shock effects of the next war will have much the same relation to the
shock effects of this, as the shock of breaking a finger-nail has to the
shock of crushing in a body. In Russia to-day we have seen, not indeed
social revolution, not the replacement of one social order by another,
but disintegration. Let not national conceit blind us. Germany, France,
Italy, Britain are all slipping about on that same slope down which
Russia has slid. Which goes first, it is hard to guess, or whether we
shall all hold out to some kind of Peace. At present the social
discipline of France and Britain seems to be at least as good as that of
Germany, and the _morale_ of the Rhineland and Bavaria has probably to
undergo very severe testing by systematized and steadily increasing air
punishment as this year goes on. The next war--if a next war comes--will
see all Germany, from end to end, vulnerable to aircraft....

Such are the two sets of considerations that will, I think, ultimately
prevail over every prejudice and every difficulty in the way of the
League of Free Nations. Existing states have become impossible as
absolutely independent sovereignties. The new conditions bring them so
close together and give them such extravagant powers of mutual injury
that they must either sink national pride and dynastic ambitions in
subordination to the common welfare of mankind or else utterly shatter
one another. It becomes more and more plainly a choice between the
League of Free Nations and a famished race of men looting in search of
non-existent food amidst the smouldering ruins of civilization. In the
end I believe that the common sense of mankind will prefer a revision of
its ideas of nationality and imperialism, to the latter alternative. It
may take obstinate men a few more years yet of blood and horror to learn
this lesson, but for my own part I cherish an obstinate belief in the
potential reasonableness of mankind.