Every one has some sort of blinding personal interest to distort the realities that he has to face. Politicians have to think of their personal prestige and their party associations; naval and military experts have to think of their careers. One may argue it is as good a gathering as our present circumstances permit. Probably there is some good will for all mankind in every one who comes. Probably not one is altogether blind to the tremendous disaster that towers over us, but all are forgetful. And yet this Washington Conference may prove to be the nearest approach the human will and intelligence has yet made to a resolute grapple against fate upon this planet. We cannot make ourselves wiser than we are, but in this phase of universal danger we can at least school ourselves to the resolve to be charitable and frank with one another to the best of our ability, to be forgiving debtors, willing to retreat from hasty and impossible assumptions, seeking patience in hearing and generosity in action. High aims and personal humility may yet save mankind. II ARMAMENTS THE FUTILITY OF MERE LIMITATION Washington, Nov. 8. It would seem that the peculiar circumstances of its meeting demand that the Washington Conference should begin with a foregone futility, the discussion of the limitation of armaments and of the restrictions of warfare in certain directions, while nations are still to remain sovereign and free to make war and while there exists no final and conclusive court of decision for international disputes except warfare. A number of people do really seem to believe that we can go on with all the various states of the earth still as sovereign and independent of each other as wild beasts in a jungle, with no common rule and no common law, and yet that we can contrive it that they will agree to make war only in a mild and mitigated fashion, after due notice and according to an approved set of regulations. Such ideas are quite seriously entertained and they are futile and dangerous ideas. A committee of the London League of Nations Union, for example, has been debating with the utmost gravity whether the use of poison gas and the sinking of neutral ships to enforce a blockade should be permitted and whether “all modern developments” in warfare should not be abolished. “The feasibility of preventing secret preparations and the advantages of surprise were also considered.” It is as if warfare was a game.