The war has converted the belligerent world to that kind of pacifism

which consists in a grim determination that the present Armageddon shall

never be repeated, however long it may be necessary to fight in order to

ensure this outcome. To perpetuate the peace, however, a strong League

of Nations is indispensable, and various plans for such a league are

forming. Some of these rely on an extension of treaties of arbitration

and conciliation, some would fortify these treaties by giving to the

league a power to coerce recalcitrant members, and still others would

create a world State with a central government, an army and a navy. The

first question to be answered is, What kind of international union can

be secured? since, in the case of any new league of this kind, the more

ambitious the plan, the less probable it is that nations will adopt it.

In many minds grave doubt exists whether even a modest plan will be

carried into execution. In the face of this doubt I wish to express the

audacious opinion that something having the characteristics of a league

of peace is rapidly evolving and in all probability will, at the close

of the war, require only a small modification to enable it to prevent,

so long as it lasts, the recurrence of a great war on the Continent of

Europe.

It is not necessary to create a league of peace _de novo_ and without

reference to combinations which now exist. Two great leagues have been

formed, each embracing powerful States and each so firmly held together

that it acts toward the outer world much as a single great empire would

do. Since they are now waging against each other the greatest war in

history, the conclusion is much too lightly reached that such unions

are, _by their nature_, war-breeders. Defensive unions, however, are in

line with the whole trend of political evolution. Great nations, created

by combining smaller ones, are in the order of the day, and so are

federations of a looser kind, such as those which preceded the German

Empire and our own Federal State.

[Sidenote: Even alliances tend to prevent war.]

Every such consolidation involves a risk that, if a war occurs, it will

be larger than it might otherwise be; but it reduces the frequency with

which wars occur. Peace between great States continues through longer

periods than it does between warring districts which later unite in

such States. The prospect that peace shall ever be universal depends on

its tendency to establish itself within larger and larger areas till it

shall end by embracing the world. European wars have occurred in spite

of alliances rather than because of them and the general effect even of

imperfect unions has been to lengthen the intervals of peace. It is an

even century since a war akin to this one was waging in Europe, and it

is forty-four years since a war between any two great nations has taken

place on that continent. The consolidating tendency in itself makes for

peace.

The present leagues have several times acted as peace preservers. During

the Moroccan trouble and the two Balkan wars they averted a general

struggle and they might have averted the present one _if, as unions, they

had been more complete than they were_. It is a safe guess that if it had

been definitely known that Russia, France and England would act as a unit

in opposing the invasion of Serbia, the knowledge would have delayed the

invasion and possibly prevented it with all its fateful consequences. The

first thing to be remembered is that these two great leagues, both formed

for defense, will be in existence and probably vigorous when the war

shall end.

[Sidenote: But countries outside of alliance or league are not safe.]

Let us assume that peace has been made, that both the Entente and the

Alliance continue to be strong and that in everything political they are

the Powers which must first be reckoned with. Let us assume that, in

each of them, the constituent countries are held firmly together because

no single country can think of surrendering the protection which union

affords. Outside of the Entente, France would be helpless against an

attack by Germany and outside of the Alliance Austria would be helpless

against one by Italy and Russia. Any country standing alone would have a

precarious hold on its territory and its freedom.

The chief dangers that threaten a great league spring from within,

while those that threaten a small league are from without. A union of

all Europe would be entirely immune against foreign attack and, _for

that very reason_, would be far more easily disrupted and plunged into

something like civil war. Such unions as the Alliance and the Entente,

each of which has a great power now arrayed against it, are held together

much more firmly. The bond that unites its members is the imperative need

of mutual protection.

If, as we have assumed, the war has ended neither in a draw nor in a

sweeping victory for one side—if the unsuccessful league has kept most

of its territories and its fighting strength—the situation will throw an

enormous power into the hands of the neutral States. By joining either

union they might cause it to preponderate over the other; and by joining

the victorious one they could make it safe against any attack and able,

if it were disposed to do so, to guarantee the peace of Europe. In the

smaller States of Europe the opinion is growing that for them liberty

and union are one and inseparable. It may be vital for them to join a

defensive league and, by their union with it, cause it to become, if it

were not already, a true commonwealth of nations, great and small, and

fully committed to a just and peaceful policy.

[Sidenote: Present Entente a nucleus for the League.]

In order to be a nucleus of such a commonwealth a league should, if

possible, already contain enough great States to prevent any one

from dominating the others. If possible it should contain a number

of the smaller States and, as a group, it should be so free from

aggressive designs as to merit the confidence of States not as yet in

any combination. Since the Entente now virtually includes five great

States and four small ones and may soon be joined by more it already has

important qualifications for becoming such a league of peace as we are

suggesting—a commonwealth of nations powerful enough to preserve peace

and vitally interested in doing it.

[Sidenote: Might grow into true League of Peace.]

The original purpose of each of the two leagues now existing was

protective. It aimed primarily to secure each of its members against

attacks by other Powers, and this security, which all the members

continue to need, is what the small neutral countries are also compelled

to look for. What they must demand of any combination which they are

asked to join is, above all else, protection. Now the more promising

plans for new leagues of peace which have been suggested contain no

provision for protecting their members from attacks by nations outside

of their circle. They content themselves with preventing warfare between

the members. On the other hand, the present combinations have no formal

and constitutional machinery for settling internal disputes. A true

commonwealth of nations needs to be assured against both dangers and its

constitution, therefore, will need to contain the best provisions that

it is humanly possible to devise for settling peacefully all internal

disputes and also for preventing or repelling attacks by other States.

This is saying that an enlarged Entente, besides protecting its members,

as it is now using all its force in doing, will need to guard itself

against the perils that necessarily beset large leagues, those, namely,

that originate from within. The institutions of The Hague will be for it

well nigh a _sine qua non_ at success, and there must be measures for

compelling a resort to them in disputes between members of the league

and in those arising between any of them and States outside of it. Such

provisions as have been contained in the best constitutions that have

been suggested for new leagues will be needed in one that may evolve out

of one of the existing combinations.

