Page:Can Germany Invade England?.djvu/146

expedition, either openly or in secret, because she has not sufficient shipping to convey 246,000 men with their impedimenta, and all the guns, and horses, and military carriage across the North Sea; and she will not organise it, because her Government knows the facts on which I base my conclusions a great deal better than many Englishmen seem to do, and because, though she, like this country, may contain a sprinkling of foolish or unscrupulous persons, her people as a whole are sensible and honest. Why, then, live in terror of a neighbour who cannot harm us if she would, and who, in my opinion, has no wish to do so, though her Government may play upon our fears for the sake of some advantages which it thinks she can extort from them? If that is Germany's policy, surely ours is to convince her that we entertain no fears for her to play on, that we know our strength, and that, however far from all desire to use it to her detriment, we can and