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Rh with the colours, and was not the Prussian effort to circumvent his prohibition the origin of the whole modern system of short-service national armies? Economic war, with Germany exploiting the Slavs, and presently the Heartland, would in the long run merely serve to emphasise the distinction between the Continent and the Islands, and between land-power and sea-power, and no one who contemplates the unity of the Great Continent under modern railway conditions can view unconcernedly either the preparation for the World-War which would be inevitable, or the ultimate result of that War.

We, the Western nations, have incurred such tremendous sacrifices in this conflict that we cannot afford to trust to anything that may happen at Berlin; we must be secure in any case. In other words, we must settle this question between the Germans and Slavs, and we must see to it that East Europe, like West Europe, is divided into self-contained nations. If we do that, we shall not only reduce the German people to its proper position in the world, a great enough position for any single people, but we shall also have created the conditions precedent to a League of Nations.

You plead that if we inflict a decisive peace