It may seem no very warm shape of comfort to
be aware that one's opposite numbers in Germany are suffering more acutely than one is oneself. It is for me a small and recurrent solace to realise that when nervous depression comes to us it comes from physical causes, such as overwork, and that there are no causes whatsoever springing from any spiritual diseases. The conquer- ing encouragement is, however, to be found in forcing ourselves continually to see the war in the right proportions of power, time and space. The British public are congenitally sensitive to naval disasters, and the loss of our two battleships off Malaya, coupled with the damage done to the American navy at Pearl Harbour, continues to create a mood of pessimism which is out of propor- tion to the essential factors. It would be foolish to underestimate the very grave disadvantages implicit in the Japanese successes, or not to share the Prime Minister's feeling that heavy punish- ment must follow. Yet although amazingly successful as a short- time stratagem, the Japanese outrage remains, as I stated last week, a political blunder. It has united the American people in a resolve to revenge themselves for this colossal affront. It has shown them, in a dramatic form, that their own security is in imminent danger. And it has brought them into the war against all our enemies, conscious that this is not a battle into which they have either drifted or been beguiled, but a fight which has been thrust upon them by base and brutal methods, and which is a war to the death.
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