England rich, prosperous, with all that she can possibly assimilate already in her hands, desires peace on present conditions of world power. These conditions are not merely that her actual possessions should remain intact, but that no other Great Power shall, by acquiring colonies and spreading its people and institutions into neighbouring regions, thereby possibly affect the fuller development of those pre-existing British States. For, with England equality is an offence and the Power that arrives at a degree of success approximating to her own and one capable of being expanded into conditions of fair rivalry, has already committed the unpardonable sin. As Curran put it in his defence of Hamilton Rowan in 1797, "England is marked by a natural avarice of freedom which she is studious to engross and accumulate, but most unwilling to impart; whether from any necessity of her policy or from her weakness, or from her pride, I will not presume to say." Thus while England might even be the attacking party, and in all probability will be the attacking party, she will embark on a war with Germany at an initial disadvantage. She will be on her defence. Although, probably, the military aggressor from reasons of strategy, she will be acting in obedience to an economic policy of defence and not of attack. Her chief concern will be not to advance and seize, always in war the more inspiring task, but to retain and hold. At best she could come out of the war with no new gain, with nothing added worth having to what she held on entering it. Victory would mean for her only that she had secured a further spell of quiet in which to consolidate her strength and enjoy the good things already won. Germany will fight with far other purpose and one that must inspire a far more vigorous effort; she will fight, not merely to keep what she already has, but to escape from an intolerable position of inferiority she knows to be unmerited and forced not by the moral or intellectual superiority of her adversary or due to her own short comings, but maintained by reason of that adversary's geographical position and early seizure of the various points of advantage. Her effort will be not merely military, it will be an intellectual assertion, a fight in very truth for that larger freedom, that citizenship of the world England is studious to "engross and accumulate" for herself alone and to deny to all others. Thus, while English attack at the best will be actuated by no loftier feeling than that of a man who, dwelling in a very comfortable house with an agreeable prospect resists an encroachment on his outlook from the building operations of his less well lodged neighbour, Germany will be fighting not only to get out of doors into the open air and sunshine, but to build a loftier and larger dwelling, fit tenement for a numerous and growing offspring. Whatever the structure Germany seeks to erect England objects to the plan and hangs out her war sign "Ancient Lights."