The League of Nations is but an incorporation of the co-operative principle in world affairs. We have seen to what the lack of that principle leads both in international and national life. Americans seem almost unanimously in favour of a League of Nations, so long as it is sufficiently airy――perhaps one might say ‘hot-airy’; but when it comes to earth, many of them fear the risk. I would only say that no great change ever comes about in the lives of men unless they take risks; no progress can be made. As to the other objection taken to the League, not only by Americans――that it won’t work, well we shall never know the rights of that unless we try it. The two chief factors in avoiding war are Publicity and Delay. If there is some better plan for bringing these two factors into play than the machinery of a League of Nations, I have yet to learn of it. The League which, I think, will come in spite of all our hesitations, may very likely make claims larger than its real powers; and there is, of course, danger in that; but there is also wisdom and advantage, for the success of the League must depend enormously on how far it succeeds in riveting the imaginations of mankind in its first years. The League should therefore make bold claims. After all, there is solidity and truth in this notion of a Society of Nations. The world is really growing towards it beneath all surface rivalries. We must admit it to be in the line of natural development, unless we turn our back on all analogy. Don’t then let us be ashamed of it, as if it were a piece of unpractical idealism. It is much more truly real than the state of things which has led to the misery of these last four years. The soldiers who have fought and suffered and known the horrors of war, desire it. The objections come from those who have but watched them fight and suffer. Like every other change in the life of mankind, and like every new development in industry or art, the League needs faith. Let us have faith and give it a good ‘send-off.’ I have left what I deem the greatest new factor till the last――Anglo-American unity. Greater it is even than the impetus towards a League of Nations, because without it the League of Nations has surely not the chance of a lost dog.