ad, as the result of education of one kind or
another, realised their futility. But it is as certain as anything can
be that the Churchills of that society or of that day would have been
vociferous in declaring (as in the case of the duel they still to-day
declare in Prussia) that this attempt to prove the futility of duelling
was not only a bad and pernicious campaign, but was in reality a subtle
attempt to get people killed in the street by bullies, and that those
who valued their security would do their best to discredit all
anti-duelling propaganda--by misrepresentation, if needs be.

Let this matter be quite clear. No one who need be considered in this
discussion would think of criticising Lord Roberts for wanting the army,
and Mr. Churchill for wanting the navy, to be as good and efficient as
possible and as large as necessary. Personally--and I speak, I know, for
many of my colleagues in the anti-war movement--I would be prepared to
support British conscription if it be demonstrably wise or necessary.
But what we criticise is the persistent effort to discredit honest
attempts at a better understanding of the facts of international
relationship, the everlasting gibe which it is thought necessary to
fling at any constructive effort, apart from armament, to make peace
secure. These men profess to be friends of peace, they profess to
regret the growth of armament, to deplore the unwisdom, ignorance,
prejudice and misunderstanding out of which the whole thing grows, but
immediately there is any definite effort to correct this unwisdom, to
examine the grounds of the prejudice and misunderstanding, there is a
volte face and such efforts are sneered at as "sentimental" or "sordid,"
according as the plea for peace is put upon moral or material grounds.
It is not that they disagree in detail with any given proposition
looking towards a basis of international co-operation, but that in reality
they deprecate raising the matter at all.[9] It must be armaments and
nothing but armaments with them. If there had been any possibility of
success in that we should not now be entering upon the 8,000th or
9,000th war of written history. Armaments may be necessary, but they are
not enough. Our plan is armaments plus education; theirs is armament
versus education. And by education, of course, we do not mean school
books, or an extension of the School Board curriculum, but a recognition
of the fact that the character of human society is d