Page:The League of Nations and labour.djvu/7

 compels expenditure upon armaments, and the energies of its peoples are absorbed in preparation for the struggle.

This is the first and most compelling reason why the organized working-class movement supports the proposal of a League of Nations. Labour recognizes that in this proposal lies the hope of deliverance for all the peoples from the severest economic pressure and the most terrible risks of suffering and loss, from heavy burdens of taxation to maintain large armies and navies. Our hope for the future is bound up with this question of security. The specific programme of reconstruction in which Labour is interested presupposes two essential conditions which must be fulfilled before it can be carried into practical effect: the first condition is the defeat and destruction of Prussian militarism; the second is the establishment of a League of Nations which will make the world safe for democracy.

The project of a League of Nations is the keystone of the new social order that Labour desires to build. It stands also in the forefront of the Labour policy of international conciliation. Neither national reconstruction nor international conciliation is possible as long as the people are preoccupied with the menace of foreign aggression, and Governments are forced to spend huge sums yearly upon the means of national self-defence. In the past many necessary reforms have had to be postponed or altogether abandoned for