which the traffic in munitions of war goes on increasing and itself helps to bring about a conflagration.  Financial enterprise is, of course, the life-blood of modern states.  But why should our army and navy be brought in to protect financiers?  Let them take their own risks, like every other man who pursues a hazardous path for his own private gain.  Private investment in foreign securities does not increase the volume of a nation’s commerce.  The individual may make a colossal fortune, but the nation pays much too dearly for the enrichment of financiers if it allows itself to be dragged into war on account of their “beaux yeux.”

IDEAL AIMS

It is time to gather together in a summary fashion some of the considerations which have been presented to us in the course of our inquiry.  We have gone to war partly for direct, partly for indirect objects.  The direct objects are the protection of small nationalities, the destruction of a particularly offensive kind of militarism in Germany, the securing of respect for treaties, and the preservation of our own and European liberty.  But there are also indirect objects at which we have to aim, and it is here, of course, that the speculative character of our inquiry is most clearly revealed.  Apart from the preservation of the smaller nationalities, Mr. Asquith has himself told us that we should aim at the organisation of a Public Will of Europe, a sort of Collective Conscience which should act as a corrective of national defects and as a support of international morality.  Nothing could well be more speculative or vague than this, and we have already seen the kind of difficulties which surround the conception, especially the conflict between a collective European constraint and an eager and energetic patriotism.  We must not, however, be deterred by the nebulous character of some of the ideals which are floating through our minds.  Ideals are always nebulous, and always resisted by the narrow sort of practical men who suggest that we are metaphysical dreamers unaware of the stern facts of life.  Nevertheless, the actual progress of the world depends on the visions of idealists, and when the time comes for the reconstitution of Europe on a new basis we must already have imaginatively thought out some of the ends towards which we are striving.  We must also be careful not to narrow our conceptions to the level of immediate needs—­that is not the right way of any reform.  Our conceptions must be as large and as wide and as philanthropical as imagination can make them; otherwise Europe will miss one of the greatest opportunities that it has ever had to deal with, and we shall incur the bitterest of all disappointments—­not to be awake when the dawn appears.

GREATNESS OF STATES