None whatever. Not only so, but any effort towards a frank facing of the economic difficulty was resisted by the very people who had previously urged the economic factors of the conflict, as a 'sordid' interpretation of that conflict. We have seen what happened, for instance, in the case of Admiral Mahan. He urged that the competition for undeveloped territory and raw materials lay behind the political struggle. So be it; replies some one; let us see whether we cannot remove that economic cause of conflict, whether indeed there is any real economic conflict at all. And the Admiral then retorts that economics have nothing to do with it. To Mr Frederic Harrison '_The Great Illusion_ policy is childish and mischievous rubbish.' What was that policy? To deny the existence of the German or other aggressiveness? The whole policy was prompted by the very fact of that danger. Did the policy suggest that we should simply yield to German political pretensions? Again, as we have seen, such a course was rejected with every possible emphasis. The one outstanding implication of the policy was that while arming we must find a basis of co-operation by which both peoples could live. In any serious effort to that end, one overpowering question had to be answered by Englishmen who felt some responsibility for the welfare of their people. Would that co-operation, giving security to others, demand the sacrifice of the interest or welfare of their own people? _The Great Illusion_ replied, No, and set forth the reasons for that reply. And the setting-forth of those reasons made the book an 'appeal to avarice against patriotism,' an attempt 'to restore the blessed hour of money getting.' Eminent Nonconformist divines and patriotic stockbrokers joined hands in condemning the appalling sordidness of the demonstration which might have led to a removal of the economic causes of international quarrel. It is not true to say that in the decade preceding Armageddon the alternatives to fighting Germany were exhausted, and that nothing was left but war or submission. We simply had not tried the remedy of removing the economic excuse for aggression. The fact that Germany did face these difficulties and much future uncertainty was indeed urged by those of the school of Mr Harrison and Lord Roberts as a conclusive argument against the possibility of peace or any form of agreement with her. The idea that agreement should reach to such fundamental things as the means of subsistence seemed to involve such an invasion of sovereignty as not even to be imaginable.