On the other hand, it must not be supposed that no patriotic party existed. There was a patriotic party, and the exigencies of the time inspired some of its leaders nobly. But the sheer weight of numbers, of indifference, and of selfishness to which this party was opposed was too much for it. The best method of realizing this nowadays is by the study of the newspaper files for the early years of the century. From these it will be seen that even the people and journals in whom devoted patriotism survived, even the leaders who gave up their time and energy (politics gave us such a man, the Army another, the Navy another, literature another, and journalism gave us an editor in whom the right fire burned brightly) to the task of warning and adjuring the public, and seeking to awaken the nation to the lost sense of its dangers, its duties, and its responsibilities; even these were forced by the weight of public selfishness into using an almost apologetic tone, with reference to the common calls of patriotism and Imperial unity. People dismissed an obvious challenge of the national conscience with a hurried and impatient wave of the hand. They were tired of this; they had heard enough of the other; they were occupied with local interests of the moment, and could not be bothered with this or that consideration affecting the welfare of the world-wide shores of greater outside Britain. And, accordingly, we find that the most patriotic and public-spirited journal was obliged, for its life, to devote more attention to a football match at the Crystal Palace than to a change of public policy affecting the whole commercial future of a part of the Empire twenty times greater than Britain. There were other journals, organs of the self-centred majority, that would barely even mention an Imperial development of that sort, and then but casually, as a matter of no particular interest to their readers; as indeed it was. I do not think that retrospection has coloured my view too darkly when I say that my brief experience in Fleet Street made me feel that the _Daily Gazette_ party, the supporters of "The Destroyers" (as naval folk had named the Government of the day) consisted of a mass of smugly hypocritical self-seekers; and that the party I served under Clement Blaine were a mass of blatantly frank self-seekers. Such generalizations can never be quite just, however. There were earnest and devoted men in every section of the community. But, as a generalization, as indicating the typical characteristics of the parties, I fear that my view has been proved correct.