es on each side;
but the moral advantage is still generally supposed to lie with the
person who keeps the contract. Surely, it cannot be dishonest to be
honest--even if honesty is the best policy. Imagine the most complex
maze of indirect motives, and still the man who keeps faith for money
cannot possibly be worse than the man who breaks faith for money.

It will be noted that this ultimate test applies in the same way to
Servia as to Belgium and Britain. The Servians may not be a very
peaceful people; but on the occasion under discussion it was certainly
they who wanted peace. You may choose to think the Serb a sort of a born
robber; but on this occasion it was certainly the Austrian who was
trying to rob. Similarly, you may call England perfidious as a sort of
historical summary, and declare your private belief that Mr. Asquith was
vowed from infancy to the ruin of the German Empire--a Hannibal and
hater of the eagles. But when all is said, it is nonsense to call a man
perfidious because he keeps his promise. It is absurd to complain of the
sudden treachery of a business man in turning up punctually to his
appointment, or the unfair shock given to a creditor by the debtor
paying his debts. Lastly, there is an attitude not unknown in the crisis
against which I should particularly like to protest. I should address my
protest especially to those lovers and pursuers of peace who, very
shortsightedly, have occasionally adopted it. I mean the attitude which
is impatient of these preliminary details about who did this or that and
whether it was right or wrong. They are satisfied with saying that an
enormous calamity called war has been begun by some or all of us, and
should be ended by some or all of us. To these people this preliminary
chapter about the precise happenings must appear not only dry (and it
must of necessity be the dryest part of the task), but essentially
needless and barren. I wish to tell these people that they are wrong;
that they are wrong upon all principles of human justice and historic
continuity; but that they are especially and supremely wrong upon their
own principles of arbitration and international peace.

*As to Certain Peace Lovers.*

These sincere and high-minded peace lovers are always telling us that
citizens no longer settle their quarrels by private violence, and that
nations should no longer settle theirs by public violence. They are
always telling us that we no longer fight duels, an