'Yet if, after the War, States are to be shut out from the sea; if rapidly expanding populations find themselves excluded from raw materials indispensable to their prosperity; if the privileges and preferences enjoyed by States with overseas territories place the less powerful States at a disadvantage, we shall have re-established potent motives for that competition for political power which, in the past, has been so large an element in the causation of war and the subjugation of weaker peoples. The ideal of the security of all nations and "equality of opportunity" will have failed of realisation.'[34] _The Balance of Power and Defence of Law and Nationality._ 'Why were you so whole-soully for this war?' asked the interviewer of Mr Lloyd George. 'Belgium,' was the reply. The Prime Minister of the morrow continued:-- 'The Saturday after war had actually been declared on the Continent (Saturday, 1st August), a poll of the electors of Great Britain would have shown ninety-five per cent. against embroiling this country in hostilities. Powerful city financiers whom it was my duty to interview this Saturday on the financial situation, ended the conference with an earnest hope that Britain would keep out of it. A poll on the following Tuesday would have resulted in a vote of ninety-nine per cent. in favour of war. 'What had happened in the meantime? The revolution in public sentiment was attributable entirely to an attack made by Germany on a small and unprotected country, which had done her no wrong, and what Britain was not prepared to do for interests political and commercial, she readily risked to help the weak and helpless. Our honour as a nation is involved in this war, because we are bound in an honourable obligation to defend the independence, the liberty, the integrity of a small neighbour that has lived peaceably; but she could not have compelled us, being weak. The man who declined to discharge his debt because his creditor is too poor to enforce it, is a blackguard.' A little later, in the same interview, Mr Lloyd George, after allusion to German misrepresentations, said:-- 'But this I know is true--after the guarantee given that the German fleet would not attack the coast of France or annex any French territory, _I_ would not have been party to a declaration of war, had Belgium not been invaded, and I think I can say the same thing for most, if not all, of my colleagues. If Germany had been wise, she would not have set foot on Belgian soil. The Liberal Government then would not have intervened. Germany made a grave mistake.'[35] This interview compels several very important conclusions. One, perhaps the most important--and the most hopeful--is profoundly creditable to English popular instinct and not so creditable to Mr Lloyd George.