rism. In the crisis,
however, they failed. They failed because their conception of war was
too narrow, {240} arbitrary and doctrinaire. They perceived the upper
class interest in war but failed to recognise, or rather obstinately
ignored, the national interest. When at last the nation was
threatened, the Socialists and peace-makers not only closed ranks with
those who desired war, but even lent a willing ear to proposals of
annexation (for purposes of national security) and agreed to other
international arrangements likely to be the cause or at least the
occasion of future wars.

The general will for peace we have with us already; what is to-day most
necessary is the knowledge and insight which will direct this will to
the attempted solution of the causes of war. Towards this knowledge
the present war has contributed. Never before have so many men
recognised the strength of the economic impulses driving nations into
the conflict. The war, it is true, has intensified national hatreds by
its wholesale breach of plighted agreements; it has increased terror
and distrust; it has sown broadcast the seeds of future wars by a
series of secret, but known, agreements, creating a new Europe even
more unstable than was the Europe of 1914. On the other hand, it has
forced men to open their eyes to the real facts of war, and to
recognise that wars will continue until the motives for war are
reversed, until conditions are created in which nations may realise
their more moderate hopes of development without recourse to fighting.

It is upon this recognition, upon this guide to the blind passion for
peace, that any league for peace must be based. Such a league can
probably not be immediately constructed and permanently maintained. It
depends upon the slow growth of an international mind, upon a
willingness, not indeed to sacrifice national interests but to
recognise that national interests may be made to conform with the
larger interests of humanity. It means the {241} fulfilment not the
destruction of nationality. It requires for its realisation the
breaking of two chains, an inner chain which binds the nation to the
will of a selfish minority class, an outer chain which binds its
national interest to war.

How such a league will come about it is perhaps premature to discuss.
In the immediate future we are likely to have not a true league of
peace but rather a league of temporarily satisfied powers, seeking
their group