ratio. And the line taken was this. It
was necessary to find some unit in land armaments which corresponded
with the battleships, and the unit selected by Lord Esher was the
300,000 regular soldiers of the peace armies in France, England, and
Spain. It was selected because it happened to be the number to which the
Austrian army was reduced by treaty, and with that unit he proposed a
ratio for the armies of Europe, which would leave everybody relatively
in much the same position as before, but would obtain an immediate
reduction in numbers of standing armies and a great reduction of
expenditure.

This proposal was subjected to a great deal of criticism, and I am sorry
to say nine-tenths of the criticism appears to emanate from persons who
have never read the proposal at all. It is a proposal which lends itself
to a great deal of criticism, and the most effective criticism which
could have been applied at the time it was presented was that it put the
cart before the horse, and approached the problem from the wrong
direction, for, as Lord Robert Cecil has said here this morning, what
nations require is security. Some of them have clear ideas as to the way
of obtaining it, but they all want it, and before you can expect people
to reduce their armaments, which are, after all, maintained mainly for
the purpose of providing security, you must give them something that
will take the place of armaments.

A GENERAL DEFENSIVE PACT

In June an important development took place in this Temporary
Commission. It was increased by the addition of a number of statesmen,
and, amongst others, of men who ought to have been on it long ago. Lord
Robert Cecil was added, and he at once proceeded to remedy what was a
real difficulty in Lord Esher's proposals. He put forward a plan for
providing security in the form, as the Assembly of the League had asked,
of a definite written proposal--really a brief treaty. The purport of
that treaty is included in the form of resolutions, which are roughly as
follows:--No scheme for the reduction of armaments can be effective
unless it is general; that in the present state of the world no
Government can accept the responsibility for a serious reduction of
armaments unless it is given some other equally satisfactory guarantee
of the safety of its country; such guarantee can only be found in a
general defensive agreement of all the countries concerned, binding them
all to come to the assistance of any one o