broke up.  Wars followed, during which those statesmen, especially in England, who believed in the “Balance of Power” sought to prevent any European nation from being overwhelmed by its enemies.  To this end, England supported Austria against the attacks of Prussia, and then later supported Prussia against a coalition formed by the rest of Europe to crush her.  Unfortunately neither England nor France had sufficient strength or courage to prevent the partition of Poland between Prussia, Russia and Austria, which constituted a fatal violation of the Balance of Power.  Peace did not return to Europe till 1815, when the whole continent had been driven to combine for the overthrow of Napoleon.  At the Congress of Vienna in that year the “Concert of Europe” was revived, and for more than thirty years it practically succeeded by means of a series of international congresses in maintaining a stable and balanced system in Europe.

But this “Concert of Europe” was the very thing against which the democratic forces on the continent finally rebelled, for the “Concert” took the form of the so-called “Holy Alliance” between the rulers of Europe, whose object was to prevent popular movements from disturbing the neat and orderly peace which they had created.  The system created by the Congress of Vienna began to break down in 1848.  Since then the warlike nationalist and democratic movements in Europe, followed by the tremendous economic growth of the European nations, have made it almost impossible to secure any stable balance of power, though a more or less successful attempt to establish such a balance in the affairs of south-eastern Europe was made at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.  The two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 did little but reveal the mutual fears and suspicions of the European nations, though many statesmen, especially English and American, laboured sincerely to make the Hague Conventions the guarantee of a lasting peace.  But it must be observed that the “Balance of Power,” which was originally a distinctly European conception, has now become a world-wide conception.  In order to secure a balance of power between the European States it is no longer sufficient to settle European frontiers; it is necessary to settle and, as it were, dovetail into each other the economic interests of the European countries in Africa, Asia, and the Southern Pacific.  It is also necessary to define the relations of European countries to the States in North and South America.

What is the conclusion to be drawn from this history?  The idea of the Balance of Power is unsatisfactory.  You cannot really “balance” living forces.  Nations are not dead masses which can be weighed against each other, but living growths which expand according to obscure natural laws.  Human laws can never stop natural growth; growth can only be stopped by death, and so the Balance of Power seems to necessitate continual conflict.  And so, at least twice in the last two centuries, the attempt to maintain a