If a new league should be formed without affording protection against

external attacks it would be necessary that the Entente and the Alliance

should continue. It would be vain to ask their members to dissolve them

and trust to a new league that would leave each of them to fight its

own battles. The Entente or the Alliance, as the case might be, would

then constitute a union within a union—a compact defensive body within a

loosely organized combination for promoting the friendly settlement of

disputes. This is entirely possible. A new league of many States might

conceivably be formed and either the Entente or the Alliance might join

it bodily and give its own members the protection which the larger league

would not give; but a simpler and more natural plan would be to enlarge

one of the present leagues and adopt the needed provisions for peacefully

settling all disputes of which a member is a party.

Of a league so formed the objection that it is theoretical and utopian

certainly cannot be urged. Nine countries are already in effect in the

Entente and that combination is now fulfilling the one function that,

in making constitutions for new leagues, few persons are bold enough to

require of the members—that of lavishing life and treasure in defending

each other. In this respect, the present reality outstrips our dreams. As

the leagues will almost certainly continue it should be possible to give

to one of them the relatively easy function of settling peacefully the

disputes occurring within its membership.

[Sidenote: Power of neutrals to help in forming such a League.]

Herein lies the golden opportunity for the neutral States. They have a

sense of danger and the protective feature of a league will attract them,

though the chance of being involved in a general war will, in itself,

repel them. It will probably repel them less than the danger of being

conquered by some great State, and both dangers will be at a minimum if

the international body that they join is too strong to be attacked and

if its spirit as well as its formal constitution and the interest of its

members hold it in ways of peace and justice. It will be in the power

of the neutral countries to help effectively in making it so. They can

consent to join only a union of this character.

It will be hard indeed for the two leagues now in deadly war with each

other at once to unite in any single union. Will the fact that one of

them for a time holds aloof be a source of danger? In one essential way

it will be a cause of security. It is sadly to be admitted that, in the

present moral status of the world, treaties are not bands of steel and

there is danger that they may be broken when they are not buttressed by

national interests. Against the danger of disruption a defensive league

which does not include all States of Europe may be stronger than one

which does so. The treaty that binds such a league together will be

powerfully reenforced if all the members have a sense of common danger—a

sense of the presence of a foe strong enough to overcome any country

singly. Pressure from without means solidarity within and, while enmities

are strong, a hostile nation might impart to a league more strength by

remaining outside of it than by joining it.

[Sidenote: All Europe might eventually be consolidated.]

In the long run, all Europe should be consolidated. The chance that

it will become so by a single step is small, and the best beginning

of a general union will be furnished by one of the existing leagues,

enlarged by the adherence of neutral States and fortified against the

danger of disruption from within by the exposure of any seceding State

to the peril of attacks from without. The league may thrive on external

hostility until the good time shall come when the desired system of

settling international disputes shall be thoroughly established and peace

shall prevail by the supremacy of reason. Guarding always the territory

and protecting the sovereignty of its members the league will develop

mutual interests so important that a new and powerful tie will bind the

countries together in addition to the bond furnished by the necessity for

defense. That necessity itself will grow less, armaments may be curtailed

and the forces now engaged in mutual destruction may become available for

raising in many ways the level of human life. Under such influences the

league should become too powerful to be attacked from without and too

indispensable to humanity to be weakened or disrupted from within.

[Sidenote: Present leagues may be means to peace.]

For these reasons I conclude that in the leagues now at war may be

afforded the most practical means of creating the league of peace. There

is inspiration in this possibility and there is a terrible spur to action

in what will ensue if it is not realized—desolated lands under enormous

debts with no assurance against a further struggle; neutral lands as

well as belligerent ones involved in the competition for larger armies,

navies, arsenals, guns and fortifications; the people demanding costly

reforms by governments unable to afford them and in peril of revolution

if they refuse to do so. Only in the relief from war and its burdens lies

the possibility of meeting such needs and giving to social progress an

upward trend. Such is the plain teaching of the pending struggle. It is

as though the war demon himself had led humanity to the parting of the

roads where the guide boards indicate, on the one side, the long way to

the Delectable Mountains and on the other, a short route to the pit. Far

reaching beyond all precedent is the choice that humanity must soon make

and lands at war and lands at peace must participate in the decision.

_John Bates Clark, Address at Lake Mohonk Conference, 1915._

PROTECTION OF SMALL NATIONS

[Sidenote: Only a firm League can protect small nations.]

A small nation—a nation of not more than fifteen millions, for

example—can have no independent existence in Europe except as a member of

a federation of States having similar habits, tendencies, and hopes, and

united in an offensive and defensive alliance, or under guarantees given

by a group of strong and trustworthy nations. The firm establishment of

several such federations, or the giving of such guarantees by a group of

powerful and faith-keeping nations ought to be one of the outcomes of

the war of 1914-15. Unless some such arrangement is reached, no small

State will be safe from conquest and absorption by any strong, aggressive

military power which covets it—not even if its people live chiefly by

mining and manufacturing as the Belgians did.

The small States, being very determined to exist and to obtain their

natural or historical racial boundaries, the problem of permanent or any

durable peace in Europe resolves itself into this: How can the small or

smaller nations be protected from attack by some larger nation which

believes that might makes right and is mighty in industries, commerce,

finance, and the military and naval arts? The experience gained during

the past year proves that there is but one effective protection against

such a Power, namely, a firm league of other Powers—not necessarily

numerous—which together are stronger in industries, commerce, finance,

and the military and naval arts than the aggressive and ambitious nation

which heartily believes in its own invincibility and cherishes the

ambition to conquer and possess.

