In this scheme we see the influence of the war. The author is brought to see that some form of central authority to coërce a state is necessary. On the other hand, he does not allow his league to become a law-making body, an omission that goes far to weaken the united efforts of the league. Guaranteeing the right of secession, also shows that the author of the plan is unwilling to merge the nations into a great state, in which they will each give up a portion of their sovereignty. His plan is a little stronger than the American plan but it nevertheless falls short of being a federation. If we are to make a serious attempt to obtain enduring peace by coöperation it behooves us to start on the basis of sufficient force to insure that the attempt will be worth while. If that cannot be done, it is unwise to make the attempt, since to trust ourselves at this juncture to that which we have good reason to believe insufficient only lulls us to a false sense of security and dissipates resolution that might with better effect be used in an opposite direction. If we do not have peace through coöperation we must maintain a sharp state of preparation for war. Furthermore, no people can be rallied to a scheme which seems insufficient to them. Give them that which they can trust and they can perhaps be made to support it, in spite of the inconveniences they find in it. Probably it is not too much to say that the only form of united action that can be relied on is a federation with enough cohesive force to guard against secession, repress any constituent state that defies the united will, make laws that concern the purposes for which the federation is formed, exercise the right of interpreting those laws by a system of federal courts, and maintain an executive that can make itself obeyed. It need not have these extensive functions for all the areas of government, but it should have them for those things that concern the declaration of war and the preservation of peace. It means that to escape an era of conflict ending, perhaps, in a world united through conquest as the Roman Empire was united, we establish by agreement a world united through federation, as the United States of America were united. A league of nations, under the plans suggested above, would be only a half-way house that would lead to rupture and failure or to some future struggle out of which a world taught by experience might possibly form “a more perfect union.”