If the House of Commons had received any assurance less unequivocal, it is more than possible that the ministerial party would have split and that the government would have fallen. Though heavily reduced in numbers, the liberal majority was identical in spirit with that which had been returned to support Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; it was strongly radical, straitly nonconformist and essentially pacific, knowing little of history and nothing of foreign policy, neither understanding nor liking continental adventures and occasionally resisting vehemently a quarter-comprehended drifting which demonstrably absorbed in armaments a revenue which might have been devoted to social reform. It disliked Mr. Churchill's activities at the Admiralty, it distrusted the liberal-imperialist elements which had risen to the top of the cabinet in the persons of Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey and Lord Haldane; it had no quarrel with any one and, if its fears had not been lulled by the prime minister's explicit assurances, it would have taken steps to dissipate that danger of a European war in which Great Britain began to be involved on the day when she involved herself in continental politics. If the "obligation of honour," disclosed in 1914, had been made public any time in the three years preceding, if the government had fallen, if the commons of Great Britain had shewn themselves to the pacific minorities and majorities in every country of Europe as backing their peace-talk with deeds, there would have been reality in the professions of the foreign secretary; the naval holiday and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's hopes for proportional disarmament might have had a hearing. Perhaps there would have been no war. When there was no obligation to participate, there was no cause for uneasiness. It was not until August Bank Holiday, 1914, that the House of Commons and the country discovered that "no obligation" was the same as "an obligation of honour." Sir Edward Grey, in guiding the House to war, used the words: "For many years we have had a long-standing friendship with France ... how far that friendship entails ... an obligation, let every man look into his own heart, and his own feelings, and construe the extent of the obligation for himself."