passions of the Occident; large spaces, too, where the ichor of western animosities may evaporate under a torrid sun.
We have conciliated the United States, hoping to arouse the interest of the New World in the common good of Christendom, so coincident ultimately with its own. We have laboured also abundantly to bring home to our distant Dominions of the Newest World that, even if affection or regard for our welfare do not prompt them to dip their feet in the vortex of militarism, it is yet vital for them to know that, on our slaughter, siege will be laid to them, and that our collapse will postulate their catastrophe.
The paradox and scandal of the world is that for fifteen centuries, since the adoption by the continent of Christianity, European history has been a tale of blood. To resolve that paradox, to abate that scandal, to substitute concert for conflict, to bring the glories or the devilries of war to their lowest dimension, and to teach mankind to grow great in common, is the international future of England. She provides a remedy. If Europe will not accept, and will cling to force as its beatitude, western civilisation will perish, for mankind will tear up its title-deeds, as surely as they tore up those of feudalism. Then, echoing the words of Napoleon, "cette vieille Europe m'ennuie," England will turn away for ever to those young nations of hers that are becoming ancient, and to those old nations of the East that are becoming young.