[Sidenote: The League is at hand in the Alliance or Entente.]

Such a league is the present combination of Great Britain, France,

Russia, Italy, and Japan against the aggressive Central Monarchies

and Turkey; but this combination was not formed deliberately and

with conscious purpose to protect small States, to satisfy natural

aspirations, and to make durable peace possible by removing both fear of

invasion and fear of the cutting off of overseas food and raw materials.

In spite of the lack of an explicit and comprehensive purpose to attain

these wise and precious ends, the solidity of the alliance during a

year of stupendous efforts to resist military aggression on the part of

Germany and Austria-Hungary certainly affords good promise of success

for a somewhat larger league in which all the European nations—some,

like the Scandinavian and the Balkan, by representation in groups—and

the United States should be included. Such a league would have to act

through a distinct and permanent council or commission which would not

serve arbitrary power, or any peculiar national interest, and would not

in the least resemble the “Concert of Europe,” or any of the disastrous

special conferences of diplomatists and Ministers for Foreign Affairs,

called after wars since that of 1870-71 to “settle” the questions the

wars raised.

The experience of the past twelve months proves that such a league could

prevent any nation which disobeyed its orders from making use of the

oceans and from occupying the territory of any other nation. Reduction

of armaments, diminution of taxation, and durable peace would ensue as

soon as general confidence was established that the league would fairly

administer international justice, and that its military and naval forces

were ready and effective. Its function would be limited to the prevention

and punishment of violations of international agreements, or, in other

words, to the enforcement of treaty obligations, until new treaties were

made.

[Sidenote: Present alliance for war promises effectiveness in peace.]

The present alliance is of good promise in three important respects—its

members refuse to make any separate peace, they cooperate cordially and

efficiently in military measures, and the richer members help the poorer

financially. These policies have been hastily devised and adopted in the

midst of strenuous fighting on an immense scale. If deliberately planned

and perfected in times of peace, they could be made in the highest degree

effective toward durable peace.

The war has demonstrated that the international agreements for the

mitigation of the horrors of war, made by treaties, conferences, and

conventions in times of peace, may go for nothing in time of war;

because they have no sanction, or, in other words, lack penalties

capable of systematic enforcement. To provide the lacking sanction and

the physical force capable of compelling the payment of penalties for

violating international agreements would be one of the best functions

of the international council which the present alliance foreshadows.

Some years would probably be required to satisfy the nations concerned

that the sanction was real and the force trustworthy and sufficient. The

absolute necessity of inventing and applying a sanction for international

law, if Europe is to have international peace and any national liberty,

will be obvious to any one who has once perceived that the present war

became inevitable when Austria-Hungary, in violation of an international

agreement to which she was herself a party, seized and absorbed Bosnia

and Herzegovina, and became general and fierce when Germany, under

Prussian lead, in violation of an international agreement to which she

was herself a party, entered and plundered neutralized Belgium.

[Sidenote: Such a League could benefit Germany as well as England.]

A strong, trustworthy international alliance to preserve the freedom of

the seas under all circumstances would secure for Great Britain and her

federated commonwealths everything secured by the burdensome two-navies

policy which now secures the freedom of the seas for British purposes.

The same international alliance would secure for Germany the same

complete freedom of the seas which in times of peace between Germany and

Great Britain she has long enjoyed by favor of Great Britain, but has

lost in time of war with the Triple Entente. This security, with the

general acceptance of the policy of the “open door,” would fully meet

Germany’s need of indefinite expansion for her manufacturing industries

and her commerce, and of room “in the sun” for her surplus population.

It is a safe inference from the events of the past six months that

the longer the war lasts the more significant will be the political

and social changes which result from it. It is not to be expected,

and perhaps not to be desired, that the ruling class in the countries

autocratically governed should themselves draw this inference at present,

but all lovers of freedom and justice will find consolation for the

prolongation of the war in this hopeful reflection.

[Sidenote: Such a League is our only hope.]

To devise the wise constitution of an international council or commission

with properly limited powers, and to determine the most promising

composition of an international army and an international navy are

serious tasks, but not beyond the available international wisdom

and goodwill, provided that the tasks be intrusted to international

publicists, business men of large experience, and successful

administrators, rather than to professional diplomatists and soldiers. To

dismiss such a noble enterprise with the remark that it is “academic,”

or beyond the reach of “practical” politics, is unworthy of courageous

and humane men; for it seems now to be the only way out of the horrible

abyss into which civilization has fallen. At any rate, some such

machinery must be put into successful operation before any limitation

of national armaments can be effected. The war has shown to what a

catastrophe competitive national arming has led, and would probably

again lead the most civilized nations of Europe. Shall the white race

despair of escaping from this hell? The only way of escape in sight is

the establishment of a rational international community. Should the

enterprise fail after fair trial, the world will be no worse off than it

was in July, 1914, or is to-day.

Whoever studies the events of the past year with some knowledge of

political philosophy and history, and with the love of his neighbor in

his heart, will discover, amid the horrors of the time and its moral

chaos, three hopeful leadings for humanitarian effort, each involving a

great constructive invention. He will see that humanity needs supremely

a sanction for international law, rescue from alcoholism, and a sound

basis for just and unselfish human relations in the great industries, and

particularly in the machinery industries. The war has brought out all

three of these needs with terrible force and vividness. Somehow they must

be met, if the white race is to succeed in “the pursuit of happiness,” or

even to hold the gains already made.

_Charles W. Eliot, N. Y. Times, July 16, 1915._

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE

[Sidenote: The proposals of the League.]

