Page 260 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

A Twentieth-Century Outlook. 241

and, governed by them, consider the disturb-
ance of quiet the greatest of all evils. It is
difficult to believe that if Mr. Gladstone were
now in his prime, and in power, any object
would possess in his eyes an importance at all
comparable to that of keeping the peace. He
would feel for the Greeks, doubtless, as Lord
Salisbury doubtless does ; but he would main-
tain the Concert as long as he believed that
alone would avoid war. When men in sym-
pathy with the ideas now arising among Eng.
lishmen come on the stage, we shall see a
change — not before.
The same spirit has dominated in our own
country ever since the civil war — a far more
real " revolution " in its consequences than the
struggle of the thirteen colonies against Great
Britain, which in our national speech has re-
ceived the name — forced our people, both
North and South, to withdraw their eyes from
external problems, and to concentrate heart and
mind with passionate fervor upon an internal
strife, in which one party was animated by the
inspiring hope of independence, while before
the other was exalted the noble ideal of union.
That war, however, was directed, on the civil
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