we, as a nation, stick closely to this clear and necessary, this
only possible, meaning of our declared War Aim? That great, clear-minded
leader among the Allies, that Englishman who more than any other single
man speaks for the whole English-speaking and Western-thinking
community, President Wilson, has said definitely that this is his
meaning. America, with him as her spokesman, is under no delusion; she
is fighting consciously for a German Revolution as the essential War
Aim. We in Europe do not seem to be so lucid. I think myself we have
been, and are still, fatally and disastrously not lucid. It is high
time, and over, that we cleared our minds and got down to the essentials
of the war. We have muddled about in blood and dirt and secondary issues
long enough.

We in Britain are not clear-minded, I would point out, because we are
double-minded. No good end is served by trying to ignore in the fancied
interests of "unity" a division of spirit and intention that trips us
up at every step. We are, we declare, fighting for a complete change in
international methods, and we are bound to stick to the logical
consequences of that. We have placed ourselves on the side of democratic
revolution against autocratic monarchy, and we cannot afford to go on
shilly-shallying with that choice. We cannot in these days of black or
white play the part of lukewarm friends to freedom. I will not remind
the reader here of the horrible vacillations and inconsistencies of
policy in Greece that have prolonged the war and cost us wealth and
lives beyond measure, but President Wilson himself has reminded us
pungently enough and sufficiently enough of the follies and
disingenuousness of our early treatment of the Russian Revolution. What
I want to point out here is the supreme importance of a clear lead in
this matter _now_ in order that we should state our War Aims
effectively.

In every war there must be two sets of War Aims kept in mind; we ought
to know what we mean to do in the event of victory so complete that we
can dictate what terms we choose, and we ought to know what, in the
event of a not altogether conclusive tussle, are the minimum terms that
we should consider justified us in a discontinuance of the tussle. Now,
unless our leading statesmen are humbugs and unless we are prepared to
quarrel with America in the interests of the monarchist institutions of
Europe, we should, in the event of an overwhelming victory, destroy both
the