ty of the Island
Empire into the headlong indecencies of the past year or two.

CHAPTER VI

ELIMINATION OF THE UNFIT

It may seem early (January 1917) to offer a surmise as to what must be
the manner of league into which the pacific nations are to enter and by
which the peace will be kept, in case such a move is to be made. But the
circumstances that are to urge such a line of action, and that will
condition its carrying out in case it is entered on, have already come
into bearing and should, on the whole, no longer be especially obscure
to anyone who will let the facts of the case rather than his own
predilections decide what he will believe. By and large, the pressure of
these conditioning circumstances may be seen, and the line of least
resistance under this pressure may be calculated, with due allowance of
a margin of error owing to unknown contingencies of time and minor
variables.

Time is of the essence of the case. So that what would have been
dismissed as idle vapour two years ago has already become subject of
grave deliberation today, and may rise to paramount urgency that far
hence. Time is needed to appreciate and get used to any innovation of
appreciable gravity, particularly where the innovation depends in any
degree on a change in public sentiment, as in this instance. The present
outlook would seem to be that no excess of time is allowed in these
premises; but it should also be noted that events are moving with
unexampled celerity, and are impinging on the popular apprehension with
unexampled force,--unexampled on such a scale. It is hoped that a
recital of these circumstances that provoke to action along this line
will not seem unwarrantably tedious, and that a tentative definition of
the line of least resistance under pressure of these circumstances may
not seem unwarrantably presumptuous.

The major premise in the case is the felt need of security from
aggression at the hands of Imperial Germany and its auxiliary Powers;
seconded by an increasingly uneasy apprehension as to the prospective
line of conduct on the part of Imperial Japan, bent on a similar quest
of dominion. There is also the less articulate apprehension of what, if
anything, may be expected from Imperial Russia; an obscure and scarcely
definable factor, which comes into the calculation chiefly by way of
reenforcing the urgency of the situation created by the dynastic
ambitions of these other two Imperial States. Further, t