he was very proud to think that he had conceived the original idea of a league of nations ; but as a matter of fact this reality which he had produced was , in the opinion of Mr Wells , something much more practical and far reaching . it was not organised talk but assembled knowledge . the international institute of agriculture , sustained by subsidies from fifty-two governments and administered by a permanent committee representing these governments , existed to compile records , based on telegraphic reports from the boards of agriculture of different countries , of the agricultural prospects throughout the world . the intention was to provide such information about production that the distribution could be adjusted to the probable demand . in addition , the institute had developed departments dealing with meteorology and with the prevention of diseases in plants . David Lubin was quite clear that as his fabric of economic intelligence was built up , it would become evident that there must be a revision of the conditions of international transport . the transport of the whole terrestrial globe , he reckoned , could , if there was a centralised control , be as well regulated as his mail order department . this conception , in spite of its failure , aroused the curiosity of Mr Wells and appealed strongly to his imagination . the ultimate intention was to obtain control of the food supply of the world and of its distribution . eventually in the interests of civilisation , the activities of this institute might have been extended to the control of other things beside food stuffs . just as the Hague tribunal may be thought of as the first faint sketch of an international court of justice , so this international institute of agriculture might turn out to have been a foreshadowing of the germ from which might spring not only universal economic peace but an economic world state . the great war submerged this internationalism . in August 1914 , there was a dismally sentimental little dinner , when the French , German , Austrian and Belgian members of the committee drank together to the peace of the future . then , talking of their immediate duty , they dispersed in a state of solemn perplexity to serve each his own belligerent country . what was left of the institute , staffed by women and by the mutilated and unfit , devoted itself to the problems of the allied food supply . President Wilson ignored the institute . during the influenza epidemic of 1918 its founder died . in January 1919 , the funeral of David Lubin passed disregarded through the streets of Rome hung with bunting to welcome President Wilson . David Lubin &apos;s international institute was established at Rome , as we have said . very naturally , the reader may wonder why this city was selected . the fact is that the King of Italy met Mr Lubin more than half-way . that is why , said Mr Wells , in a not very widely-known book of mine which represented a world state emerging out of Armageddon , I made the first world conference meet at Brissago in Italian Switzerland under the presidency of the King of Italy . thus Mr Wells was able to utilise one of his earlier anticipations , of an intelligent monarch who might waive all the ill-bred pretensions that sit so heavily on a gentlemanly king and come into the movement . on a similar occasion , Mr Wells hinted at an English monarch , a most admirable gentleman , who submitted to the traditional trappings of royalty but who preferred to be incognito so that he might pass as plain Mr Jones . in spite of Mr Wells &apos;s antipathy to monarchs , royalty does not fare so badly in the world set free . not only is the King of Italy made to preside over the world state but another ruler is favourably depicted . we mean , of course , the democratic Egbert , sovereign of the most venerable kingdom in Europe . he was a rebel and had always been a rebel against the magnificence of his position . in theory his manners were purely democratic . it was from sheer habit and inadvertently that he was permitting his companion to carry both bottles of beer . as a matter of fact , the king had never carried anything in his life ; and he had never noticed it . chapter eight . the war . H G Wells was no jingo . on the contrary , he considered himself an extreme pacifist . in his opinion , of all monstrous , irrational activities , war is the most obviously insane . on no conceivable ground is there any sense in modern war . it effects nothing except the waste of much energy , the destruction of huge quantities of material , the slaughter and mangling of many men . modern warfare changes nothing but the colour of maps , the design of postage stamps , and the relationships of a few accidentally conspicuous individuals . there was not a man alive who could have told you of any real , permanent benefit that would be obtained from war between England and Germany . there was certainly nothing which counter-balanced the obvious waste that must result , whether England shattered Germany or whether she was overwhelmed . on the other hand , Mr Wells had no reason to be surprised when war broke out in 1914 ; for , as far back as 1901 , he had anticipated that before Germany could unify to the east she must fight the Russians , while to unify towards the west she must fight the French and perhaps the English , for France was not likely to have to fight alone ; very probably she would have the support of the British empire . writing in the midst of the turmoil of war , Mr J D Beresford was vividly aware that his mind had been prepared for what had come by the romances of H G Wells . in the war in the air , particularly , with just such exaggerations as are necessary in fiction , which described what had now happened . no doubt we would learn our lesson from