Thus, if armaments were curtailed without a secure peace and all countries disarmed proportionately, military security would have been in no way affected.

The following year, after I had prepared my draft, the Conference of the Interparliamentary Union at The Hague decided to set up a special commission to study the problem seriously.

Disarmament or limitation of armaments, which depends on the progress made on security, also contributes to the maintenance of peace.

The security of which we speak is to be attained by the development of international law through an international organization based on the principles of law and justice.

Every success in limiting armaments is a sign that the will to achieve mutual understanding exists, and every such success thus supports the fight for international law and order.

So long as peace is not attained by law (so argue the advocates of armaments) the military protection of a country must not be undermined, and until such is the case disarmament is impossible.

Some pacifists have carried the sound idea of the prime importance of security too far, to the point of declaring that any consideration of disarmament is superfluous and pointless as long as eternal peace has not been attained.