s it were, for the execution
of certain definite projects intended to seek peace and ensure it. The
first stage of the peace movement is the general recognition of the
principle of arbitration between states. That first period has, we may
take it, been already realised. The second stage is the recognition of
compulsory arbitration. When, in 1907, the second Hague Conference was
held, this principle was supported by thirty-two different states,
representing more than a thousand million human beings. Something like
three or four hundred millions remained not yet prepared to admit the
principle in its entirety. I may remark in passing that the verbal
acceptance of a general principle is one thing, the application, as we
have lately had much reason to discover, is quite another. We may
recognise, however, that this second stage of the pacifist programme has,
undoubtedly, made large advances. But of course it must necessarily be
followed by its consequence, a third stage which shall ensure respect for,
and obedience to arbitration verdicts. Recalcitrant states will have to be
coerced, and the one thing that can coerce them is an international police
administered by an international executive power. That is to say, we must
have a parliament of parliaments, a universal parliament, the
representatives of which must be selected by the different constituent
members of the United States of Europe. When this has been done, and only
when this has been done, can we arrive at a fourth stage, that of a
general disarmament. In the millennium that is to be it is only the
international police which shall be allowed to use weapons of war in order
to execute the decrees of the central parliament representing the common
European will.

DEMOCRATIC UNANIMITY

Here we have all the old difficulties starting anew, and especially the
main one--democratic unanimity. How far the democracies of the European
Commonwealth can work in unison is one of the problems which the future
will have to solve. At present they, obviously, do not do so. The Social
Democrats of Germany agreed to make war on the democrats of other
countries. Old instincts were too strong for them. For it must always be
remembered that only so far as a cosmopolitan spirit takes the place of
narrow national prejudices can we hope to reach the level of a common
conscience, or a common will of Europe. And are we prepared to say that
national prejudices _ought_ to be obliterated and ig