But here, again, has the general mind yet thought out all that is involved in this proposition?  In all the great belligerent countries the armament industries are now huge interests with enormous powers.  Krupp’s business alone is as powerful a thing in Germany as the Crown.  In every country a heavily subsidized “patriotic” press will fight desperately against giving powers so extensive and thorough as those here suggested to an international body.  So long, of course, as the League of Free Nations remains a project in the air, without body or parts, such a press will sneer at it gently as “Utopian,” and even patronize it kindly.  But so soon as the League takes on the shape its general proposition makes logically necessary, the armament interest will take fright.  Then it is we shall hear the drum patriotic loud in defence of the human blood trade.  Are we to hand over these most intimate affairs of ours to “a lot of foreigners”?  Among these “foreigners” who will be appealed to to terrify the patriotic souls of the British will be the “Americans.”  Are we men of English blood and tradition to see our affairs controlled by such “foreigners” as Wilson, Lincoln, Webster and Washington?  Perish the thought!  When they might be controlled by Disraelis, Wettins, Mount-Battens, and what not!  And so on and so on.  Krupp’s agents and the agents of the kindred firms in Great Britain and France will also be very busy with the national pride of France.  In Germany they have already created a colossal suspicion of England.

Here is a giant in the path....

But let us remember that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda of this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries.  And for the common citizen, touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic susceptibilities, there are certain irrefutable arguments.  Whether the ways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or the paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact, that the great educated world communities, with a social and industrial organization on a war-capable scale, are going to dominate human affairs.  Whether they spend their power in killing or in educating and creating, France, Germany, however much we may resent it, the two great English-speaking communities, Italy, Japan China, and presently perhaps a renascent Russia, are jointly going to control the destinies of mankind.  Whether that joint control comes through arms or through the law is a secondary consideration.  To refuse to bring our affairs into a common council does not make us independent of foreigners.  It makes us more dependent upon them, as a very little consideration will show.