THE CRUX OF THE MATTER.
But the problem of Security is not entirely a subjective one. After all, it is for the engineer to decide what is a satisfactory burglar-proof door, and not the fears of the nervous old lady who lives behind it. And in international affairs there is a corresponding practical aspect detexmined by factors which bear very little relation to the fears or hopes of public opinion. It is this factor which is the kernel of the whole problem of Disarmament, and it is unfortunate that politicians have accustomed us to using the same name for both. Most of the specious sophistry with which we are now all too familiar takes its rise in a confusion between the two with, consequently, slight progress made in the direction of Disarmament. " Security," cries the Demagogue, " is the basis of Disarma- ment. To get Security we need a change of heart." Where- upon the General Staff provide the change. Without th.1 alteration of a single button on a uniform they are enabled to declare : " We have disarmed to the very limit of our Security. Our Army (it may be in the neighbourhood of a half-a-million men or even the nation under arms) hardly suffices for our barest needs."
Brush all this confusion aside and the simple question remains : what are the. risks to which a State is exposed in the modern world ?
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