experience but it might have been learned from the fiction of H G Wells without paying such a fearful price . Mr Wells considered himself to be very nearly an average man . if he was at all abnormal , he supposed that it was only by reason of a certain mental rapidity . be this as it may , the outbreak of hostilities evoked much the same response in Mr Wells as in many other Englishmen . he was against the man who first took up arms . he carried his pacifism beyond that ambiguous little group of British and foreign sentimentalists in the labour leader who pretended so amusingly to be socialists and who later in 1916 would have made peace with Germany at once , thus giving her a breathing space in which to recover sufficiently to commit a fresh outrage . Mr Wells did not understand these people : he did not want to stop merely this war : he wanted to nail down war in its coffin . as early as August 7th we find him writing about the war that will end war . to him it was a war of ideas . ( he called chapter eleven the war of the mind . ) all the realities of this war were , in his opinion , things of the mind . the real task was to get better sense into the heads of those Germans - and of people generally . we must end the idea of war . our business was to kill ideas : the really important thing was propaganda . every sword that was drawn against Germany , was in his opinion , a sword drawn for peace . consequently Mr Wells was heart and soul behind the allies . with his one lung and damaged kidney he was not likely to go on active service . even with the advent of conscription , there was no chance for him . it is worth noting , by the way , that Mr Wells had always maintained that compulsory military service followed almost as a corollary from the principles of socialism . he had always commended the advice of his friend , William James , who used to urge that the youth of a nation might well be saved from effeminacy by compulsory national service in places like mines and sewers and the deep sea fisheries . if one ought to have conscription for labour in peace , why not conscription for war ? H G Wells , ahead as usual , was busy in July 1916 with the problem of reconstruction . his elements of reconstruction , with an introduction by Viscount Milner , appeared in the times during July and August . the first chapter stated that the book was the work of two friends and in the introduction Lord Milner referred to the authors but as a matter of fact the whole series was written by H G Wells . in August , 1916 , Wells was persuaded to make a tour of the western fronts . one of the peculiarities of this queer war was this tour . after suppressing information for some months , during which even the war correspondent was almost eliminated , both sides discovered that opinion was playing a larger part than had been expected . as a result , Wells one day found Mr Habokoff the editor of the retch , and Count Alexy Tolstoy , that writer of delicate short stories , and Mr Chukovsky the subtle critic , calling upon him after braving the wintry seas to visit the British fleet . M Joseph Reinach soon followed , upon the same errand . then our turn came ; and Mr Arnold Bennett was soon wading in the trenches of Flanders while Mr Noyes became discreetly indiscreet about what he had seen among the submarines and Mr Hugh Walpole was with Mr Stephen Graham in the dark forest of Russia . when H G Wells , in August 1916 , arrived in Italy , he found it warm and gay with memories of Hilaire Belloc , Lord Northcliffe , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , and Colonel Repington . some writers , Mr Wells assured us , made their tour with very great diffidence . he himself did not want to go at all . in fact , as early as 1915 it had been suggested that he should go but he evaded the suggestion . I travel badly , he tells us , and I speak French and Italian atrociously . I am an extreme pacifist and I hate soldiering . his reluctance to be a spectator at the front was largely due to a fear of being swamped by the spectacular side . he knew that the chances of being hit by a projectile were infinitesimal but he was afraid of being hit by some vivid impression : he feared that he might see some horribly wounded man or some decaying corpse that would so scar his memory that he would be reduced to a mere useless gibbering stop-the-war-at-any-price pacifist . it appears that many years before he had unexpectedly , one tranquil evening , come upon a drowned body which so disturbed his mind that it was darkened for some weeks by a fear and distrust of life . on the other hand , it seemed as if no man could claim to have done his duty as a rational creature unless he had formed some idea of what was going on out there . it seemed necessary moreover to obtain some conception of what this upheaval was going to produce . in addition , it seemed as if one ought to have not only an idea of what was going on but also some notion of how one wanted it to go . to make a long story short , Mr Wells went . one of the first things he did in Italy was to meet the King - the first sovereign he had ever met . he found the King of Italy in a drawing room very much like that in which he had met General Joffre a few days before . as he was handing his hat to the second of two servants standing by , a pleasantly smiling man , appearing at the study door , began to talk in excellent English about Mr Wells &apos;s journey . as they went into the study it gradually became evident that this was the monarch himself . addicted as I am , said Mr Wells , to the particularly sumptuous study furniture of the cinema , I found the appearance of this royal study very simple and refreshing . the modern ruler shows a disposition to intimate at the outset that he can not help it . 