is unholy, barbaric--this deliberate concoction of a great,
terrible war. I saw clearly this evening as I was talking with the
Ambassador how utterly without inner necessity this war-scare is. It is
a made thing from beginning to end, and I refuse absolutely to sanction
it.

CHIEF OF STAFF

[_Deliberately._

Your Majesty is an idealist. We are practical, and, I may say,
far-seeing men. And we are the three men, perhaps, who have given your
Majesty the chair you sit on and made your kingdom what it is.

KING

[_Drawing himself up._

I think I have not been ungrateful. But my people come first, and I will
not have my people plunged into misery for no valid and inevitable
necessity.

PRIME MINISTER

Your Majesty, I have served you for fifteen years and I served your
exalted father for twenty. You are right. This war may be avoided. In
two days this war-cloud could be so utterly dissipated that men would
laugh here and in the great Republic that for a day they had talked so
hotly of war. Dissipated. For a year, for two years. For always? No. The
war must come sooner or later. It is a matter, in the first place, of
prestige, of national honor. But, more emphatically, it is a question of
mathematics, birth-rate, death-rate, revenue, taxes, industries,
imports, exports.

[_Crossing to left._

There is a map of the world, your Majesty. This stretch of land there we
need as a safety-valve. If we get that we are safe. If we fail to get it
we explode. Not at once. But sooner or later. Our army and navy have
never been in better shape. These two gentlemen can give your Majesty
their word for that. But you can take mine, too. The enemy's army is
politically rotten, and enfeebled by sentimental peace propaganda. Their
defenses are inadequate and their navy likewise. Those things will
change. Strike today--and they never raise their heads again. Wait--and
it is you who may be crushed.

KING

[_Sharply._

That is a theory. Not a fact. Ten years may change the aspect of things
entirely, particularly if we use those ten years in preparations not for
war but for peace, honest at home and abroad, just, open, civil, to our
neighbors.

PRIME MINISTER

Your Majesty, I look farther than ten years, farther than ten times ten
years. And I have wrought for this moment, prepared for this moment,
this moment of our strength and our enemy's weakness. I have a right to
insist that I, who have brought your kingdom thu