he pacific
nations, the leading ones among them being the French and
English-speaking peoples, are coming to recognise that no one among them
can provide for its own security single-handed, even at the cost of
their utmost endeavour in the way of what is latterly called
"preparedness;" and they are at the same time unwilling to devote their
force unreservedly to warlike preparation, having nothing to gain. The
solution proposed is a league of the pacific nations, commonly spoken of
at the present stage as a league to enforce peace, or less ambitiously
as a league to enforce arbitration. The question being left somewhat at
loose ends, whether the projected league is to include the two or three
Imperial Powers whose pacific intentions are, euphemistically, open to
doubt.

Such is the outline of the project and its premises. An attempt to fill
in this outline will, perhaps, conduce to an appreciation of what is
sought and of what the conditioning circumstances will enforce in the
course of its realisation. As touches the fear of aggression, it has
already been indicated, perhaps with unnecessary iteration, that these
two Imperial Powers are unable to relinquish the quest of dominion
through warlike enterprise, because as dynastic States they have no
other ulterior aim; as has abundantly appeared in the great volume of
expository statements that have come out of the Fatherland the past few
years, official, semi-official, inspired, and spontaneous. "Assurance of
the nation's future" is not translatable into any other terms. The
Imperial dynasty has no other ground to stand on, and can not give up
the enterprise so long as it can muster force for any formidable
diversion, to get anything in the way of dominion by seizure, threat or
chicane.

This is coming to be informally and loosely, but none the less
definitively, realised by the pacific nations; and the realisation of it
is gaining in clearness and assurance as time passes. And it is backed
by the conviction that, in the nature of things, no engagement on the
part of such a dynastic State has any slightest binding force, beyond
the material constraint that would enforce it from the outside. So the
demand has been diplomatically phrased as a demand for "substantial
guarantees." Any gain in resources on the part of these Powers is to be
counted as a gain in the ways and means of disturbing the peace, without
reservation.

The pacific nations include among them two large