XXVIll INTRODUCTION 



sented, as a proof thereof^ to make a reduction of 10,000 men, 

 yet' Germany, or rather the Prussian Chancellor, Count von 

 Bismarck, refused to entertain the proposition, on the ground that the 

 military forces of Prussia were insufiScient for her threatened position 

 in Europe. 



This praiseworthy effort, and the motives that prompted it, reflect 

 great credit upon the Government of Mr. Gladstone, and especially 

 upon the distinguished Minister, Lord Clarendon, one of the last 

 eminent public services in the honourable career of that noble Lord. 



Twenty-five years have now rolled by since these diplomatic 

 attempts were made by any responsible Government in the direction 

 of a simultaneous disarmament of the vast armed forces in Europe, 

 and the question naturally arises, now that these vast armed forces 

 of United Europe, and the military expenditure which they involve, 

 have doubled, nay trebled, compared with twenty or twenty-five years 

 ago, and especially that so many international questions of difficulty and 

 dispute disturb the political horizon, every one of which threatens 

 at any moment to involve Europe in a terrible war, whether the 

 time has not arrived to bring about the assembling of a great 

 Europe^ Congress, for the express purpose of considering, in a 

 spiri^^Honcession and conciliation all round, the various questions 

 that ^Beaten to disturb the maintenance of peace, and thus to 

 arrive "^t a mutual understanding for a large and permanent 

 reduction of their respective armaments, which are such an intolerable 

 burden to every European State ? 



In 1866, and in 1869, Lord Clarendon not only foresaw, with an 

 unerring prescience and political instinct, the imminent danger of a 

 great European War, but he possessed the splendid courage of his 

 convictions by making an heroic effort to stay the avenging sword 

 of the destroyer, and alas ! failed — in the first instance, in 1866, by 

 the dogged obstinacy of Austria to submit to the Congress any 

 territorial questions for consideration, and in the second instance, 

 n 1869, by the hesitation of Prussia to submit to the reduction of 

 her armed forces. 



At the present time Europe is face to face with a crisis far 

 more acute and far wider-reaching in its probable results, than at any 

 period of her history ; and is there no Ruler, nor Government, nor 

 Statesman that will follow in the steps of that chivalrous Minister of 

 Great Britain, the courageous Lord Clarendon, and propose the 

 assembling of a European Congress for the pacific solution of 