Without attempting to cover details of operation (which are, indeed,

of vital importance and will require careful study by experts in

international law and diplomacy), the proposal contains four points

stated as general objects. The first is that before resorting to arms

the members of the league shall submit disputes with one another, if

justiciable, to an international tribunal; second, that in like manner

they shall submit non-justiciable questions—that is, such as cannot be

decided on the basis of strict international law—to an international

council of conciliation, which shall recommend a fair and amicable

solution; third, that if any member of the league wages war against

another before submitting the question in dispute to the tribunal or

council, all the other members shall jointly use forthwith both their

economic and military forces against the State that so breaks the peace;

and fourth, that the signatory Powers shall endeavor to codify and

improve the rules of international law.

[Sidenote: The use of force to compel arbitration before war.]

The kernel of the proposal, the feature in which it differs from other

plans, lies in the third point, obliging all the members of the league

to declare war on any member violating the pact of peace. This is the

provision that provokes both adherence and opposition; and at first it

certainly gives one a shock that a people should be asked to pledge

itself to go to war over a quarrel which is not of its making, in which

it has no interest, and in which it may believe that substantial justice

lies on the other side. If, indeed, the nations of the earth could

maintain complete isolation, could pursue each its own destiny without

regard to the rest; if they were not affected by a war between two others

or liable to be drawn into it; if, in short, there were no overwhelming

common interest in securing universal peace, the provision would be

intolerable. It would be as bad as the liability of an individual to take

part in the _posse comitatus_ of a community with which he had nothing in

common. But in every civilized country the public force is employed to

prevent any man, however just his claim, from vindicating his own right

with his own hand instead of going to law, and every citizen is bound

when needed to assist in preventing him, because that is the only way

to restrain private war, and the maintenance of order is of paramount

importance for every one. Surely the family of nations has a like

interest in restraining war between States.

It will be observed that the members of the league are not to bind

themselves to enforce the decision of the tribunal or the award of the

council of conciliation. That may come in the remote future, but it is

no part of this proposal. It would be imposing obligations far greater

than the nations can reasonably be expected to assume at the present day;

for the conceptions of international morality and fair play are still

so vague and divergent that a nation can hardly bind itself to wage war

on another, with which it has no quarrel, to enforce a decision or a

recommendation of whose justice or wisdom it may not be itself heartily

convinced. The proposal goes no further than obliging all the members

to prevent, by a threat of immediate war, any breach of the public

peace before the matter in dispute has been submitted to arbitration;

and this is neither unreasonable nor impracticable. There are many

questions, especially of a non-justiciable nature, on which we should not

be willing to bind ourselves to accept the decision of an arbitration,

and where we should regard compulsion by armed intervention of the rest

of the world as outrageous. Take, for example, the question of Asiatic

immigration, or a claim that the Panama Canal ought to be an unfortified

neutral highway, or the desire by a European Power to take possession

of Colombia. But we ought not, in the interest of universal peace, to

object to making a public statement of our position in these matters at a

court or council before resorting to arms; and in fact the treaty between

the United States and England, ratified on November 14, 1914, provides

that all disputes between the high contracting parties, of every nature

whatsoever, shall, failing other methods of adjustment, be referred for

investigation and report to a permanent international commission, with a

stipulation that neither country shall declare war or begin hostilities

during such investigation and before the report is submitted.

[Sidenote: Would not mean cession of sovereignty.]

What is true of this country is true of others. To agree to abide by the

result of an arbitration, on every non-justiciable question of every

nature whatsoever, on pain of compulsion in any form by the whole world,

would involve a greater cession of sovereignty than nations would now

be willing to concede. This appears, indeed, perfectly clear from the

discussions at The Hague Conference of 1907. But to exclude differences

that do not turn on questions of international law from the cases in

which a State must present the matter to a tribunal or council of

conciliation before beginning hostilities, would leave very little check

upon the outbreak of war. Almost every conflict between European nations

for more than half a century has been based upon some dissension which

could not be decided by strict rules of law, and in which a violation of

international law or of treaty rights has usually not even been used as

an excuse. This was true of the war between France and Austria in 1859,

and, in substance, of the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866. It

was true of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, of the Russo-Turkish War in

1876, of the Balkan War against Turkey in 1912, and of the present war.

[Sidenote: But would reduce probability of hostilities.]

No one will claim that a league to enforce peace, such as is proposed,

would wholly prevent war, but it would greatly reduce the probability of

hostilities. It would take away the advantage of surprise, of catching

the enemy unprepared for a sudden attack. It would give a chance for

public opinion on the nature of the controversy to be formed throughout

the world and in the militant country. The latter is of great importance,

for the moment war is declared argument about its merits is at once

stifled. Passion runs too high for calm debate, and patriotism forces

people to support their government. But a trial before an international

tribunal would give time for discussion while emotion is not yet highly

inflamed. Men opposed to war would be able to urge its injustice, to ask

whether, after all, the object is worth the sacrifice, and they would

get a hearing from their fellow citizens which they cannot get after

war begins. The mere delay, the interval for consideration, would be an

immense gain for the prospect of a peaceful settlement.

Most people who have been thinking seriously about the maintenance of

peace are tending to the opinion that a sanction of some kind is needed

to enforce the observance of treaties and of agreements for arbitration.

Among the measures proposed has been that of an international police

force, under the control of a central council which could use it to

preserve order throughout the world. At present such a plan seems

visionary. The force would have to be at least large enough to cope with

the army that any single nation could put into the field—under existing

conditions let us say five millions of men fully equipped and supplied

with artillery and ammunition for a campaign of several months. These

troops need not be under arms, or quartered near The Hague, but they

must be thoroughly trained and ready to be called out at short notice.

Practically that would entail yearly votes of the legislative bodies of

each of the nations supplying a quota; and if any of them failed to make

the necessary appropriation there would be great difficulty in preventing

others from following its example. The whole organization would,

therefore, be in constant danger of going to pieces.

[Sidenote: The U. S. and the international police.]

