Secondly, we admit most readily that the strategy of the
Triple Entente, though there may be no formally signed arrangement, does in many ways correspond to the strategy of a regular alliance. It could not be otherwise. The Triple Entente acts under the sternest kind of external pressure and compulsion. It is for this very reason that we have advocated a regular alliance with France, and we should be delighted if bc events of the next few months made the question an urgent one. At present we have to make French policy our own, whatever it may be, because we must act with France lest France be destroyed and Germany become the dictator of Europe. And yet we have no official check upon French policy. This is a danger to peace, and it ought to be removed. It is absurd to pretend that we retain our freedom of action. Paradoxical though it may appear, an alliance with France would give us infinitely more freedom of action than we have now.
