FOREWORD.
By the Author.
I am more than ever persuaded that the most vital interest of the British people is the destruction of the autocracy of the Executive over the nation's policy.
Foreign policy holds the keys of war and peace: of life and death for the nation and for the individuals composing it. While the country lives in the shadow of potential war, of preparation for war and expenditure on such preparation, no permanent improvement in the social condition of the people is possible: no better social order can be evolved.
While the country is in the position of being unable to control its foreign policy, the destinies of the people are at the mercy of the Cabinet and of individual Ministers in the Cabinet. Foreign policy is formed without any regard to the wishes of the people. The people are simply not taken into account. They have to abide by decisions with the framing of which they have had absolutely nothing to do. In the most important branch of its executive functions—the control and direction of foreign policy—the Government of this country is no more democratic than was the Government of the Tsar or the Government of Germany under the old regime.
This is literally true.
It is mysterious that a self-respecting people should tolerate such a condition of affairs. The only conceivable explanation is that they have not yet fully grasped the facts.
I remain unrepentant in my belief that in studying the secret history of the ten years which preceded the "First World War," as Colonel Repington calls the catastrophe