But quite apart from the practical difficulties in the permanent

execution of such a plan, let us see how it would affect the United

States. The amount of the contingents of the various countries would

be apportioned with some regard to population, wealth, and economic

resources; and if the total were five million men, our quota on a

moderate estimate might be five hundred thousand men. Is it conceivable

that the United States would agree to keep anything like that number

drilled, equipped, and ready to take the field on the order of an

international council composed mainly of foreign nations? Of course it

will be answered that these figures are exaggerated, because any such

plan will be accompanied by a reduction in armaments. But that is an

easier thing to talk about than to effect, and especially to maintain.

One must not forget that the existing system of universal compulsory

military service on the continent of Europe arose from Napoleon’s attempt

to limit the size of the Prussian army. He would be a bold or sanguine

man who should assert that any treaty to limit armaments could not in

like manner be evaded; and however much they were limited, the quantity

of troops to be held at the disposal of a foreign council would of

necessity be large, while no nation would be willing to pledge for the

purpose the whole of its military force. Such a plan may be practicable

in some remote future when the whole world is a vast federation under

a central government, but that would seem to be a matter for coming

generations, not for the men of our day.

Moreover, the nations whose troops were engaged in fighting any country

would inevitably find themselves at war with that country.

One cannot imagine saying to some foreign State, “Our troops are killing

yours, they are invading your land, we are supplying them with recruits

and munitions of war, but otherwise we are at peace with you. You must

treat us as a neutral, and accord to our citizens, to their commerce

and property, all the rights of neutrality.” In short the plan of an

international police force involves all the consequences of the proposal

of a league to enforce peace, with other complex provisions extremely

hard to execute.

[Sidenote: Objections.]

A suggestion more commonly made is that the members of the league

of nations, instead of pledging themselves explicitly to declare

war forthwith against any of their number that commits a breach of

the peace, should agree to hold at once a conference, and take such

measures—diplomatic, economic, or military—as may be necessary to

prevent war. The objection to this is that it weakens very seriously the

sanction. Conferences are apt to shrink from decisive action. Some of

the members are timid, others want delay, and much time is consumed in

calling the body together and in discussions after it meets. Meanwhile

the war may have broken out, and be beyond control. It is much easier to

prevent a fire than to put it out. The country that is planning war is

likely to think it has friends in the conference, or neighbors that it

can intimidate, who will prevent any positive decision until the fire is

burning. Even if the majority decides on immediate action, the minority

is not bound thereby. One great Power refuses to take part; a second will

not do so without her; the rest hesitate, and nothing is done to prevent

the war.

[Sidenote: Advantages of pledges.]

A conference is an excellent thing. The proposal of a league to enforce

peace by no means excludes it; but the important matter, the effective

principle, is that every member of the league should know that whether

a conference meets or not, or whatever action it may take or fail

to take, all the members of the league have pledged themselves to

declare war forthwith on any member that commits a breach of the peace

before submitting its case to the international tribunal or council of

conciliation. Such a pledge, and such a pledge alone, can have the strong

deterrent influence, and thus furnish the sanction, that is needed. Of

course the pledge may not be kept. Like other treaties it may be broken

by the parties to it. Nations are composed of human beings with human

weaknesses, and one of these is a disinclination to perform an agreement

when it involves a sacrifice. Nevertheless, nations, like men, often do

have enough sense of honor, of duty, or of ultimate self-interest, to

carry out their contracts at no little immediate sacrifice. They are

certainly more likely to do a thing if they have pledged themselves to it

than if they have not; and any nation would be running a terrible risk

that went to war in the hope that the other members of the league would

break their pledges.

[Sidenote: The threats of universal war and boycott.]

The same objection applies to another alternative proposed in place of

an immediate resort to military force: that is the use of economic

pressure, by a universal agreement, for example, to have no commercial

intercourse with the nation breaking the peace. A threat of universal

boycott is, no doubt, formidable, but by no means so formidable as a

threat of universal war. A large country with great natural resources

which has determined to make war, might be willing to face commercial

non-intercourse with the other members of the league during hostilities,

when it would not for a moment contemplate the risk of fighting them. A

threat, for example, by England, France, and Germany to stop all trade

with the United States might or might not have prevented our going to war

with Spain; but a declaration that they would take part with all their

armies and navies against us would certainly have done so.

It has often been pointed out that the threat of general non-intercourse

would bear much more hardly on some countries than on others. That may

not in itself be a fatal objection, but a very serious consideration

arises from the fact that there would be a premium on preparation for

war. A nation which had accumulated vast quantities of munitions, food,

and supplies of all kinds, might afford to disregard it; while another

less fully prepared could not.

Moreover, economic pressure, although urged as a milder measure, is in

fact more difficult to apply and maintain. A declaration of war is a

single act, and when made sustains itself by the passion it inflames;

while commercial non-intercourse is a continuous matter, subject to

constant opposition exerted in an atmosphere relatively cool. Our

manufacturers would complain bitterly at being deprived of dye-stuffs

and other chemical products on account of a quarrel in which we had no

interest; the South would suffer severely by the loss of a market for

cotton; the shipping firms and the exporters and importers of all kinds

would be gravely injured; and all these interests would bring to bear

upon Congress a pressure well-nigh irresistible. The same would be true

of every other neutral country, a fact that would be perfectly well known

to the intending belligerent and reduce its fear of a boycott.

[Sidenote: Drastic threats by a League could probably prevent war.]

But, it is said, why not try economic pressure first, and, if that fails,

resort to military force, instead of inflicting at once on unoffending

members of the league the terrible calamity of war? What do we mean by

“if that fails”? Do we mean, if, in spite of the economic pressure, the

war breaks out? But then the harm is done, the fire is ablaze and can

be put out only by blood. The object of the league is not to chastise

a country guilty of breaking the peace, but to prevent the outbreak

of war, and to prevent it by the immediate prospect of such appalling

consequences to the offender that he will not venture to run the risk.

