in a single State. Commerce and industry, the greatest
material forces of our time, have become inextricably international, and
in the palpable injury in which a war would involve them some thinkers
of clear but limited vision saw the best hope of averting a European
conflagration.

And yet, throughout these two generations of economic and social
development, the fear of war has never been absent from the mind of Europe.
Her emperors and statesmen have talked of peace; but they have prepared for
war, more skilfully and more persistently than ever before in the history
of Europe or of the world. Almost the entire manhood of every European
nation but England has been trained to arms; and the annual war budget of
Europe rose, in time of peace, to over 300 million pounds. The States of
Europe, each afraid to stand alone against a coalition of possible rivals,
formed themselves into opposing groups; and each of the groups armed
feverishly against the other, fearful lest, by any change in the diplomatic
or political situation, they might be caught unawares and suffer loss.
Thus, it ought not to have surprised us that finally, through the accident
of a royal murder, the spark should be fired and the explosion ensue,
and that merchants and manufacturers, propagandists and philanthropists,
scholars and scientists, should find the ground shaken beneath their
feet and the projects patiently built up through years of international
co-operation shattered by the events of a few days.

Now that the war has come it is easy to see that they were mistaken. They
had built up the structure of a cosmopolitan society without looking to
the foundations. The economic activities of mankind have indeed brought a
World-Society and a World-Industry into being; but its political analogue,
a World-State, can only be formed, not through the co-operation of
individuals or groups of individuals, but through the union of nations and
the federation of national governments. The first task of our time for
Europe, as we shall try to show in the next chapter, is to lay firm the
foundations of those nations by carrying to victory the twin principles of
Nationality and Democracy--to secure that the peoples of Europe shall be
enabled to have governments corresponding to their national needs and
responsible to their own control, and to build up, under the care
and protection of those governments, the social institutions and the
civilisation of their choice. So