League now, with
its necessary repudiation on the part of Britain, France, and Italy, of
a selfish and, it must be remembered in the light of these things I have
but hinted at here, a _now hopelessly unpracticable imperialism_, would,
I am convinced, lead quite rapidly to a great change of heart in Germany
and to a satisfactory peace. But even if I am wrong in that, then all
the stronger is the reason for binding, locking and uniting the allied
powers together. It is the most dangerous of delusions for each and all
of them to suppose that either Britain, France or Italy can ever stand
alone again and be secure.

And turning now to the other aspect of these consequences of the
development of material science, it is too often assumed that this war
is being as horrible and destructive as war can be. There never was so
great a delusion. This war has only begun to be horrible. No doubt it is
much more horrible and destructive than any former war, but even in
comparison with the full possibilities of known and existing means of
destruction it is still a mild war. Perhaps it will never rise to its
full possibilities. At the present stage there is not a combatant,
except perhaps America, which is not now practising a pinching economy
of steel and other mechanical material. The Germans are running short of
first-class flying men, and if we and our allies continue to press the
air attack, and seek out and train our own vastly greater resources of
first quality young airmen, the Germans may come as near to being
"driven out of the air" as is possible. I am a firmer believer than ever
I was in the possibility of a complete victory over Germany--through and
by the air. But the occasional dropping of a big bomb or so in London is
not to be taken as anything but a minimum display of what air war can
do. In a little while now our alliance should be in a position to
commence day and night continuous attacks upon the Rhine towns. Not
hour-long raids such as London knows, but week-long raids. Then and then
only shall we be able to gauge the really horrible possibilities of the
air war. They are in our hands and not in the hands of the Germans. In
addition the Germans are at a huge disadvantage in their submarine
campaign. Their submarine campaign is only the feeble shadow of what a
submarine campaign might be. Turning again to the atlas the reader can
see for himself that the German and Austrian submarines are obliged to
come out across