If a number of great Powers were to pledge themselves with serious

intent, to wage war jointly and severally on any one of their members

that attacked another before submitting the case to arbitration, it is in

the highest degree improbable that the _casus fœderis_ would ever occur,

while any less drastic provision would be far less effective.

[Sidenote: Object is to lessen chances of war, though the League could

not meet all possible contingencies.]

An objection has been raised to the proposal for a league to enforce

peace on the ground that it has in the past often proved difficult, if

not impossible, to determine which of two belligerents began a war. The

criticism is serious, and presents a practical difficulty, grave but

probably not insurmountable. The proposal merely lays down a general

principle, and if adopted the details would have to be worked out very

fully and carefully in a treaty, which would specify the acts that would

constitute the waging of war by one member upon another. These would

naturally be, not the mere creating of apprehension, but specific acts,

such as a declaration of war, invasion of territory, the use of force at

sea not disowned within forty-eight hours, or an advance into a region in

dispute. This last is an especially difficult point, but those portions

of the earth’s surface in which different nations have conflicting claims

are growing less decade by decade.

It must be remembered that the cases which would arise are not like

those which have arisen in the past, where one nation is determined to

go to war and merely seeks to throw the moral responsibility on the

other while getting the advantage of actually beginning hostilities. It

is a case where each will strive to avoid the specific acts of war that

may involve the penalty. The reader may have seen, in a country where

personal violence is severely punished, two men shaking their fists in

each other’s faces, each trying to provoke the other to strike the first

blow; and no fight after all.

There are many agreements in private business which are not easy to

embody in formal contracts; agreements where, as in this case, the

execution of the terms calls for immediate action, and where redress

after an elaborate trial of the facts affords no real reparation. But

if the object sought is good, men do not condemn it on account of the

difficulty in devising provisions that will accomplish the result

desired; certainly not until they have tried to devise them. It may,

indeed, prove impossible to draft a code of specific acts that will cover

the ground; it may be impracticable to draft it so as to avoid issues

of fact that can be determined only after a long sifting of evidence,

which would come too late; but surely that is no reason for failure to

make the attempt. We are not making a treaty among nations. We are merely

putting forward a suggestion for reducing war, which seems to merit

consideration.

A second difficulty that will sometimes arise is the rule of conduct to

be followed pending the presentation of the question to the international

tribunal. The continuance or cessation of the acts complained of may

appear to be, and may even be in fact, more important than the final

decision. This has been brought to our attention forcibly by the sinking

of the _Lusitania_. We should have done very wisely to submit to

arbitration the question of the right of submarines to torpedo merchant

ships without warning, provided Germany abandoned the practise pending

the arbitration; and Germany would probably not have refused to submit

the question to a tribunal on the understanding that the practise was

to continue until the decision was rendered, because by that time the

war would be over. This difficulty is inherent in every plan for the

arbitration of international disputes, although more serious in a league

whose members bind themselves to prevent by force the outbreak of war.

It would be necessary to give the tribunal summary authority to decree

a _modus vivendi_, to empower it, like a court of equity, to issue a

temporary injunction.

In short, the proposal for a league to enforce peace cannot meet all

possible contingencies. It cannot prevent all future wars, nor does any

sensible person believe that any plan can do so in the present state of

civilization. But it can prevent some wars that would otherwise take

place, and if it does that it will have done much good.

[Sidenote: Enough if League meant peace for its members.]

People have asked how such a league would differ from the Triple Alliance

or Triple Entente—whether it would not be nominally a combination for

peace which might in practise have quite a different effect. But in

fact its object is quite contrary to those alliances. They are designed

to protect their members against outside Powers. This is intended to

insure peace among the members themselves. If it grew strong enough, by

including all the great Powers, it might well insist on universal peace

by compelling the outsiders to come in. But that is not its primary

object, which is simply to prevent its members from going to war with one

another. No doubt if several great nations, and some of the smaller ones,

joined it, and if it succeeded in preserving constant friendly relations

among its members, there would grow up among them a sense of solidarity

which would make any outside Power chary of attacking one of them; and,

what is more valuable, would make outsiders want to join it. But there

is little use in speculating about probabilities. It is enough if such a

league were a source of enduring peace among its own members.

How about our own position in the United States? The proposal is a

radical and subversive departure from the traditional policy of our

country. Would it be wise for us to be parties to such an agreement?

At the threshold of such a discussion one thing is clear. If we are

not willing to urge our own government to join a movement for peace,

we have no business to discuss any plan for the purpose. It is worse

than futile, it is an impertinence, for Americans to advise the people

of Europe how they ought to conduct their affairs if we have nothing

in common with them; to suggest to them conventions with burdens which

are well enough for them, but which we are not willing to share. If our

peace organizations are not prepared to have us take part in the plans

they devise, they had better disband, or confine their discussions to

Pan-American questions....

_A. Lawrence Lowell, “A League to Enforce Peace,”

Atlantic Monthly, Sept., 1915._

THE CONSTITUTION OF A LEAGUE

[Sidenote: Force for defense vs. force for aggression.]

The problem of the League of Peace is actually the problem of the use

of force. Force internationally expressed is measured in armaments. The

chief discussion which has been waged for the past decade between the

pacifists and militarists has been over the question of armaments. The

militarists claim that armaments insure national safety. The pacifists

declare they inevitably lead to war. Both disputants insist that the

present war furnishes irrefutable proof of their contentions.

As is usual in cases of this kind the shield has two sides. The confusion

has arisen from a failure to recognize the threefold function of force:

1. Force used for the maintenance of order—police force.

2. Force used for attack—aggression.

3. Force used to neutralize aggression—defense.

Police force is almost wholly good.

Offense is almost wholly bad.

