the menace of attack from Germany is as imminent as Winston [Churchill] would have us believe, there is nothing we could do which would make us ready to meet it. But I do not believe that it is imminent. By careful diplomacy I believe we can stave it off, perhaps indefinitely, but if we were now to follow Winston’s advice and sacrifice our commerce to the manufacture of arms we should inflict a certain injury upon our trade from which it would take generations to recover.
