A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
OSTAGES, who have not played much part in recent wars, may have some importance if there is another one. At the very beginning they would not be hostages the technical sense; but you cannot drop an latomic bomb On somebody else's capital without killing a large number of People whom you would prefer, if possible, not to kill. You May regard your own and your allies' diplomatic missions as expendable; but if you liquidate an entire diplomatic corps You will create, among the nations whom its members repre- sented, a feeling of prejudice. Capital cities (other than Moscow) often contain sizeable colonies of foreigners and are aPt----especially in the late summer, when wars generally begin be visited in strength by tourists. To begin a war with Lusitanias all round might involve you, before it was over, in unwelcome complications. All these considerations add up, of Course, to only trivial restraints; but trivial things, which have Drought so many swords from their scabbards in the past, may have some power to keep them sheathed in the future. 'E°g Patches in Olympus
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