Here again it will probably appear that the people of the United Kingdom, and of the English-speaking countries at large, will not consent to this armed force and its discretionary use passing out of British hands, or rather out of French-British hands; and here again the practical decision will have to wait on the choice of the British people, all the more because the British community has no longer an interest, real or fancied, in the coercive use of this force for their own particular ends.

No other power is to be trusted, except France, and France is less well placed for the purpose and would assuredly also not covet so invidious an honour and so thankless an office.
* * * * * The theory, i.e.the logical necessities, of such a pacific league of neutral nations is simple enough, in its elements.

War is to be avoided by a policy of avoidance.

Which signifies that the means and the motives to warlike enterprise and warlike provocation are to be put away, so far as may be.

If what may be, in this respect, does not come up to the requirements of the case, the experiment, of course, will fail.