RECONSTRUCTION 109 



exclusively or specially ours. It devolves on all 

 men in like case with us, and it is the duty of the 

 men of British birth who cannot be engaged in 

 seeking peace through victory on the field so to 

 prepare that when peace comes it may be the 

 herald of a new and better era in the annals of the 

 Empire and of civilisation. Not by contentiousness 

 but in a spirit of conciliation may we contribute 

 our share to this work. If the several classes of 

 the nation fail in this task of reconstruction it 

 will not be for lack of intelligence but for lack 

 of good temper. The British are a fair-minded 

 race, tenacious alike of their rights and privileges 

 and of their prepossessions. We prize the defects 

 of our virtue of liberty as dearly as the virtue 

 itself. We can never conform with the Prussian 

 idea of a State founded on the polity of the ants 

 and the bees and the wasps. Our instinct tells 

 us that German efficiency has been purchased at 

 too high a price, and our instinct is right ; albeit 

 our habitual neglect to make any but grudgingly 

 small outlays on the commodity may, if we persist 

 in the parsimony, prove our undoing. 



Expressed in its largest terms the national 

 duty consists in conserving the instinct of liberty 

 whilst developing the habit of obedience. The 

 one is our system of national insurance, the other 

 the means of national prosperity. By the exercise 

 of the habit we may gain the whole world; but 

 by the loss of the instinct we lose our own soul. 



