It is popularly supposed to mean that no single Power or group of Powers should, in the interests of international peace, be allowed to acquire a preponderating position in Europe, and that the policy of Great Britain should be directed against such a consummation. British policy during the past few years has been based upon the assumption that Germany had attained, or was seeking to attain, that position of eminence. It is that idea which, in the minds of masses of our people, justifies the present war. But if this policy has been right in the past, what prospect does the future hold? The victory of the Allies—which is a vital necessity—must enormously upset the “balance” by making Russia the dominant military power of Europe, possibly the dictator both in this Continent and in Asia. Russia can draw upon vast sources of human military material, only partly civilized. At present she is governed by a military autocracy which is largely hostile to Western ideas of political and religious freedom. There is hope in the minds of Western Liberals that the war may bring political liberation to Russia. At present that is only a hope. For wars have as often been a prelude to tyranny as to liberty. It is only too likely that after a victorious war our national feeling may revert to its old anti-Russian channel, and we shall again have the “Balance of Power” invoked to protect Europe and India against a new Russian preeminence. Speaking generally, the “Balance of Power” is little more than a diplomatic formula made use of by the mouthpieces of the interests from whose operations war comes. It signifies nothing more than that, at a given moment, in a given country, there is an effort to hold up to the public gaze the Government and the people of another country as being intent upon the destruction of its neighbors. At one moment it is Russia, at another France, and at another Germany. The “Balance of Power” was invoked for several years and down to within a few weeks of the Crimean War to inflame British public opinion against France. It was invoked against Russia to justify the Crimean War, and France was chosen as the ally with which to fight Russia! No sooner had peace been signed than France became once more the potential threat to the “Balance of Power”; and again during the period of rivalry in West and Central Africa, and in the Far East, in the late nineties. [Sidenote: The power of the press in making war-opinion.]