Differences in national temper and tradition, and the conflict of commercial enterprise, perhaps the very recentness of the growth of a spirit of national unity on the one hand, are rapidly bringing the two foremost powers of Europe into keen competition: a competition which is resulting in a bloodless revolution in England, necessitated by the financial requirements of its naval program. Germany, by its strategic geographical position, its dominating military organization, and the enforced frugality, resourcefulness, and efficiency of its people, possesses what must be regarded as the most invincible army in the world. Its avowed purpose is an equally invincible navy. Whether the Gibraltar-Power can keep its ascendancy may well be doubted. The one doubtful--and at the same time perhaps hopeful--factor lies in the possibilities of aerial navigation. [Illustration: LATHAM, FARMAN, AND PAULHAN] If one battleship, in terms of dollars, represents 16,000 airships, and if one or a dozen of the latter can destroy the former--a feat not perhaps beyond the bounds of possibility--if the fortress that represents the skill and labor of generations may be razed by twoscore men operating from aloft, then the nations may beat their spears into pruning-hooks and their swords into plowshares: then the battle ceases to hinge on the power of the purse. Let war be made so costly that nations can no more afford it than sane men can wrestle on the brink of a precipice. Let armed international strife be viewed as it really is--senseless as the now dying duello. Let the navy that represents the wealth, the best engineering, the highest courage and skill, of our age, be powerless at the attack of a swarm of trifling gnats like Gulliver bound by Lilliputians--what happens then? It is a _reductio ad absurdum_. Destructive war becomes so superlatively destructive as to destroy itself. There is only one other way. Let the two rival Powers on whom the peace of the world depends settle their difficulties--surely the earth must be big enough for both!--and then as one would gently but firmly take away from a small boy his too destructive toy rifle, spike the guns and scuttle the ships, their own and all the rest, leaving to some unambitious and neutral power the prosaic task of policing the world. Here is a work for red blood and national self-consciousness. If war were ever needed for man's best development, other things will answer now. The torn bodies and desolated homes of millions of men have paid the price demanded. No imaged hell can surpass the unnamed horrors that our fathers braved. "Enforced disarmament!" Why not? Force (and public opinion) have abolished private duels. Why not national duels as well? Civilization's control of savagery always begins with compulsion. For a generation, no first-class power has had home experience in a serious armed conflict. We should not willingly contemplate such experience now. We have too much to do in the world to fight.