are
merely historical curiosities, as Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Monte
Santo, not counting Iceland as a State apart, not including the
Saar, which as a result of one of the absurdities of the Treaty
of Versailles is an actual State outside Germany, but considering
Montenegro as an existing State, Europe probably comprises thirty
States. Some of them are, however, in such a condition that they do
not give promise of the slightest guarantee of life or security.

Europe has rather Balkanized herself: not only the War came from the
Balkans, but also many ideas, which have been largely exploited in
parliamentary and newspaper circles. Listening to many speeches and
being present at many events to-day leaves the sensation of being in
Belgrade or at Sarajevo.

Europe, including Russia and including also the Polar archipelagos,
covers an area of a little more than ten million square kilometres.
Canada is of almost the same size; the United States of America has
about the same territory.

The historical procedure before the War was towards the formation of
large territorial unities; the _post-bellum_ procedure is entirely
towards a process of dissolution, and the fractionizing, resulting a
little from necessity and a little also from the desire to dismember
the old Empires and to weaken Germany, has assumed proportions almost
impossible to foresee.

In the relations between the various States good and evil are not
abstract ideas: political actions can only be judged by their results.
If the treaties of peace which have been imposed on the conquered
would be capable of application, we could, from an ethnical point of
view, regret some or many of the decisions; but we should only have to
wait for the results of time for a definite judgment.

The evil is that the treaties which have been signed are not
applicable or cannot be applied without the rapid dissolution of
Europe.

So the balance-sheet of the peace, after three years from the
armistice--that is, three years from the War--shows on the whole a
worsening of the situation. The spirit of violence has not died out,
and perhaps in some countries not even diminished; on the other hand
the causes of material disagreement have increased, the inequality
has augmented, the division between the two groups has grown, and the
causes of hatred have been consolidated. An analysis of the foreign
exchanges indicated a process of undoing and not a tendency to
reconstruction.

W