Weapons change; it is the ability to command the sea that matters. The Battle of Britain, like the defeat of the Armada, was fought for command of th… - Arthur Bryant

Even more striking than England's unity has been the freedom of individual choice on which it has been based. Because the Channel lay between her and the continent, her people were able to develop a form of government in which power, instead of being centralised in a few hands, was distributed in many. Not being threatened across a land frontier, they had no need to entrust their rulers with standing military forces or despotic rights over private liberties. Authority normally was exercised only after those subject to it had had an opportunity to make their views known. From the Saxon Witenagemot to the twentieth century Parliament, from the village hustings and manor court to the trade union lodge and parish council, there was nearly always some working machinery in England by which those in authority could test the opinion of those over whom authority had to be exercised. Government was conducted subject to the right of the governed to criticise and, within lawful limits, to oppose. "His Majesty's Opposition" is the most characteristic and certainly the most original of English contributions to politics.

I believe that the British unilateral guarantee of Poland's independence—though not necessarily, as you wisely point out, the integrity of her present Versailles frontiers in perpetuity—constitutes the first real chance for the Prime Minister's policy of appeasement to obtain the unanimous support of his countrymen. The latter are so constituted that they will never accede permanently to what is demanded of them by force. Something stubborn and undefeatable has always risen in the English consciousness at the sound of a threat. And the Germans, like ourselves a strong race, are so constituted that they can never respect arguments that seem based on fear or weakness. The Prime Minister has now placed our relationships on a new and realist footing. A realization in both countries of what will inevitability produce war, coupled with a readiness to seek an adjustment of existing differences by every other means, is now attainable. It offers a fresh possibility of an Anglo-German understanding—not now, perhaps, but in the future. It is worth trying, for the alternative is the almost certain destruction of our common civilization.

Without justice and charity there can be no England. That is the historic and eternal English vision.