consequences with it, which are well worthy of consideration. But the main
point, so far as it affects my present argument, is that it substitutes
materialistic objects of endeavour for ethical and spiritual aims. Once
more morality is defeated. The ideal is not the supremacy of good, but the
supremacy of that range and sphere of material efficiency that is
procurable by wealth.


PUBLIC RIGHT

Let us try to be more concrete still, and in this context let us turn to
such definite statements as are available of the views entertained by our
chief statesmen, politicians, and leaders of public opinion. I turn to the
speech which Mr. Asquith delivered on Friday evening, September 25, in
Dublin, as part of the crusade which he and others are undertaking for the
general enlightenment of the country. "I should like," said Mr. Asquith,
"to ask your attention and that of my fellow-countrymen to the end which,
in this war, we ought to keep in view. Forty-four years ago, at the time
of the war of 1870, Mr. Gladstone used these words. He said: 'The greatest
triumph of our time will be the enthronement of the idea of public right
as the governing idea of European politics.' Nearly fifty years have
passed. Little progress, it seems, has as yet been made towards that good
and beneficent change, but it seems to me to be now at this moment as good
a definition as we can have of our European policy--the idea of public
right. What does it mean when translated into concrete terms? It means,
first and foremost, the clearing of the ground by the definite repudiation
of militarism as the governing factor in the relation of states and of the
future moulding of the European world. It means next that room must be
found and kept for the independent existence and the free development of
the smaller nationalities, each with a corporate consciousness of its