As a first step there must be an offer to achieve equality of rights in disarmament by abolishing the weapons forbidden to the Central Powers by the Peace Treaties.
From Arthur Henderson
It has become impossible to give up the enterprise of disarmament without abandoning the whole great adventure of building up a collective peace system.
The first condition of success for the League of Nations is, therefore, a firm understanding between the British Empire and the United States of America and France and Italy that there will be no competitive building up of fleets or armies between them.
The question is, what are we to do in order to consolidate peace on a universal and durable foundation, and what are the essential elements of such a peace?
Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history.
Four years of world war, at a cost in human suffering which our minds are mercifully too limited to imagine, led to the very clear realization that international anarchy must be abandoned if civilization was to survive.
In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.
In some states militant nationalism has gone to the lengths of dictatorship, the cult of the absolute or totalitarian state and the glorification of war.
It is because I believe that it is in the power of such nations to lead the world back into the paths of peace that I propose to devote myself to explaining what, in my opinion, can and should be done to banish the fear of war that hangs so heavily over the world.
Those nations have a very great responsibility at this juncture of the world's affairs, for by throwing their joint weight into the scales of history on the right side, they may tip the balance decisively in favour of peace.
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