disarmament require separate and detailed consideration. It would
naturally be one of the subjects to be discussed by any League which may
be formed. It is well to note from the outset (a) that a fleet is
essential to the British Empire for purely defensive purposes, and for
maintaining connection between the different parts of the Empire, but a
great reduction in the size of the fleet may be possible by arrangement.
The Allied Powers will recognise that it was the existence of the
British fleet that saved them from defeat, and in some cases from utter
destruction. (6) That for a nation to train its citizens as a defensive
force on the Swiss model may actually tend to preserve peace, and also
have a very useful influence on the morale of a nation. A defensive
force of this kind would not have the character or the aims which make
a great professional army a menace to peace.

15.--Lastly, it is undesirable and would be futile to attempt to set up
a "supernational sovereign authority." The scope of any League--its
powers and its objects--should be clearly defined, and the independent
sovereign States should bind themselves, as contracting parties, to
carry out the terms agreed, and all should agree beforehand as to the
steps they would take to prevent or to punish any violation of those
terms.

CHAPTER VII

VICTORY AND PEACE

_Toi qui nous apportas l'epee_--
_Le glaive de Justice_--
_Et nous ordonnas de l'acheter_
_Fut ce an prix de nos tuniques,_
_Toi qui renversas les tables des marchants_
_Installes sous Tes portiques,_
_Donne a nos bras la foi et la rage a nos coeurs_
_Afin que la Victoire couronne de fleurs_
_Le front de nos enfants._--
EMILE CAMMAERTS, "Priere Paques," 1915.

A few still perhaps remain of those who, as under-graduates at the time
of the Franco-German War, remember Dean Stanley's first sermons after
many years of exclusion from the Oxford University pulpit. Using in one
of them his favourite plan of giving life to ancient literature by
modern illustrations and conversely making modern tendencies clearer by
references to ancient thought, he took the words of the Hebrew prophet,
applying them to the troubles and strife of the time. "Who is this that
cometh from Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah?" What will emerge from
the bloodshed of war and the chaos of communal revolution? The answer
was given--"It may be, it must be a united Ge