ON POLITICAL BOUNDARIES. 245 



witnessed a perfect orgy of boundary making, and latterly the demand 

 of scientific requirements (notably of geographical exactitude in defini- 

 tion and demarcation) have been fairly met. We can certainly claim 

 that of late years our boundaries have been shaped scientifically by 

 competent demarcation guided by the text of delimitations which, if 

 not technically perfect, have at least been free from the ridiculous 

 elementary errors of past generations of politicians, who were ignorant 

 of the very first principles of geogi'aphy. I need not weary you with 

 any repetition of past mistakes, mistakes that have cost us the value 

 of many millions sterling, and have more than once reduced this country, 

 as well as other countines, to the verge of war. I have refen-ed to them 

 often enough elsewhere. It is quite probable that we shall ere long 'be 

 faced with a comparatively new phase of boundary problems where 

 there can no longer be the excuse of want of sound map knowledge of 

 the districts concerned to account for misleading and inaccurate 

 delimitations, but where ethnical interests of the most important 

 character will possibly present painfully complicated knots for dis- 

 entanglement. In no case, however, can I imagine that the wishes of 

 the majority of the people concerned will be difficult to ascertain, and 

 in certainly the gi-eat majority of cases it will be those main principles 

 involving physical attributes which will prove to be the most important 

 factor in the settlement. We should, in the fii'st place, be absolutely 

 certain that on both sides of the settlement there is the same governing 

 idea of a contract which is to secure the permanent peace of the border. 

 Whilst this is the just and righteous aim of the boundary maker, whilst 

 he has nothing in view but that which is to develop the influences of 

 peace and the interests, commercial and cultural, of the peoples between 

 whom he has to set a liedge, he must beware of any reservation which 

 may become apparent during the process of settlement whic^h would 

 indicate that a loophole is to be left in that hedge through which 

 advantage may be taken hereafter, when the hour shall strike, of some 

 weakness which may facilitate a sudden and determined overthrow of 

 the whole construction. In the strongest sense of the term, then, I 

 must insist that a boundary must be a sound and unbroken barrier as 

 far as possible, and that it must be selected most assuredly with the 

 great object in view of hindering in every possible way any proposed 

 scheme of violation. As a ban'ier it may be natural or it may be 

 artificial. In either case it must be made as secure as Nature or Art 

 can make it. Peace can only be based in this imperfect world on 

 security. Security, as one able writer has justly put it, means 

 ' armament. ' In blood and tears have we at last learnt this lesson. 

 May no specious notions of a new millennium blot it out from our 

 minds, and may our political representatives, impressed at last with 

 the lessons of the War, set about designing new political boundaries 

 with lines as strong as they can be made. Prevention of war is much 

 better than cure; better by the lives, it may be, of millions of brave men 

 and the tears of thousands of women, and it may quite easily be 

 prevented to a very appreciable extent by limiting the capacity of angry 

 disputants to get at each other. How are we to secure these strong 

 boundaries? To a certain extent Nature helps us, and where Nature 



