The increased dreadfulness of war due to modern weapons is, however, only one consequence of their development.  The practicability of aggressive war in settled countries now is entirely dependent on the use of elaborate artillery on land and warships at sea.  Were there only rifles in the world, were an ordinary rifle the largest kind of gun permitted, and were ships specifically made for war not so made, then it would be impossible to invade any country defended by a patriotic and spirited population with any hopes of success because of the enormous defensive capacity of entrenched riflemen not subjected to an unhampered artillery attack.

Modern war is entirely dependent upon equipment of the most costly and elaborate sort.  A general agreement to reduce that equipment would not only greatly minimize the evil of any war that did break out, but it would go a long way toward the abolition of war.  A community of men might be unwilling to renounce their right of fighting one another if occasion arose, but they might still be willing to agree not to carry arms or to carry arms of a not too lethal sort, to carry pistols instead of rifles or sticks instead of swords.  That, indeed, has been the history of social amelioration in a number of communities; it has led straight to a reduction in the number of encounters.  So in the same way the powers of the world might be willing to adopt such a limitation of armaments, while still retaining the sovereign right of declaring war in certain eventualities.  Under the assurances of a world council threatening a general intervention, such a partial disarmament would be greatly facilitated.

And another aspect of disarmament which needs to be taken up and which only a world congress can take up must be the arming of barbaric or industrially backward powers by the industrially and artillery forces in such countries as efficient powers, the creation of navies Turkey, Servia, Peru, and the like.  In Belgium countless Germans were blown to pieces by German-made guns, Europe arms Mexico against the United States; China, Africa, Arabia are full of European and American weapons.  It is only the mutual jealousies of the highly organized States that permit this leakage of power.  The tremendous warnings of our war should serve to temper their foolish hostilities, and now, if ever, is the time to restrain this insane arming of the less advanced communities.

But before that can be done it is necessary that the manufacture of war material should cease to be a private industry and a source of profit to private individuals, that all the invention and enterprise that blossoms about business should be directed no longer to the steady improvement of man-killing.  It is a preposterous and unanticipated thing that respectable British gentlemen should be directing magnificently organized masses of artisans upon the Tyneside in the business of making weapons that may ultimately smash some of those very artisans to smithereens.