still remain privileged classes within the nations no international machinery of adjustment and restraint can do more than preserve a highly precarious equilibrium between conflicting interests. III Upon this whole subject there is little to be said which is not already perfectly clear to those who have given it any serious thought. Two courses are open, and only two, to modern democracies. They may choose to retain the traditional dogmas of national sovereignty and “honour,” and the current acceptances of the business system, or they may resolve upon a break with the past. The consequences of the first choice are perfectly evident from the state into which the world has been brought by its operation in the near past. It implies the retention of a privileged class with interests to be defended at home and abroad; it will work out in competitive commerce and as a natural corollary in competitive armaments. And competitive armaments soon or late mean war. It has already been pointed out how the doctrine of military “preparedness” must inevitably retard and arrest the realisation of democratic liberty within the nation, but it must farther be recognised that any general retention of military establishments, under the conditions of modern industry, must eventuate in the total destruction of democracy and civilisation. The other choice means a deliberate and progressive attempt to organise the intercourse of nations upon a basis of reciprocity and co-operation. Even though the consequences of such an attempt may be at present uncertain and problematical, it may at least be asserted that they cannot be worse than those which have so tragically ensued from the former tradition.