It is these tremendous underlying facts and tendencies that suggest the true moral of this war.  It is these that have to be altered if we are to avoid future wars on a scale as great.

18. The Settlement.

And now, with all this in our minds, let us turn to consider the vexed question of the settlement after the war.  There lies before the Western world the greatest of all choices, the choice between destruction and salvation.  But that choice does not depend merely on the issue of the war.  It depends upon what is done or left undone by the co-operation of all when the war does at last stop.  Two conceptions of the future are contending in all nations.  One is the old bad one, that which has presided hitherto at every peace and prepared every new war.  It assumes that the object of war is solely to win victory, and the object of victory solely to acquire more power and territory.  On this view, if the Germans win, they are to annex territory east and west:  Belgium and half France, say the more violent; the Baltic provinces of Russia, strategic points of advantage, say the more moderate.  On the other hand, if the Allies win, the Allies are to divide the German colonies, the French are to regain Alsace-Lorraine, and, as the jingoes add, they are to take the whole of the German provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, and even territory beyond it.  The Italians are to have not only Italia Irredenta but hundreds of thousands of reluctant Slavs in Dalmatia; the Russians Constantinople, and perhaps Posen and Galicia.  Further, such money indemnities are to be taken as it may prove possible to exact from an already ruined foe; trade and commerce with the enemy is to be discouraged or prohibited; and, above all, a bitter and unforgiving hatred is to reign for ever between the victor and the vanquished.  This is the kind of view of the settlement of Europe that is constantly appearing in the articles and correspondence of the Press of all countries.  Ministers are not as careful as they should be to repudiate it.  The nationalist and imperialist cliques of all nations endorse it.  It is, one could almost fear, for something like this that the peoples are being kept at war, and the very existence of civilization jeopardized.

Now, whether anything of this kind really can be achieved by the war, whether there is the least probability that either group of Powers can win such a victory as would make the programme on either side a reality, I will not here discuss.  The reader will have his own opinion.  What I am concerned with is the effect any such solution would have upon the future of Europe.  Those who desire such a close may be divided into two classes.  The one frankly believes in war, in domination, and in power.  It accepts as inevitable, and welcomes as desirable, the perpetual armed conflict of nations for territory and trade.  It does not believe in, and it does not want, a durable peace.  It holds that all peace is, must be, and