the path for us. A plain and seriously indisputable ideal is put before us: arbitration. A court for exercising it has already been established: the Hague Tribunal. Let the majority of people in the more powerful nations of the earth agree to submit every international difference to that or some other tribunal, and we have made an end of militarism and war.
If this seem a hasty or superficial view of a grave problem, reflect on the difficulties which a cautious or conservative thinker might allege. He would, I fancy, on sincere consideration, admit that the chief and most serious difficulty is not a reluctance based on specific reasons, but a general apathy due to want of reflection. I am not for a moment underrating the magnitude of the effort that will be required in overcoming this apathy, in creating the general will. In this respect, indeed, the pacifist reform is peculiarly hampered. Pessimistic people ask how we came to boast of moral progress in modern times when this military evil has become greater than ever. They do not reflect on the special conditions of the problem. In attacking almost every other evil—industrial injustice, say, or cruel sport, or a stupid penal code—we have to deal only with our own nation. We can carry the reform within our own frontiers, whatever other nations do. In the case of militarism we cannot. All the Great Powers, at least, must advance simultaneously. We have not to educate a nation, but a planet. Pacifists have at times given
