All experience shows that in
such cases men do not take their troubles calmly. They are filled with
passion. Their feelings find vent in the actions to which their previous
currents of thought tended. The working class, long accustomed by its
leaders to regard the capitalists as a class with interests and aims
opposed to its own, will hardly be able in the stress of unemployment
and of famine to change its way of thinking. The mass of the workmen,
following leaders whose judgment may not perhaps be of the soundest but
who will undoubtedly sincerely believe that the doctrines with which
they have grown up are true, may assail the existing social order and
lay the blame of their misfortunes upon the class which has hitherto had
the government of the country in its hands and has supplied the leaders
of both political parties. The indignation which would inspire this
movement would not be altogether without justification, for it cannot be
denied that both political parties have for many years regarded
preparation for war and all that belongs to it as a minor matter,
subordinate to the really far less important questions relying upon
which each side has sought to win sufficient votes to secure a party
majority.
Why do I discuss the hypothesis of British defeat rather than that of
British victory? Because it is the invariable practice of the masters of
war to consider first the disagreeable possibilities and to make
provision for them.
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