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Preparedness for Naval War. 189

due to experience of difficulties, is supported
strongly by a hearty desire for peace, tradi-
tional with a commercial people who have not
to reproach themselves with any lack of resolu-
tion or tenacity in assuming and bearing the
burden of war when forced upon them. " Mili-
tarism " is not a preponderant spirit in either
Great Britain or the United States ; their com-
mercial tendencies and their isolation concur
to exempt them from its predominance. Pug-
nacious, and even warlike, when aroused, the
idea of war in the abstract is abhorrent to them,
because it interferes with their leading occupa-
tions, and its demands are alien to their habits
of thought. To say that either lacks sensitive-
ness to the point of honor would be to wrong
them ; but the point must be made clear to
them, and it will not be found in the refusal of
reasonable demands, because they involve the
abandonment of positions hastily or ignorantly
assumed, nor in the mere attitude of adhering
to a position lest there may be an appearance
of receding under compulsion. Napoleon I.
phrased the extreme position of militarism in
the words, " If the British ministry should inti-
mate that there was anything the First Consul