Without the definitive collapse of the Imperial power no pacific league of nations can come to anything much more than armistice. On the basis of such a collapse the league may as well administer its affairs economically by way of an all-around reduction of armaments, as by the costlier and more irksome way of "preparedness." But a sensible reduction of armaments on the part of the neutral nations implies disarmament of the dynastic States. Which would involve a neutral surveillance of the affairs of these dynastic States in such detail and with such exercise of authority as would reduce their governments to the effective status of local administrative officials. Out of which, in turn, would arise complications that would lead to necessary readjustments all along the line. It would involve the virtual, if not also the formal, abolition of the monarchy, since the monarchy has no other use than that of international war and intrigue; or at least it would involve the virtual abrogation of its powers, reducing it to the same status of _faineantise_ as now characterises the British crown. Evidently this means a serious intermeddling in the domestic concerns and arrangements of the Fatherland, such as is not admissible under the democratic principle that any people must be left free to follow their own inclinations and devices in their own concerns; at the same time that this degree of interference is imperative if the peace is to be kept on any other footing than that of eternal vigilance and superior armed force, with a people whose own inclinations and devices are of the kind now grown familiar in the German case,--all of which also applies, with accentuation, in the case of Imperial Japan. * * * * * Some such policy of neutral surveillance in the affairs of these peoples whose pacific temper is under suspicion, is necessarily involved in a plan to enforce peace by concert of the pacific nations, and it will necessarily carry implications and farther issues, touching not only these supposedly recalcitrant peoples, but also as regards the pacific nations themselves. Assuming always that the prime purpose and consistent aim of the projected league is the peace and security of those pacific nations on whose initiative it is to be achieved, then it should be reasonable to assume that the course of procedure in its organisation, administration and further adaptations and adjustments must follow the logic of necessities leading to that end. He who wills the end must make up his account with the means.