It is amazing how unable people seem to be to realise the full danger of an assembly entirely dominated by the idea of competitive nationalism, and the urgent necessity of getting away from that idea, however great the mental exertion required. For suppose presently Mr. MacDonald is successful in getting in Russia and Germany, and suppose the League begins to handle such larger questions as disarmament, European currency, tariffs, and so forth, then just as the interests involved become greater, so much the more nationalist will the spirit of the delegates and representatives become. The League gatherings under the present constitution will certainly become battlegrounds of great nationalist interests. The dear little smaller States will be drawn into groups and alliances about the greater States. They will not be able to help themselves. Their votes will be cowed and bullied or bribed votes. So long as the members go to Geneva to represent not mankind but national Governments they will go there in a diplomatic, bargaining, and competitive spirit. There will develop a pro-French or pro-British group, and an anti-French or anti-British group; the alliances and antagonisms of another great war may easily work themselves out upon the floor of the League gatherings. That all the nations of Europe and under European influence may have been got to meet in Geneva will in itself be no more a guarantee of peace than was the meeting of the United States Congress before the election of President Lincoln a guarantee of peace in America. It is a matter of supreme importance to the whole world that before it is too late this body which we now call the League of Nations should be denationalised and put upon a cosmopolitan basis. XXVII THE LABOUR PARTY ON TRIAL: THE FOLLY OF THE FIVE CRUISERS 15.3.24