means.

Secondly, I would say that the duration for the payments of reparation
ought to disappear if possible with the generation which made the war.

But there is a consideration in favour of a long-sighted peace which
influences me even more than the desire to leave no causes justifying
a fresh outbreak thirty years hence. There is one element in the
present condition of nations which differentiates it from the
situation as it was in 1815. In the Napoleonic Wars the countries were
equally exhausted, but the revolutionary spirit had spent its force
in the country of its birth, and Germany had satisfied the legitimate
popular demands for the time being by a series of economic changes
which were inspired by courage, foresight and high statesmanship. Even
in Russia the Tsar had effected great reforms which were probably
at that time even too advanced for the half-savage population. The
situation is very different now. The revolution is still in its
infancy. The extreme figures of the Terror are still in command in
Russia. The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.
There is a deep sense not only of discontent, but of anger and revolt
among the workmen against pre-war conditions. The whole existing
order, in its political, social and economic aspects is questioned by
the masses of the population from one end of Europe to the other. In
some countries, like Germany and Russia, the unrest takes the form of
open rebellion, in others, like France, Great Britain and Italy, it
takes the shape of strikes and of general disinclination to settle
down to work, symptoms which are just as much concerned with the
desire for political and social change as with wage demands.

Much of this unrest is healthy. We shall never make a lasting peace by
attempting to restore the conditions of 1914. But there is a danger
that we may throw the masses of the population throughout Europe into
the arms of the extremists, whose only idea for regenerating mankind
is to destroy utterly the whole existing fabric of society. These
men have triumphed in Russia. They have done so at a terrible price.
Hundreds and thousands of the population have perished. The railways,
the roads, the towns, the whole structural organization of Russia has
been almost destroyed, but somehow or other they seem to have managed
to keep their hold upon the masses of the Russian people, and what is
much more significant, they have succeeded in creating a large a