Meanwhile, during the weeks that Hooker had been engaged in finding the valley of the Ring, unbelievable things had happened in world politics. In spite of the fact that Pax, having decreed the shifting of the Pole and the transformation of Central Europe into the Arctic zone, had refused further communication with mankind, all the nations--and none more zealously than the German Republic--had proceeded immediately to withdraw their armies within their own borders, and under the personal supervision of a General Commission to destroy all their armaments and munitions of war. The lyddite bombs, manufactured in vast quantities by the Krupps for the Relay Gun and all other high explosives, were used to demolish the fortresses upon every frontier of Europe. The contents of every arsenal was loaded upon barges and sunk in mid-Atlantic. And every form of military organization, rank, service, and even uniform, was abolished throughout the world. A coalition of nations was formed under a single general government, known as the United States of Europe, which in cooeperation with the United States of North and South America, of Asia, and of Africa, arranged for an annual world congress at The Hague, and which enforced its decrees by means of an International Police. In effect all the inhabitants of the globe came under a single control, as far as language and geographical boundaries would permit. Each state enforced local laws, but all were obedient to the higher law--the Law of Humanity--which was uniform through the earth. If an individual offended against the law of one nation, he was held to have offended against all, and was dealt with as such. The international police needed no treaties of extradition. The New York embezzler who fled to Nairobi was sent back as a matter of course without delay. Any man was free to go and live where he chose, to manufacture, buy, and sell as he saw fit. And, because the fear and shadow of war were removed, the nations grew rich beyond the imagination of men; great hospitals and research laboratories, universities, schools, and kindergartens, opera houses, theatres, and gardens of every sort sprang up everywhere, paid for no one quite knew how. The nations ceased to build dreadnoughts, and instead used the money to send great troops of children with the teachers travelling over the world. It was against the law to own or manufacture any weapon that could be used to take human life. And because the nations had nothing to fear from one another, and because there were no scheming diplomatists and bureaucrats to make a living out of imaginary antagonisms, people forgot that they were French or German or Russian or English, just as the people of the United States of America had long before practically disregarded the fact that they came from Ohio or Oregon or Connecticut or Nevada. Russians with weak throats went to live in Italy as a matter of course, and Spaniards who liked German cooking settled in Muenich.