West Europe. The United States must be in your League; and that means that, for healthy working, the six Britains must be held together as a counterbalance. Fortunately 3000 miles of undefended frontier in North America constitute a fact of good omen, though, to be quite frank, it would signify more if the countries which that frontier has separated had been less unequal; the test would have been more severe.
But the need of a reasonable equality of power as between a considerable number of the members of the League, so that in future crises—and they will occur—it may not be exposed to danger from predominance in any quarter, is less urgent in respect of the insular than of the continental members. There are the obvious limitations of sea-power; there are also natural boundaries which define the spread of any one insular, or even peninsular, base of power. The test of the League will be in the Heartland of the Continent. Nature there offers all the prerequisites of ultimate dominance in the world; it must be for man by his foresight and by the taking of solid guarantees to prevent its attainment. Notwithstanding their revolutions the German and Russian peoples are Going Concerns, each with a powerful historical momentum.
