Looking at the Casualty Lists recording the death of so many brave men, and thinking of the grief in the homes, one feels that this War lies heavy on the world like a black horror. And yet I find myself ever more irresistibly (albeit wholly against my will and wishes) forced to the conclusion that War is a part of the order of things. Did you read the Russian Socialists' manifesto on the War? While, on the one hand, they ascribed responsibility for it to the capitalist classes in the warring countries, yet they admitted that Russia's withdrawal from the War would put the Boche section of capitalists in an advantageous position, and so decided to continue it. In other words, they admit that Democracy is powerless to avert War. To my thinking, all History is made up of a series of movements like the swinging of a pendulum, from democracy (often via oligarchy) to imperialism, and from imperialism back to democracy. It seems to me that there is only one effective method of ensuring world-peace. It was the method of the Romans, by which one nation having fought its way to a position of undisputed and indisputable supremacy, imposed its will on the other nations of the world, and established the "Pax Romana." Similar efforts made by great men have proved a disastrous failure in the long run, though after meeting with temporary success. Rome's universal dominion did not endure long, and Napoleon's domination of the Continent was very brief. England seems to have almost succeeded up to date in her attempt to establish a "Pax Romana," for she gave order and peace to a large part of the world. England builded better than she knew, for many of the wise things she did were done under protest and from her devotion to the _laissez-faire_ system. But this stupendous conflict shows that the "Pax Britannica" has not succeeded in averting wars.