I am suggesting here that the League of Free Nations shall practically control the army, navy, air forces, and armament industry of every nation in the world.  What is the alternative to that?  To do as we please?  No, the alternative is that any malignant country will be free to force upon all the rest just the maximum amount of armament it chooses to adopt.  Since 1871 France, we say, has been free in military matters.  What has been the value of that freedom?  The truth is, she has been the bond-slave of Germany, bound to watch Germany as a slave watches a master, bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun for gun, to sweep all her youth into her army, to subdue her trade, her literature, her education, her whole life to the necessity of preparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the Rhine.  And Michael, too, has been a slave to his imperial master for the self-same reason, for the reason that Germany and France were both so proudly sovereign and independent.  Both countries have been slaves to Kruppism and Zabernism—­because they were sovereign and free!  So it will always be.  So long as patriotic cant can keep the common man jealous of international controls over his belligerent possibilities, so long will he be the helpless slave of the foreign threat, and “Peace” remain a mere name for the resting phase between wars.

But power over the military resources of the world is by no means the limit of the necessary powers of an effective League of Free Nations.  There are still more indigestible implications in the idea, and, since they have got to be digested sooner or later if civilization is not to collapse, there is no reason why we should not begin to bite upon them now.  I was much interested to read the British press upon the alleged proposal of the German Chancellor that we should give up (presumably to Germany) Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, and suchlike key possessions.  It seemed to excite several of our politicians extremely.  I read over the German Chancellor’s speech very carefully, so far as it was available, and it is clear that he did not propose anything of the sort.  Wilfully or blindly our press and our demagogues screamed over a false issue.  The Chancellor was defending the idea of the Germans remaining in Belgium and Lorraine because of the strategic and economic importance of those regions to Germany, and he was arguing that before we English got into such a feverish state of indignation about that, we should first ask ourselves what we were doing in Gibraltar, etc., etc.  That is a different thing altogether.  And it is an argument that is not to be disposed of by misrepresentation.  The British have to think hard over this quite legitimate German tu quoque.  It is no good getting into a patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question.  We British people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we discharge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained