Later generations will doubtless note, as one of the main
manifestations of our present age, its progress in international
arbitration, in the substitution of justice for force as the means of
deciding disputes between nations. On March 7, 1912, the United States
Senate, after months of argument, finally agreed to ratify two
arbitration treaties which President Taft had arranged with England and
France. True, the Senate, before thus establishing the treaties, struck
out their most far-reaching article, an agreement that every
disagreement whatsoever should be referred to a Joint High Commission.
Without this clause the treaties still leave a bare possibility of
warfare over questions of "national honor" or "national policy"; but
practically they put an end to war forever as between the United States
and its two great historic rivals.
These two treaties were the last and most important of 154 such
arbitration treaties arranged since the recent inauguration of the
great World Peace movement. They are here described by President Taft
himself in an article reprinted with his approval from the _Woman's
Home Companion._ His work as a leader in the cause of peace is likely
to be remembered as the most important of his administration. In 1913
his purpose was carried forward by William J. Bryan as the United
States Secretary of State. Mr. Bryan evolved a general "Plan of
Arbitration," which during the first year of its suggestion was adopted
by thirty-one of the smaller nations to govern their dealings with the
United States. Thus the strong promises international justice to the
weak.
The development of the doctrine of international arbitration,
considered from the standpoint of its ultimate benefits to the human
race, is the most vital movement of modern times. In its relation to
the well-being of the men and women of this and ensuing generations, it
exceeds in importance the proper solution of various economic problems
which are constant themes of legislative discussion or enactment. It is
engaging the attention of many of the most enlightened minds of the
civilized world. It derives impetus from the influence of churches,
regardless of denominational differences. Societies of noble-minded
women, organizations of worthy men, are giving their moral and material
support to governmental agencies in their effort to eliminate, as
causes of war, disputes which frequently have led to armed conflicts
between nations.
The progress already made is a distinct step in the direction of a
higher civilization. It gives hope in the distant future of the end of
militarism, with its stupendous, crushing burdens upon the working
population of the leading countries of the Old World, and foreshadows a
decisive check to the tendency toward tremendous expenditures for
military purposes in the western hemisphere. It presages at least
partial disarmament by governments that have been, and still are,
piling up enormous debts for posterity to liquidate, and insures to
multitudes of men now involuntarily doing service in armies and navies
employment in peaceful, productive pursuits.
Perhaps some wars have contributed to the uplift of organized society;
more often the benefits were utterly eclipsed by the ruthless waste and
slaughter and suffering that followed. The principle of justice to the
weak as well as to the strong is prevailing to an extent heretofore
unknown to history. Rules of conduct which govern men in their
relations to one another are being applied in an ever-increasing degree
to nations. The battle-field as a place of settlement of disputes is
gradually yielding to arbitral courts of justice. The interests of the
great masses are not being sacrificed, as in former times, to the
selfishness, ambitions, and aggrandizement of sovereigns, or to the
intrigues of statesmen unwilling to surrender their scepter of power.
Religious wars happily are specters of a medieval or ancient past, and
the Christian Church is laboring valiantly to fulfil its destiny of
"Peace on earth."
If the United States has a mission, besides developing the principles
of the brotherhood of man into a living, palpable force, it seems to me
that it is to blaze the way to universal arbitration among the nations,
and bring them into more complete amity than ever before existed. It is
known to the world that we do not covet the territory of our neighbors,
or seek the acquisition of lands on other continents. We are free of
such foreign entanglements as frequently conduce to embarrassing
complications, and the efforts we make in behalf of international peace
can not be regarded with a suspicion of ulterior motives. The spirit of
justice governs our relations with other countries, and therefore we
are specially qualified to set a pace for the rest of the world.
The principle and scope of international arbitration, as exemplified in
the treaties recently negotiated by the United States with Great
Britain and France, should commend itself to the American people. These
treaties go a step beyond any similar instruments which have received
the sanction of the United States, or the two foreign Powers specified.
They enlarge the field of arbitrable subjects embraced in the treaties
ratified by the three governments in 1908. They lift into the realm of
discussion and hearing, before some kind of a tribunal, many of the
causes of war which have made history such a sickening chronicle of
ravage and cruelty, bloodshed and desolation.
After years of patient endeavor by men of various nations, and despite
many obstacles and discouragements, there has been established at The
Hague a Permanent Court of Arbitration, to which contending governments
may submit certain classes of controversies for adjudication. This
court has already justified its creation and existence by the
settlement of contentions which in other days led to disastrous wars,
and even in this enlightened age might have precipitated serious
ruptures. The United States Government, as represented by the National
Administration, is ready to utilize this method of settling
international disputes to a greater extent than ever before. That is,
we are willing to refer to this tribunal, or a similar one, questions
which heretofore have been left entirely to diplomatic negotiation.
The treaties go further by providing for the creation of a Joint High
Commission, to which shall be referred, for impartial and conscientious
investigation, any controversy between this Government, on one hand,
and Great Britain or France, on the other hand, before such a
controversy has been submitted to an arbitral body from which there is
no appeal.
And, assuming that governments, like individuals, do not always
display, while a dispute is in progress, that calmness of judgment and
equipoise which are so consistent with righteous deportment, provision
is made for the passion to subside and the blood to cool, by deferring
the reference of such controversy to the Joint High Commission for one
year. This affords an opportunity for diplomatic adjustment without an
appeal to the commission.
The plan of submission to a joint high commission, composed of three
citizens or subjects of one party and the same number of another, is a
concession to the fear of being too tightly bound to an adverse
decision made manifest in the objections of the Senate committee,
because it may well be supposed that two out of three citizens or
subjects of one party would not decide that an issue was arbitrable
under the treaty against the contention of their own country unless it
were reasonably clear that the issue was justiciable under the first
clause of the treaty.
Ultimately, I hope, we shall come to submit our quarrels to an
international arbitral court that will have power finally to decide
upon the limits of its own jurisdiction, and in which the form of
procedure by the complaining country shall be fixed, and the
obligations of the country complained of, to answer in a form
prescribed, shall be recognized and definite, and the judgment shall be
either acquiesced in, or enforced. These treaties are a substantial
step, but a step only, in that direction, and the feature of the
binding character of the decision of the Joint High Commission as to
the arbitral character of the question is the most distinctive advance
in the right direction. Do not let us give up this feature without
using every legitimate effort to retain it.
An understanding of the term _justiciable_ may be essential to a full
comprehension of the significance and scope of these treaties.
Questions involving boundary lines, the rights of fishermen in waters
bordering upon countries with contiguous territory, the use of
water-power, the erection of structures on frontiers, outrages upon
aliens, are examples of justiciable subjects, and these are made
susceptible of adjudication and decision under these treaties. It is
now proposed to establish a permanent method of disposing of such
questions without preliminary quarrels and menaces whose result may
never be foreseen.
Certain questions of governmental or traditional policy are by their
very nature excluded from the consideration of the Joint High
Commission, or even the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.
Such specific exemptions it is not necessary to set forth in the
treaties. Objection has been made that under the first section of the
pending pacts it might be claimed that we would be called upon to
submit to arbitration of the Monroe Doctrine, or our right to exclude
foreign peoples from our shores, or the question of the validity of
southern bonds issued in reconstruction days.
The Monroe Doctrine is not a justiciable question, but one of purely
governmental policy which we have followed for nearly a century, and in
which the countries of Europe have generally acquiesced. With respect
to the exclusion of immigrants, it is a principle of international law
that every country may admit only those whom it chooses. This is a
subject of domestic policy in which no foreign country can interfere
unless it is covered by a treaty, and then it may become properly a
matter of treaty construction.
With reference to the right to involve the United States in a
controversy over the obligation of certain Southern States to pay bonds
issued during reconstruction, which have been repudiated, it is
sufficient to say that the pending treaties affect only cases hereafter
arising, and the cases of the Southern bonds all arose years ago.
After a time, if our treaties stand the test of experience and prove
useful, it is probable that all the greatest Powers on earth will come
under obligation to arbitrate their differences with other nations.
Naturally, the smaller nations will do likewise, and then universal
arbitration will be more of an actuality than an altruistic dream.
The evil of war, and what follows in its train, I need not dwell upon.
We could not have a higher object than the adoption of any proper and
honorable means which would lessen the chance of armed conflicts. Men
endure great physical hardships in camp and on the battle-field. In our
Civil War the death-roll in the Union Army alone reached the appalling
aggregate of 359,000. But the suffering and perils of the men in the
field, distressing as they are to contemplate, are slight in comparison
with the woes and anguish of the women who are left behind. The hope
that husband, brother, father, son may be spared the tragic end which
all soldiers risk, when they respond to their country's call, buoys
them up in their privations and heart-breaking loneliness. But theirs
is the deepest pain, for the most poignant suffering is mental rather
than physical. No pension compensates for the loss of husband, son, or
father. The glory of death in battle does not feed the orphaned
children, nor does the pomp and circumstance of war clothe them. The
voice of the women of America should speak for peace.