declared the _Morning Post_ on 22nd April last, "we are back again to
the doctrine of the Balance of Power, whatever the visionaries and the
blind may say." I propose to deal, as faithfully as I can in the time at
my disposal, with the visionaries and the blind--when we have discovered
who they are.

By "visionaries" I suppose the _Morning Post_ means those who believe in
the League of Nations; and by the "blind" I suppose it means them, too,
though usually a distinction is drawn between those who see too much and
those who cannot see at all. Nor need we determine whether those who
believe in the Balance of Power belong rather to the visionaries or to
the blind. A man may be receiving less than his due when he is asked
whether he is a knave or a fool, because the form of the question seems
to preclude the proper answer, which may be "both." Believers in the
Balance of Power are visionaries if they see in it a guarantee of peace,
and blind if they fail to perceive that it naturally and almost
inevitably leads to war. The fundamental antithesis is between the
Balance of Power and the League of Nations.


BALANCE OR LEAGUE?

That antithesis comes out wherever the problem of preserving the peace
of the world is seriously and intelligently discussed. Six years ago,
when he began to turn his attention to this subject, Lord Robert Cecil
wrote and privately circulated a memorandum in which he advocated
something like a League of Nations. To that memorandum an able reply was
drafted by an eminent authority in the Foreign Office, in which it was
contended that out of the discussion "the Balance of Power emerges as
the fundamental factor." That criticism for the time being checked