Can England as a nation continue with admiring acquiescence to watch the cream of her manhood spend itself in Flanders and the Dardanelles; continue with deprecating acquiescence to watch the skimmed milk of her manhood preserve itself at home for the sacred duty of fathering a future generation?
Can England acquiesce placidly in the professional, the business, the financial sacrifices generally which so many Englishmen are splendidly making, and acquiesce plaintively in the disgusting treason whose guilt was shared in varying measure by the gouging coal-owners and the striking coal-miners of Wales?
Can England set out to curb the drunkenness which in certain parts is crippling her ammunition production and then sink back into acquiescence in the temporizing compromise which taxed drunkenness instead of terminating it?
Can England, in fine, afford to preserve Personal Liberty at the slightest risk of imperilling National Liberty?
Perhaps England can. Perhaps England must.
So long as England fulfils and far exceeds her covenants with her allies it is not a question for them to answer. It is assuredly not a question to which any neutral visitor can with seemliness hazard a solution.
It is not even a question, in my opinion, which is apt to affect the ultimate outcome of this particular war.
But it is a question to which on some future day Macaulay's New Zealander will, with positiveness and propriety, be in a position to find the answer.
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