cutive to enforce them--may give relief for a time and pave the way
for further progress, but can in itself provide no permanent security, no
satisfactory justification for the neglect of defensive measures by the
various sovereign governments on behalf of their peoples. Mr. Bryan, for
the United States, has within the last eighteen months concluded twenty-six
general arbitration treaties with different Governments, and may yet
succeed in his ambition of signing treaties with all the remainder. Yet no
one imagines that, when the immunity of the United States from attack is
guaranteed by the promise of every Government in the world, America will
rely for her defence upon those promises alone.

In discussing proposals for a European Council, then, we must be quite
sure to face all that it means. But let us not reject Professor Murray's
suggestion off-hand because of its inherent difficulties: for that men
should be discussing such schemes at all marks a significant advance in our
political thought. Only let us be quite clear as to what they presuppose.
They presuppose the supremacy, in the collective mind of civilised mankind,
of Law over Force, a definite supremacy of what may be called the civilian
as against the military ideal, not in a majority of States, but in every
State powerful enough to defy coercion. They presuppose a world map
definitely settled on lines satisfactory to the national aspirations of the
peoples. They presuppose a _status quo_ which is not simply maintained,
like that after 1815, because it is a legal fact and its disturbance would
be inconvenient to the existing rulers, but because it is inherently
equitable.[1] They presuppose a similar democratic basis of citizenship
and representation among the component States. They presuppose, lastly,
an educated public opinion incomparably less selfish, less ignorant, less
unsteady, less materialistic, and less narrowly national than has been
prevalent hitherto. Let us work and hope for these things: let us use our
best efforts to remove misunderstandings and promote a sense of common
responsibilities and common trusteeship for civilisation between the
peoples of all the various sovereign States; but meanwhile let us work
also, with better hopes of immediate if less ambitious successes, along the
other parallel road of advance.

[Footnote 1: The same applies to proposals for ensuring permanent peace in
the industrial sphere. Neither capital nor labour will