The problems that lie before us in the reconstitution of Europe are so many and so various that we can only hope to take a few separately, especially those which seem to throw most light on a possible future.  I have used the phrase “reconstitution of Europe,” because I do not know how otherwise to characterise the general trend of the ideas germinating in many men’s minds as they survey the present crisis and its probable outcome.  Europe will have to be reconstituted in more respects than one.  At the present moment, or rather before the present war broke out, it was governed by phrases and conceptions which had become superannuated.  An uneasy equipoise between the Great Powers represented the highest culmination of our diplomatic efforts.  Something must clearly be substituted for this uneasy equipoise.  It is not enough that after tremendous efforts the relative balance of forces between great states should, on the whole, dissuade them from war.  As a matter of fact, it has not done so.  The underlying conception has been that nations are so ardently bellicose that they require to be restrained from headlong conflicts by the doubtful and dangerous character of such military efforts as might be practicable.  Hence Europe, as divided into armed camps, represents one of the old-fashioned ideas that we want to abolish.  We wish to put in its stead something like a Concert of Europe.  We have before our eyes a vague, but inspiring vision not of tremendous and rival armaments, but of a United States of Europe, each component element striving for the public weal, and for further advances in general cultivation and welfare rather than commercial prosperity.  The last is a vital point, for it does not require much knowledge of modern history to discover that the race for commercial advantage is exactly one of the reasons why Europe is at war at the present moment.  A vast increase in the commercial prosperity of any one state means a frantic effort on the part of its rivals to pull down this advantage.  In some fashion, therefore, we have to substitute for endless competition the principle of co-operation, national welfare being construed at the same time not in terms of overwhelming wealth, but of thorough sanity and health in the body corporate.

NAKED STRENGTH

All this sounds shadowy and abstruse until it is translated into something concrete and definite.  What is it we want to dispossess and banish from the Europe of to-day?  We have to find something to take the place of what is called militarism.  I dealt with the general features of militarism in my last essay; I will therefore content myself with saying that militarism in Europe has meant two things above all.  First, the worship of might, as expressed in formidable armaments; next, the corresponding worship of wealth to enable the burden of armaments to be borne with comparative ease.  The worship of naked strength involves several