Defense is a necessary evil, and exists simply to neutralize force

employed for aggression.

The problem of the peace movement is how to abolish the use of force for

aggression, and yet to maintain it for police purposes. Force for defense

will of course automatically cease when force for aggression is abolished.

The chief problem then of a League of Peace is this: Shall the members

of the League “not only keep the peace themselves, but prevent by force

if necessary its being broken by others,” as ex-President Roosevelt

suggested in his Nobel Peace Address delivered at Christiania, May 5,

1910? Or shall its force be exercised only within its membership and thus

be on the side of law and order and never on the side of arbitrary will

or tyranny? Or shall it never be used at all? Whichever one of these

conceptions finally prevails the Great War has conclusively demonstrated

that as long as War Lords exist defensive force must be maintained.

Hence the League must be prepared to use force against any nations which

will not forswear force. Nevertheless a formula must be devised for

disarmament. For unless it is a law of nature that war is to consume all

the fruits of progress disarmament somehow and some way must take place.

How then can the maintenance of a force for defense and police power be

reconciled with the theory of disarmament?

[Sidenote: The principles for a League of Peace.]

In this way: Let the League of Peace be formed on the following five

principles:

First. The nations of the League shall mutually agree to respect the

territory and sovereignty of each other.

Second. All questions that cannot be settled by diplomacy shall be

arbitrated.

Third. The nations of the League shall provide a periodical assembly to

make all rules to become law unless vetoed by a nation within a stated

period.

Fourth. The nations shall disarm to the point where the combined forces

of the League shall be a certain per cent. higher than those of the most

heavily armed nation or alliance outside of the League. Detailed rules

for this pro rata disarmament shall be formulated by the Assembly.

Fifth. Any member of the League shall have the right to withdraw on due

notice, or may be expelled by the unanimous vote of the others.

The advantages that a nation would gain in becoming a member of such

a league are manifest. The risk of war would be eliminated within the

League. Obviously the only things that are vital to a nation are its land

and its independence. Since each nation in the League will have pledged

itself to respect the territory and the sovereignty of every other, a

refusal to do so will logically lead to expulsion from the League. Thus

every vital question will be automatically reserved from both war and

arbitration. All other questions are of secondary importance and can

readily be arbitrated.

By the establishment of a periodical assembly a method would be devised

whereby the members of the League could develop their common intercourse

and interests as far and as fast as they could unanimously agree upon

ways and means. As any law could be vetoed by a single nation, no nation

could have any fear that it would be coerced against its will by a

majority vote of the other nations. By such an assembly the League might

in time agree to reduce tariffs and postal rates and in a thousand other

ways promote commerce and comity among its members.

[Sidenote: Rights and duties within the League.]

As a final safeguard against coercion by the other members of the League,

each member will have the right of secession on due notice. This would

prevent civil war within the League. The right of expulsion by the

majority will prevent one nation by its veto power indefinitely blocking

all progress of the League.

But it will be said that all these agreements will have no binding effect

in a crisis. A covenant is a mere “scrap of paper” whose provisions will

be violated by the first nation which fancies it is its interest to do

so. In order to show that their faith is backed up by deeds, however,

the nations on entering the League agree to disarm to a little above

the danger point, and put all their defensive power under a federal

authority. This is the real proof of their conversion to the peace idea.

[Sidenote: Co-operation for protection.]

Thus the nations which join the League will enjoy all the economic and

political advantages which come from mutual cooperation and the extension

of international friendship and at the same time will be protected by

an adequate force against the aggressive force of the greatest nation

or alliance outside the League. The League therefore reconciles the

demand of the pacifists for the limitation of armaments and eventual

disarmament and the demand of the militarists for the protection that

armament affords. Above all the establishment of such a league will give

the liberal parties in the nations outside the League an issue on which

they can attack their governments so as sooner or later to force them

to apply to the League for membership. As each one enters there will be

another pro rata reduction of the military forces of the League down to

the armament of the next most powerful nation or alliance outside it;

until finally the whole world is federated in a brotherhood of universal

peace and armies and navies are reduced to an international police force.

_Hamilton Holt, “The Way to Disarm,” Independent, Sept. 28, 1914._

PACIFISM AND THE LEAGUE OF PEACE

[Sidenote: Peace is not mere non-resistance.]

In short, we have little faith in a pacifism which is mere

_laissez-faire_, in the doctrine that peace is the vacuum created by

the absence of war. Peace is something more original than that. It is

a great construction, of infinite complexity, which will be aided but

not consummated by good intentions. It involves dangers, failures,

disappointments. The interests of the world are interwoven, and no

nation can work for peace by adopting counsels of perfection in a

policy of isolation. Yet that is what mere non-resistance implies. It

implies an unwillingness to take the risk of participation in world

politics, it trusts vaguely that by staying at home and minding our

business, we can make our own little cultivated garden bloom in peace

and prosperity. There is no internationalism in such a view of things.

The real internationalist is one who works first of all to keep his own

nation from aggressive action, who infuses his own national policy with

a desire for international peace. He works to control his own government

so as to make it adopt a humanely constructive foreign policy. He does

not refuse to have part in the world’s affairs because the world may soil

his hands. He realizes that peace can be created only out of the strength

of intelligent people, that even God when he fought the devil had to

compromise his own perfection.

[Sidenote: The clear-sighted idealist sees a League of Peace.]

