I distrust all fatalists, even as I distrust all optimists
and all pessimists. The lethargy of those who strive to escape from realities is not more despicable than the defeatism of those who contend that our present realities are irremediable. I admit that I regard the Tientsin crisis and the renewed menaces to Poland as symptoms of what may possibly prove a mortal malady But that does not mean that I desire, either to ignore the symptoms, or to lie down immediately and die. After all, it is not Great Britain who, in the end, will perish from this disease. Nor is the danger perhaps so immediate as the symptoms would seem to suggest. I have always believed that Herr von Ribbentrop is anxious to revenge himself upon the British Empire, but I doubt whether even he is prepared to face a war upon two fronts. I fear rather that his confidence in his own diplomatic genius is so unlimited, and his contempt for the British Govern- ment so profound, that he still hopes to achieve our down- fall by a continuance of his White War. At this very moment he is straining every nerve, and employing every artifice (including his friends the Japanese) to prevent the U.S.S.R. from joining the peace bloc.
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