the discovery by Europe that the chief barrier to European concord
lay not in the armies of the powers, but in the ring of hostile
battleships that constrained her peoples into armed camps.

European militarism rests on English navalism. English navalism
requires for its continued existence a disunited Europe; and a Europe
kept apart is a Europe armed, anxious and watchful, bent on mutual
attack, its eyes fixed on the _earth_. Europe must lift its eyes
to the sea. There lies the highway of the nations, the only road to
freedom--the sole path to peace.

For the pent millions of Europe there can be no peace, no laying aside
of arms, no sincere development of trade or culture while one people,
_in Europe but not of Europe_, immune themselves from all attack,
and sure that whatever suffering they inflict on others can never be
visited on their own shores, have it in their power to foment strife
with impunity and to call up war from the ends of the earth while they
themselves enjoy the blessing of peace.

England, the soul and brain of this confederacy of war abroad remains
at peace at home. As I write these words a despatch from Sir Alfred
Sharpe, the correspondent of a London paper in France, comes to hand.
It should be placarded in every Foreign Office of the world, in every
temple of justice, in every house of prayer.

"It is difficult for the people in England to realize the condition of
Northern France at the present time. Although the papers are full of
accounts of desolation and destruction caused by the German invasion,
it is only by an actual experience that a full realization of the
horror comes. To return to England after visiting the French war zone