.

But power over the military resources of the world is by no means the
limit of the necessary powers of an effective League of Free Nations.
There are still more indigestible implications in the idea, and, since
they have got to be digested sooner or later if civilization is not to
collapse, there is no reason why we should not begin to bite upon them
now. I was much interested to read the British press upon the alleged
proposal of the German Chancellor that we should give up (presumably to
Germany) Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, and suchlike key possessions. It
seemed to excite several of our politicians extremely. I read over the
German Chancellor's speech very carefully, so far as it was available,
and it is clear that he did not propose anything of the sort. Wilfully
or blindly our press and our demagogues screamed over a false issue. The
Chancellor was defending the idea of the Germans remaining in Belgium
and Lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those
regions to Germany, and he was arguing that before we English got into
such a feverish state of indignation about that, we should first ask
ourselves what we were doing in Gibraltar, etc., etc. That is a
different thing altogether. And it is an argument that is not to be
disposed of by misrepresentation. The British have to think hard over
this quite legitimate German _tu quoque_. It is no good getting into a
patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question. We British
people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we
discharge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained in
imperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject
nations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see
just how the fact that we are, for example, so deeply rooted in Egypt
looks to an outside intelligence. Of course the German imperialist idea
is a wicked and aggressive idea, as Lord Robert Cecil has explained;
they want to set up all over the earth coaling stations and strategic
points, _on the pattern of ours._ Well, they argue, we are only trying
to do what you British have done. If we are not to do so--because it is
aggression and so on and so on--is not the time ripe for you to make
some concessions to the public opinion of the world? That is the German
argument. Either, they say, tolerate this idea of a Germany with
advantageous posts and possessions round and about the earth, or
reconsider your