A clever saying is attributed—we know not with how much
truth—to Lord Stanley, with regard to the Dano-German con- test, that England is no doubt morally responsible to Denmark for a certain amount of physical as well as moral aid, but that what Europe wants is some system of war with limited liability. We might then, say, take shares to the amount of three millions sterling in the Danish adventure, but decline to be liable to any greater extent. The idea is a bright one, and no doubt is already adopted in the ethics of private friendship, which permit one friend to assign explicit limits beyond which he cannot aid another, even in the noblest cause. As applied to war, however, we fear the idea implies that England's obstinacy should be as strictly " limited " as her liability,—an assumption which would be sure to falsify the theory.
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