What of the future? What lessons do the incompetence and secretiveness, the jealousies and vanities of that vaunted European statecraft which has plunged the world in war convey to the peoples who are its victims? What can the people do to amend a system under which they are used as pawns in a game of chess? They can begin to understand what that system is and that its existence is their undoing. They can begin to understand the monstrous errors and fallacies which underlie the whole teaching imposed upon their intelligence. They can begin to understand that this immunity from public control enjoyed by the small group of professional men who manipulate international relations has led to the establishment amongst the latter of a standard of conduct which would not be tolerated in the ordinary affairs of a well-ordered community. They can begin to understand that “high politics” in the diplomatic world has become a synonym for intrigue; that a code of morals is therein practised which, in other branches of the public service, would entail dismissal, and in the business world would involve disgrace. They can force themselves to a mental effort which shall lead them to the realization of the complete artificiality of the conditions under which they suffer, the remoteness from their real and vital needs of the issues for which they are asked to sacrifice all that they hold dear. _They can rid themselves of the paralyzing belief that their relations with their neighbors are so complicated and mysterious as to be beyond their comprehension. They can bring themselves to grasp a plain and demonstrable truth, and to appreciate its full significance, which is that those to whom they have looked for guidance, those who have told them that in the preservation of the “Balance of Power,” and in the multiplication of colossal armaments lay the one chance of international peace, have been utterly, hopelessly, calamitously wrong. They can put to themselves these simple issues._ “By the terrible logic of events which now confront us we see that the methods advocated by those to whose training and wisdom we trusted to ensure peace among the nations have entirely failed. The system which we were induced reluctantly to support, far from preserving peace, has precipitated us into the greatest conflict in history, a conflict we passionately desired to avoid, and for the avoidance of which we made heavy sacrifices because, we were told, that therein lay our hope of averting it. The system was wrong. We must evolve another.” [Sidenote: We must aim at a federalized Europe.]