naked to our enemies and a prey to starvation within a few months from the outbreak of war; "Reform" to denote changes which pedantry or envy may urge, but which could lead to no useful practical result. In spite of this, the three words do in fact, like the words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity--whatever crimes may have been committed in their name--indicate and express three ideas that we must have definitely before us in considering what the lines of reconstruction ought to be. The spirit--the tone of mind in which the work of reconstruction is approached--will count for much. First of all, it is essential to have hope--a real expectation not only that by strenuous effort and wise foresight the country will meet and overcome the trials which are inevitable, and the perils which threaten after as well as during the War, but also that a better and brighter future is in store. Plans must be framed and action taken under the inspiration of a firm trust that the ideals we aim at are to be realised, that the "things hoped for" have a potential actuality. Fatalism in politics--we use the term in the original sense including ethics--is deadly, whether it is the fatalism due to a sloppy optimism which is satisfied that somehow things will come right whatever we do or leave undone, or to a paralysing pessimism which in cowardly despair accepts the triumph of evil as ordained and gives up the struggle when the prospects of victory seem dark. It would be folly not to recognise that not only now, but for years to come there will be enormous difficulties and terrible dangers to be faced; but it is possible for our hearts and minds to be filled too much with the contemplation of them instead of looking to the goal we aim at, and the steps we must take one by one to reach it. Be not over-exquisite To cast the fashion of uncertain evils. What need a man forestall his date of grief And run to meet what he would most avoid?