If the system is
inefficient and fails to enable the nation to carry on with success the
functions necessary for its preservation and if at the same time it is
impracticable to change it, then nothing can avert ruin from this
country. Yet I believe that a very large number of my countrymen are in
fact thinking each for himself the thoughts which I am trying to
express. They are perhaps not the active members of the caucus of either
party, but they are men who, if they see the need, will not shrink from
exertions or from sacrifices which they believe to be useful or
necessary to the country. It is to them that the following pages are an
appeal. I appeal with some confidence because what I shall try to show
to be necessary is not so much a change of institutions as a change of
spirit; not a new constitution but a return to a true way of looking at
public and private life. My contention is that the future of England
depends entirely upon the restoration of duty, of which the nation is
the symbol, to its proper place in our lives.
II.
DEFEAT
Great Britain is drifting unintentionally and half unconsciously into a
war with the German Empire, a State which has a population of sixty
millions and is better organised for war than any State has ever been in
modern times.
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