ON POLITICAL BOUNDARIES. 249 



of latitude has been the weak resource of an ignorant arbitration which 

 is deahng with a strictly geographical problem without waiting for proper 

 geographical illustration. A straight line is generally an indication of 

 geographical ignorance, a last resource when topographical information 

 is wanting, so that it need not surprise us that it has in the ignorant 

 past been distinctly popular. It has always proved to be immensely 

 expensive, and I could occupy your time for hours in recounting 

 historical instances of its adoption, with the evil financial results thereof. 

 It is, however, to the credit of European diplomacy of the past that 

 there are not many straight lines in Europe ; there has indeed been 

 no excuse for them, for there cannot be many square miles of the 

 Continent that have not served as the basis for military action leading 

 to a certain amount of exact topographical knowledge since Caesar 

 first conquered Gaul. What interests us at present chiefly is that 

 particular phase of boundary making in the future which is to provide 

 for the security and, through security, for the peace of the quasi- 

 civilised communities of Europe and the Near East. If I am right 

 in assuming the general principle governing the selection of a boundary 

 line to be that of securing a barrier, clearly we are landed at once in 

 questions of military defence as a necessary corollary. 



At the present time the principle for which we are fighting is that 

 of maintaining the integrity of small nations ; and the principle which 

 apparently tends to govern the evolution of national societies, both 

 small and great, is that of the democracy. As democracies increase, 

 and Empires are restricted, so will boundaries, together with the 

 division of international interests, increase; but it must be remembered 

 that the bed-rock of all social evolution is the everlasting question of 

 population. Thus the right of expansion in order to meet the imperious 

 demand of multiplying* people will promote boundary disputes and 

 frontier wars as long as the world lasts. So that the security of a 

 frontier is a matter of increasing importance in the world's economy, 

 inasmuch as we can never expect an international convention to regulate 

 the output of population in the same way that the output of armament 

 or ships may be regulated, although one is just as important as the 

 other in the interests of peaceful international evolution. 



What, then, is to be the nature of the political boundary of the 

 future from the military point of view if we wish to attain the security 

 which is the only guarantee (and which will continue to be the only 

 guarantee) for peace? So far, as regards the actual line which denotes 

 the boundary and limits the frontier on either side, there will be no 

 great departure from those principles of selecting strong natural fea- 

 tures to which I have already alluded, and these natural features will 

 in most cases lend themselves readily to military defensive purposes. 

 Consequently, we may assume that the mountain ridge or the divide 

 will be adopted wherever possible. If we have learnt anything from 

 the war, we have learnt the enormous advantage to defence which is 

 given even by a slight command in altitude. It is true that river flats 

 and marshes have figured largely in the strategy of the war in Poland, 

 on the Russo-German frontier, and in Mesopotamia ; and that the 

 skilful use of marshes and inundations has largely affected the results 



