erefore, no alternative, if we
are to have a satisfactory permanent pacification of the world, but
local self-development in these regions under honestly conceived
international control of police and transit and trade. Let it be granted
that that will be a difficult control to organize. None the less it has
to be attempted. It has to be attempted because _there is no other way
of peace_. But once that conception has been clearly formulated, a
second great motive why Germany should continue fighting will have
gone.

The third great issue about which there is nothing but fog and
uncertainty is the so-called "War After the War," the idea of a
permanent economic alliance to prevent the economic recuperation of
Germany. Upon that idea German imperialism, in its frantic effort to
keep its tormented people fighting, naturally puts the utmost stress.
The threat of War after the War robs the reasonable German of his last
inducement to turn on his Government and insist upon peace. Shut out
from all trade, unable to buy food, deprived of raw material, peace
would be as bad for Germany as war. He will argue naturally enough and
reasonably enough that he may as well die fighting as starve. This is a
far more vital issue to him than the Belgian issue or Poland or
Alsace-Lorraine. Our statesmen waste their breath and slight our
intelligence when these foreground questions are thrust in front of the
really fundamental matters. But as the mass of sensible people in every
country concerned, in Germany just as much as in France or Great
Britain, know perfectly well, unimpeded trade is good for every one
except a few rich adventurers, and restricted trade destroys limitless
wealth and welfare for mankind to make a few private fortunes or secure
an advantage for some imperialist clique. We want an end to this
economic strategy, we want an end to this plotting of Governmental
cliques against the general welfare. In such offences Germany has been
the chief of sinners, but which among the belligerent nations can throw
the first stone? Here again the way to the world's peace, the only way
to enduring peace, lies through internationalism, through an
international survey of commercial treaties, through an international
control of inter-State shipping and transport rates. Unless the Allied
statesmen fail to understand the implications of their own general
professions they mean that. But why do they not say it plainly? Why do
they not shout it so