It is a fact of history that very appreciable sections of the populace were approaching an attitude of revolt against what they considered to be intolerable conditions when that era closed.

Much of what kept them within bounds, that is to say within legal bounds, was their continued loyalty to the nation; which was greatly, and for the purpose needfully, reenforced by a lively fear of warlike aggression from without.

Now, under the projected _pax orbis terrarum_ all fear of invasion, it is hopefully believed, will be removed; and with the disappearance of this fear should also disappear the drag of national loyalty on the counsels of the underbred.
If this British peace of the nineteenth century is to be taken as a significant indication of what may be looked for under a regime of peace at large, with due allowance for what is obviously necessary to be allowed for, then what is held in promise would appear to be an era of unexampled commercial prosperity, of investment and business enterprise on a scale hitherto not experienced.

These developments will bring their necessary consequences affecting the life of the community, and some of the consequences it should be possible to foresee.

The circumstances conditioning this prospective era of peace and prosperity will necessarily differ from the corresponding circumstances that conditioned the Victorian peace, and many of these points of difference it is also possible to forecast in outline with a fair degree of confidence.