The Preparedness campaign is still in its early stages and has not assumed its definite form. But it started as a spontaneous non-party movement; it was taken up by the Republican opposition; it was eagerly supported by President Wilson and his Government; it has been clearly thought out and firmly developed by Mr. Hughes. Army, Navy, and mercantile marine are all to be increased and developed; but it is noteworthy that more stress is laid on the Navy than on the Army, and politicians have already uttered the ominous phrase, "a fleet that shall not be at the mercy of the British fleet!" More important still must be the preparation for a great mercantile rivalry. Vast sums have already been appropriated for shipbuilding, and other steps, too, are to be taken to secure for America her proper position in shipping and in foreign trade. No more dependence upon English bottoms! Competition will be very severe. At the end of the war, Mr. Hughes warned the audience in his Notification Speech, "the energies of each of the new belligerent nations, highly trained, will be turned to production. These are days of terrible discipline for the nations at war. . . . Each is developing a national solidarity, a knowledge of method, a realisation of capacity hitherto unapproached." Mr. Hughes is too wise and broad-minded to put his thought in a threatening shape. But most of his hearers throughout that vast hall thought of the Resolutions of Paris, and felt that if the Allies chose to pursue war-methods in their commercial action America must be ready to respond. One's heart sinks at the prospect opened out by this policy. Trade rivalry; severe protection; the State deliberately entering into the commercial contest with subsidies and penalties; competitive shipbuilding; the desire for a strong Navy behind the merchant fleet; and at the end of a vista that prize which has dazzled so many nations, some of them perhaps not much less peace-loving and level-headed than the United States, the position of recognised centrality and supremacy among the great nations of the world. Is there no prospect of escape? Yes, there is. The above is the first great current of feeling that, in my judgment, has swept the whole people of the United States; the second is the antidote to it, and is almost, if not quite, equally strong. It is the determination that, if America can help it, a colossal iniquity like the present war shall not be allowed to occur again. The feeling needs no explanation. It is that of every Englishman of moderately liberal feelings, and is deeply ingrained in the nature of the ordinary American. It has swept through all political parties and most other sections of the community, except a few extreme pacifists and those pro-Germans who are working for an inconclusive peace and a second war.