We have, indeed, to face the facts, and the facts about the Balance of
Power must dominate our deliberations and determine the fate of our
programmes. There may be no more war for a generation, but there can be
no peace with a Balance of Power. There can be nothing better than an
armed truce; and an armed truce, with super-dreadnoughts costing from
four to eight times what they did before the war, is fatal to any
programme of retrenchment and reform. We are weighted enough in all
conscience with the debt of that war without the burden of preparation
for another; and a Balance of Power involves a progressive increase in
preparations for war.
Unless we can exorcise fear, we are doomed to repeat the sisyphean
cycles of the past and painfully roll our programmes up the hill, only
to see them dashed to the bottom, before we get to the top, by the
catastrophe of war. Fear is fatal to freedom; it is fear which alone
gives militarism its strength, compels nations to spend on armaments
what they fain would devote to social reform, drives them into secret
diplomacy and unnatural alliances, and leads them to deny their just
liberties to subject populations. Fear is the root of reaction as faith
is the parent of progress; and the incarnation of international fear is
the Balance of Power.