Britain has no relation to the cost of a conscript on the Continent.
Therefore, that line of approach, when applied too broadly, is not
fruitful. I think myself it is quite possible that you may be able to
apply financial limitations to the question of material, the
construction of guns and other weapons of war, because the cost of these
things in foreign countries tends much more to a common level. I think
this is a possible line of approach, but to try to make a reduction of
armaments by reducing budgets on a wholesale scale I do not think will
lead us anywhere at all. I may safely say that for the present that line
of approach has been abandoned.

The Temporary Mixed Commission got to work, and in its first year,
frankly, I cannot say it did very much. It concerned itself very largely
with the accumulation of information and the collection of statistics,
bearing rather the same relation to world problems as a Royal Commission
does to our domestic problems. By the time the second Assembly met
practically nothing had been done by the Commission. But other people
had been at work, and our own League of Nations Union had put forward a
proposal--a line of approach, rather, I would say, to this
problem--which I for one think is extremely useful. It began by
inquiring as to what armaments were for, which after all is a useful way
of beginning, and the inquiry came to the conclusion that nations
required them for three purposes--to maintain internal order; as a last
resort for the enforcement of law and order; and to protect overseas
possessions. After these purposes were served there was a large residuum
left. That residuum could only be required for one purpose--to protect
the country in question from foreign aggression. When you had gone thus
far in your reasoning, you had obviously got into the zone where
bargaining becomes possible, because it is obvious that by agreement you
can get the force by which a nation is liable to become reduced. That