Page:The League of Nations in history.djvu/14

 Nations was the British Empire, and it achieved success, not by the amalgamation of independent units, but by their decentralization; a like solution may emerge from the turmoil in Russia and in the Hapsburg dominions, and possibly Scandinavia, through the separation of Norway and Sweden, may have obtained a somewhat similar international understanding.

It is clear that a League of Nations cannot be based on the German idea of the State. The State, according to Treitsclike, is might, and has 'the right to merge into one the nationalities contained within itself. It is not by the repression, but only by the expression, of nationality that a League of Nations can be formed; for nationality has come to stay, and the purport of a League of Nations is to provide means for the expression of nationality in any form but war. Youthful exuberance tends to express itself in combat, but in maintaining peace we direct the vigour of men into more fruitful channels than mutual destruction. The national State is built on that foundation; but so far we have failed in the international sphere, and war has perverted colossal energies from constructive to destructive purposes. The failure in the nineteenth century was largely due to a perversion of the Balance of Power. To Castlereagh and his colleagues that phrase meant the 'just repartition of force amongst the States of Europe', a sort of rationing of power by agreement;