Now what has diplomacy done for us during the last few years? It has formed certain understandings and alliances between different states; it has tried to safeguard our position by creating sympathetic bonds with those nations who are allied to us in policy. It has also attempted to produce that kind of "Balance of Power" in Europe which on its own showing makes for peace. This Balance of Power, so often and so mysteriously alluded to by the diplomatic world, has become a veritable fetish. Perhaps its supreme achievement was reached when two autocratic monarchs--the Tsar of Russia and the German Emperor--solemnly propounded a statement, as we have seen, at Port Baltic that the Balance of Power, as distributed between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, had proved itself valuable in the interests of European peace. That was only two years ago, and the thing seems a mockery now. If we examine precisely what is meant by a Balance of Power, we shall see that it presupposes certain conditions of animosity and attempts to neutralise them by the exhibition of superior or, at all events, equivalent forces. A Balance of Power in the continental system assumes, for all practical purposes, that the nations of Europe are ready to fly at each other's throats, and that the only way to deter them is to make them realise how extremely perilous to themselves would be any such military enterprise. Can any one doubt that this is the real meaning of the phrase? If we listen to the Delphic oracles of diplomacy on this subject of the Balance of Power, we shall understand that in nine cases out of ten a man invoking this phrase means that he wants the Balance of Power to be favourable to himself. It is not so much an exact equipoise that he desires, as a certain tendency of the scales to dip in his direction. If Germany feels herself weak she not only associates Austria and Italy with herself, but looks eastward to get the assistance of Turkey, or, perhaps, attempts--as it so happens without any success--to create sympathy for herself in the United States of America. If, on the other hand, France feels herself in danger, she not only forms an alliance with Russia, but also an entente with England and, on the principle that the friends of one's friends ought to be accepted, produces a further entente between England and Russia. England, on her part, if for whatever reason she feels that she is liable to attack, goes even so far as to make an alliance with an Asiatic nation--Japan--in order to safeguard her Asiatic interests in India. Thus, when diplomatists invoke the necessity of a Balance of Power, they are really trying to work for a preponderance of power on their side. It is inevitable that this should be so. An exact Balance of Power must result in a stalemate. CHANGE OF POLICY