Our consideration of the question of might showed that if Great Britain is to be strong enough to meet her responsibilities her people must nationalise themselves, while our reflections on the question of right showed that only from such nationalisation is a sound policy to be expected. In short, only in so far as her people have the unity of spirit and of will that mark a nation can Great Britain be either strong or just. The idea of the nation implies a work to be done by the British State, which has to be on the watch against challenge from a continental rival to Great Britain's right to the headship of her empire, and which at the same time has to give to that empire the direction without which it cannot remain united. Great Britain cannot do the work thus imposed upon her by her position and her history unless she has the co-operation of all her people. Thus the conception of the nation reveals itself in the twofold shape of duties laid upon England and of duties consequently laid upon every Englishman. It means that England must either decline and fall or do a certain work in the world which is impossible for her unless she constrains all her people to devote themselves to her service. It thus appears that England and her people can expect no future worth having except on the principle of duty made the mainspring both of public and of private life.
We attempted to apply the principles involved in the word nation to the obvious and urgent needs of the British State at the present time.
Victory at sea being indispensable for Great Britain in case of conflict, we inquired into the conditions of victory, and found in the parallel instances of Nelson and Napoleon that both by sea and land the result of the nationalisation of war is to produce a leader who is the personification of a theory or system of operations. The history of the rise of the German nation shows how the effort to make a nation produced the necessary statesman, Bismarck. Nationalisation creates the right leadership—that of the man who is master of his work.
Reviewing the needs of the naval administration, we saw that what is wanted at the present time is rather proper organisation at the Admiralty than an increase in mere material strength; while turning to the army, we discovered that the only system on which can be produced the army that Great Britain requires is that which makes every able-bodied citizen a soldier.
To make the citizen a soldier is to give him that sense of duty to the country and that consciousness of doing it, which, if spread through the whole population, will convert it into what is required—a nation. Therefore to reform the army according to some such plan as has been here proposed is the first step in that national revival which is the one thing needful for England, and if that step be taken the rest will follow of itself. Nationalisation will bring leadership, which in the political sphere becomes statesmanship, and the right kind of education, to give which is the highest ultimate function of national existence.
I have tried in these pages to develop an idea which has haunted me for many years. I think if the reader would extend to it even for a short time the hospitality of his mind he might be willing to make it his constant companion. For it seems to me to show the way towards the solution of other problems than those which have here been directly discussed. I cannot but believe that if we could all accustom ourselves to make some sacrifices for the sake of England, if only by giving a few minutes every day to thinking about her and by trying to convince ourselves that those who are not of our party are yet perhaps animated by the same love of their country as we ourselves, we might realise that the question of duty is answered more easily by performance than by speculation. I suspect that the relations between the political parties, between capital and labour, between master and servant, between rich and poor, between class and class would become simpler and better if Englishmen were to come to see how natural it is that they should spend their lives for England.
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