of its
authority sensibly curtailed.

CHAPTER II

LESSONS OF THE PAST

The problems that lie before us in the reconstitution of Europe are so
many and so various that we can only hope to take a few separately,
especially those which seem to throw most light on a possible future. I
have used the phrase "reconstitution of Europe," because I do not know how
otherwise to characterise the general trend of the ideas germinating in
many men's minds as they survey the present crisis and its probable
outcome. Europe will have to be reconstituted in more respects than one.
At the present moment, or rather before the present war broke out, it was
governed by phrases and conceptions which had become superannuated. An
uneasy equipoise between the Great Powers represented the highest
culmination of our diplomatic efforts. Something must clearly be
substituted for this uneasy equipoise. It is not enough that after
tremendous efforts the relative balance of forces between great states
should, on the whole, dissuade them from war. As a matter of fact, it has
not done so. The underlying conception has been that nations are so
ardently bellicose that they require to be restrained from headlong
conflicts by the doubtful and dangerous character of such military efforts
as might be practicable. Hence Europe, as divided into armed camps,
represents one of the old-fashioned ideas that we want to abolish. We wish
to put in its stead something like a Concert of Europe. We have before our
eyes a vague, but inspiring vision not of tremendous and rival armaments,
but of a United States of Europe, each component element striving for the
public weal, and for further advances in general cultivation and welfare
rather than commercial prosperity. The last is a vital point, for it does
not require much knowledge of modern history to discover that the race for
commercial advantage is exactly one of the reasons why Europe is at war at
the present moment. A vast increase in the commercial prosperity of any
one state means a frantic effort on the part of its rivals to pull down
this advantage. In some fashion, therefore, we have to substitute for
endless competition the principle of co-operation, national welfare being
construed at the same time not in terms of overwhelming wealth, but of
thorough sanity and health in the body corporate.

NAKED STRENGTH

All this sounds shadowy and abstruse until it is translated into something
concrete and