let us remember that it is only necessary to defeat the propaganda
of this vile and dangerous industry in four great countries. And for the
common citizen, touched on the tenderest part of his patriotic
susceptibilities, there are certain irrefutable arguments. Whether the
ways of the world in the years to come are to be the paths of peace or
the paths of war is not going to alter this essential fact, that the
great educated world communities, with a social and industrial
organization on a war-capable scale, are going to dominate human
affairs. Whether they spend their power in killing or in educating and
creating, France, Germany, however much we may resent it, the two great
English-speaking communities, Italy, Japan China, and presently perhaps
a renascent Russia, are jointly going to control the destinies of
mankind. Whether that joint control comes through arms or through the
law is a secondary consideration. To refuse to bring our affairs into a
common council does not make us independent of foreigners. It makes us
more dependent upon them, as a very little consideration will show.

I am suggesting here that the League of Free Nations shall practically
control the army, navy, air forces, and armament industry of every
nation in the world. What is the alternative to that? To do as we
please? No, the alternative is that any malignant country will be free
to force upon all the rest just the maximum amount of armament it
chooses to adopt. Since 1871 France, we say, has been free in military
matters. What has been the value of that freedom? The truth is, she has
been the bond-slave of Germany, bound to watch Germany as a slave
watches a master, bound to launch submarine for submarine and cast gun
for gun, to sweep all her youth into her army, to subdue her trade, her
literature, her education, her whole life to the necessity of
preparations imposed upon her by her drill-master over the Rhine. And
Michael, too, has been a slave to his imperial master for the self-same
reason, for the reason that Germany and France were both so proudly
sovereign and independent. Both countries have been slaves to Kruppism
and Zabernism--_because they were sovereign and free_! So it will always
be. So long as patriotic cant can keep the common man jealous of
international controls over his belligerent possibilities, so long will
he be the helpless slave of the foreign threat, and "Peace" remain a
mere name for the resting phase between wars