Of course, modern war is intolerable. Had we in mine own time ever visualized such a nightmare we should have spent days and weeks in sack-cloth and ashes trying to think out a means by which it could be averted; certainly we would never have tolerated it. That you moderns, boastful of your progress, should do so is almost unbelievable, all the more so when one remembers how interdependent you nations are in the world of to-day.

A century ago it mattered little to England, as far at least as comforts were concerned, whether she fought with the Frenchman or the Spaniard or the Russian. Cognac, cigars, snuff and caviare were no less plentiful because of a battle or two. Faith! we'd have thought demmed unkindly of a war that robbed us of these pleasant necessities of life. But your modern wars--gadzooks, my friends! ye tighten your belts at the very outset and by the time the armistice is sounded you're scarce more than miserable shadows of your former comely selves. Hunger, privation, sickness, sorrow, starving children, your wives deprived of every comfort that makes life and them charming--all these horrors can be avoided if half the world lived in amity with the other half.

For the interdependence of the world of to-day has become a serious question. In my day Great Britain was, if not absolutely self-supporting, at least well able to provide for all her children at a pinch without suffering the miseries of food shortage or the intolerable discomforts of margarine and cotten stockings. But to-day matters are very different. When you get your cotten from America, your wood from Norway, your meat from the Argentine, your fruit and vegetables from France, your flour from Russia, your butter and eggs from Denmark, you are in a demmed awkward fix, my friends, when you are fighting. Even if your scattered Empire was able to provide you with all the food you need you would scarce be better off when half the seas are closed to your ships.

Therefore the only wise thing to do is to be good friends with your neighbours; not only by word of mouth and in the columns of newspapers, but in reality. And to attain this happy object you must try and understand one another better. In the past mutual understanding was very difficult. There were no such things as travelling facilities. Your rich young bloods were the only ones who were able to make what was known as the Grand Tour; they would go to France, to Italy perhaps, to Spain hardly ever; but as they spoke no language but their own and travelled with a retinue of lackeys and horses and carriages so that they never were forced to look after themselves, it was but little they ever understood of the countries whihc they visited. As for the rest of the social world in England, the average Briton of his day, the man in the street, in fact, looked upon himself as the salt of the earth and upon all foreigners as its scum, to be despised if England was at peace with their outlandish country, or thrashed if they dared to go to war.

And, mind you, this attitude of mind in your tight little Island persisted well into the Victorian, the Edwardian, even the Georgian era. Shall I not be stating a truism when I say that but for it you would never have been dragged into that abominable war? With sound understanding of all the nations who started that abysmal quarrel you would have exerted your diplomacy and your tact to better effect, and brought about reconciliation. But I must not talk to you about politics which have always been outside my province. My propaganda is only for love and peace.

Now that you have shaken off the more recent nightmare of national bankruptcy and once more feel hope for your country's future and determination to aid her where you can, do not in Heaven's name fall back into the archaic attitude of despising your neighbours. Think yourselves the salt of the earth by all means, but remember that there is salt in other countries besides your own.

No nation to-day can exist without purchasing or borrowing something from its neighbours; be it articles of food or of commerce, or the product of the brains of its great men and great artists. In all the sciences and in all the arts you are interdependent and obviously you must be good friends with the man from whom you borrow. It has been said more than once that if a man is sick he should go to Germany to be diagnosed, to France to be operated on, to England to be nursed. For the past three years you, who possess artistic souls, have revelled in the masterpieces of Italy, of Holland and of France which have been brought over to your country at great risk and expense for your delectation. You can enjoy to-day the admirable photo-plays from America, from Germany and from France. The cost of travelling has been so reduced that you can cross over to Belgium or to France more easily than in my time one could go from London to Brighton.

And, above all, you have lived in comradeship through four terrible years and learned all there was to know of the courage, the endurance, the patriotism of those by whose side you fought--aye! I'll even venture to add that you have seen all there was to admire in your enemies.

Hang on to that thread of amity, m'dears! Do not allow it to snap in the turmoil of politics and the noise of agitators. Polemics, I know, assert that the virtues of courage, endurance and self-sacrifice are only kept alive by wars; that in time of prosperity and of peace there is no opportunity for the exercise of those wonderful qualities; but I say that such an argument is arrant nonsense. Need I quote instances? Captain Oates, whose deed of selfless valour, I, for one, cannot hear recounted without feeling a lump in my throat. And what about all those doctors--there are many of them--who in the pursuit of science have seen their limbs wither away in disease, and even then have carried on until death put an end to their sublime self-sacrifice. Go to a pit-head when there has been an explosion, and see the miners go down into what must be hell to try and rescue their comrades. Watch the lifeboat in a storm.

And these virtues, m'dears, these evidences of courage and self-sacrifice you will find in every nation. Men are men all the world over, and women of every country have been as heroic as the men. Do not sneer at their faults; you have plenty of your own. Try and understand their little ways even if they seem strange to you at first. You can admire their virtues because you are generous to a fault; then hold out your hand to them in friendship: it will redound to your credit throughout the centuries that are to come if you are the first in these troublous times to cast aside pique and misunderstandings and, eschewing every quarrel, act up to the gospel of universal love.