had fallen. Like all
empires we had risen from poverty, through hardship and discipline, to
riches, and in days of luxury we lost our soul. We gave ourselves to
pleasure and self-indulgence. We worshipped at one shrine--that of
Mammon. We refused to bend the back to discipline or to exercise
ourselves in enduring hardship. We annexed a fourth of the world's
surface, but we were determined that we would have the world without
paying the price. With an army equal in size to that of Switzerland we
were holding against the rest of mankind an Empire which included most
of the world's riches. Our rulers knew of our danger, but they dared
not summon the people to arms, because whoever did so would risk
office. Those who were on the watch-towers saw the enemy mustering,
but they gave no warning, for the spoils of office were dear. Prophets
arose to warn us, but we meted out contempt to them. That was our
fashion of stoning them. (We have, {184} however, improved upon the
chosen race, for the very men who stoned them are already rearing
statues in their honour!) Crowds of thirty thousand would assemble to
shout and gamble over football matches, but the few days requisite for
the training of our Territorial forces were not to be endured! We
ceased to produce the population that could possess the vast
territories we held. We could think of nothing but the vapourings of
politicians who sacrificed the State to their faction. When Europe was
an armed camp and Germany was piling up armaments, we were preparing
for civil war in Ireland. Vision and genius were dying among us. For
the devotees of Aphrodite and Mammon are blinded to the stars. A
nation which sinks into degeneration, and which, holding the world's
wealth, refuses even to prepare to guard its riches, is loudly inviting
the robber. Germany concluded that we were degenerate and a negligible
factor. Does any one think that, if we had begun to prepare after
{185} Agadir, there would have been war? If Germany had for one moment
thought that the British fleet would have been arrayed against it, and
that Britain would have marshalled five millions of men to fight to the
death, there never would have been a war. It is not enough to say that
in that case the war would only have been postponed, for a war averted
is not necessarily a war postponed. Pendjeh and Fashoda might at least
teach us that.

Do not let us blind ourselves to the facts. One source of this