And yet it is also an indispensable element in any scheme of pacification that aims at permanent peace and security.

In time, it may well be believed, the people of the Fatherland might learn to do well enough without the gratuitous domination of their ruling classes, but at the outset it would be a heartfelt privation.
It follows that a league to enforce peace would have to begin its regime with enforcing peace on terms of the unconditional surrender of the formidable warlike nations; which could be accomplished only by the absolute and irretrievable defeat of these Powers as they now stand.

The question will, no doubt, present itself, Is the end worth the cost?
That question can, of course, not be answered in absolute terms, inasmuch as it resolves itself into a question of taste and prepossession.

An answer to it would also not be greatly to the purpose here, since it would have no particular bearing on the course of action likely to be pursued by these pacific nations in their quest of a settled peace.

It is more to the point to ask what is likely to be the practical decision of these peoples on that head when the question finally presents itself in a concrete form.
Again it is necessary to call to mind that any momentous innovation which rests on popular sentiment will take time; that consequently anything like a plebiscite on the question today would scarcely give a safe index of what the decision is likely to be when presently put to the test; and that as things go just now, swiftly and urgent, any time-allowance counts at something more than its ordinary workday coefficient.