The allies would have been strengthened beyond calculation if, on the outbreak of war, the United States had upheld the neutrality of Belgium by force of arms; or if, on the sinking of the _Lusitania_, they had maintained by force of arms their own prestige; or if, at any time before 1917 and on any pretext, they had eased by military and naval assistance the strain under which Great Britain was suffering. It is interesting and, unhappily, not wholly academic to speculate what Great Britain would have done or would do in the future if the government of a central or south American republic appealed to the great powers for assistance in repelling an unprovoked Japanese invasion; it is conceivable that the notes in which President Wilson defended his neutrality from 1914 to 1917 would constitute a valuable precedent and model for a British foreign secretary in defending his. The public in England did not pause to sympathise with a people which aimed at keeping itself free from the costly heritage of European politics, nor to understand a country in which the interests of the Atlantic coast were unintelligible on the coast of the Pacific and both were different from the interests of the middle west. It did not even pause to record or feel gratitude for the moral, financial and charitable support of a big section of the United States. From the day when President Wilson elected to stand aloof until the day when he declared war, Great Britain, despairing of help, gave herself over to sullen murmuring and periodical explosions. That a nation would sooner swallow an indignity than sacrifice its ideal of standing apart from all wars, that it should hope and work for a peace in which the victor should not be able to leave the vanquished only his eyes to weep with was unpalatable in a country which was threatened with starvation at home and with defeat or stalemate abroad. And no attempt was made to conceal this feeling of distaste.