fundamental motive of England's participation in all these wars has
been what was conceived to be the need of England's safety, it was
essentially political. A small island Power, dependent on its fleet,
and yet very closely adjoining the continental mainland, is vitally
concerned in the naval developments of possibly hostile Powers and in
the military movements which affect the opposite coast. Spain, France,
and Germany all successively threatened England by a formidable fleet,
and they all sought to gain possession of the coast opposite England.
To England, therefore, it seemed a measure of political self-defence to
strike a blow as each fresh menace arose. In every case Belgium has
been the battlefield on land. The neutrality of Belgium is felt to be
politically vital to England. Therefore, the invasion of Belgium by a
Great Power is to England an immediate signal of war. It is not only
England's wars that have been mainly political; the same is true of
Germany's wars ever since Prussia has had the leadership of Germany.
The political condition of a country without natural frontiers and
surrounded by powerful neighbours is a perpetual source of wars which,
in Germany's case, have been, by deliberate policy, offensively
defensive.

When we realise the fundamental importance of the political causation
of warfare, the whole problem of the ultimate fate of war becomes at
once more hopeful. The orderly growth and stability of nations has in
the past seemed to demand war. But war is not the only method of
securing these ends, and to most people nowadays it scarcely seems the
best method. England and France have fought against each other for many
centuries. They are now convinced that they really have nothing to
fight about, and that the growth and stability of each country are
better ensured by friendship than by enmity. There cannot be a doubt of
it. But where is the limit to the extension of that same principle?