It is more than a century since Thomas Paine proposed to secure the

world’s peace forever by a league between Britain, France and the United

States. He made the suggestion on the eve of the Napoleonic wars, and it

is hardly an accident that the idea was revived with a different trinity

a few months before the present struggle. It was Britain, France and

Germany that Jean Jaurès would have united in a League of Peace. At the

parting of the ways the clear-sighted idealist has always understood that

the choice is not between war and that sort of peace which is only a

negation of war. The choice in both these crises lay between shattering

war and constructive peace, between an open and destructive enmity and a

peace based on a common will and an active partnership. Mirabeau had the

same vivid perception, and what these three saw is still a vision that

haunts us among the mists of war. Of the several proposals that arise

inevitably in men’s minds when we think of preventing the renewal of

this Continental struggle, there is none which sober thinkers propound

so readily and none which has been worked out with greater detail in

England than this expedient of the League of Peace. There are, indeed,

a few who dare to speak of the United States of Europe, and some who

discuss the creation of an international police force to secure the

law of nations and repress aggression. But even they do not deny the

inordinate difficulties. This war has lasted long enough to teach all

but the unteachable that neither side will be able to crush and dominate

the other. But short of the compulsion of irresistible might, will any

influence suffice to bring the enemies of to-day by their spontaneous

choice into a European federation? Is any people, even the most pacific,

prepared as yet to accept the surrender of sovereignty which entry into

even a loosely-knit federation would involve?

[Sidenote: A practicable dream.]

The League of Peace presents itself to practical men as a dream

capable of an early translation into fact. The allies need only agree

to join their forces against any power which persisted, after offers of

arbitration or mediation (a reservation which no old-fashioned alliance

ever made) in attacking any one of them. It would differ from other

alliances partly by its insistence on the duty of arbitration, partly by

its frank and public constitution, but mainly by the ready welcome which

it would offer even to the enemy of yesterday, should he elect to enter

it. The United States would rally to it, seeing in it their best hope of

safety, and ultimately it might become a genuine Pan-European League. It

is sometimes suggested that Paine’s Anglo-Franco-American combination

might form its nucleus. More often its advocates base their hopes on the

Anglo-Franco-Russian entente, expanded by adhesion of some of the present

neutrals. No one suggests, and this is the weakest point of the whole

scheme, that Germany and Austria would be likely to join such a League at

the start, though no one of this way of thinking would desire to exclude

them.

[Sidenote: The League must be more than the old alliances.]

Much would depend on the nucleus of the federation. Crude military

considerations render an Anglo-French-American trinity impossible.

Without discussing whether the United States would care to enter “the

vortex of European militarism,” it is enough to point out that such a

combination could not hope to hold the rest of Europe in check, could

not even safeguard France against Germany alone, unless one or both

of the English-speaking nations adopted compulsory military service.

France must ally herself to some first-rate military power; no navy can

protect her land frontiers. The Anglo-Franco-Russian combination is open

to other objections. It does not represent a homogeneous civilization.

Every outbreak of anti-Jewish fanaticism in Russia, every assault on

Finland or Persia, every reminder that official Russia still belongs to

the Dark Ages, would tend to weaken the moral authority of such a League.

It has, moreover, too long a history. It would seem even to charitable

Germans a mere perpetuation under a new name of the combination which M.

Delcassé and King Edward were accused of forming to “pen Germany in.” It

would seem to be nothing better than an alliance to assure the victors in

the perpetual possession of the fruits of victory, and the new pacifist

façade to the old armed fortress would only aggravate by hypocrisy the

sin of success. Germany would never join this League; she would scheme

with all the arts of barter and intrigue to detach Russia from it, and

the old game of the Balance of Power would go on.

[Sidenote: It must provide for changing conditions.]

The fatal objection to any alliance of this kind is that it does not

really meet the difficulty that no State will abandon its sovereignty.

This alliance would not be a League of Peace unless it were prepared to

exercise a very sharp supervision over the foreign policy of its members.

If the old Anglo-Franco-Russian entente had been a genuine League of

Peace, it would have had to say, for example, to Serbia, “You may join

us, but if you do join us, you must abandon forever your Irredentist

ambitions at the expense of Austria. We will protect you against any

unprovoked attack by Austria. But you on your side must refrain from any

encouragement to those who would dismember her.” It would have had to say

with equal decision to France, “Join us by all means, but at the cost of

refraining from any expansion in Morocco. You cannot march on Fez without

provoking some German reply.” Such a League, in short, would be a mutual

insurance society, but the risks would be too high unless the society

could prohibit its members from any deliberate playing with fire. It is

not enough to say, “We will murder an Archduke once in a way, but when

he is dead and buried we will go to The Hague about him”; or, “We will,

to be sure, take places in the sun which other people covet, but when we

have taken them we shall not wantonly attack any unsuccessful rivals.”

The League of Peace would either be the old imperialistic alliance under

a dishonest name, or else it would be a highly conservative federation

which would keep its members in a very strait pacifist jacket. If great

powers would really endure such a control they might as well face at once

the limitation of sovereignty implied in a United States of Europe.

[Sidenote: All interests must be reconciled.]

The vice of all such schemes is that they are based too one-sidedly on

the idea of preventing wars. They take a static view of the world. They

come quite naturally from citizens of satisfied powers, weary of the

burden of defending what they have got. They ignore the fact that life

is change. They make no provision for any organic alterations in the

world’s structure. We can no more prevent war by organizing a defensive

league than revolution by creating a police. We must deal with causes,

must provide some means alternative to war by which large grievances can

be redressed and legitimate ambitions satisfied. To recur to our concrete

cases: if it is desired to insure that Serbia shall not again embroil a

continent in war, some machinery must be provided by which Austria can be

required to treat her subject Serbs reasonably well. When a “place in the

sun” like Morocco, one of the few unappropriated parts of the earth fit

for settlement by a white race, can no longer maintain its independence,

there must be some impartial Power which can say, “This rich potential

colony ought not to go to a State like France, with two similar colonies

already under its flag and a dwindling population at home, but rather to

a State like Germany, with no such colony of her own, despite her teeming

population, her great birth-rate, her vigorous and expansive commerce.”

For such problems as this there is no solution in the quasi-legal

processes of arbitration. The fundamental fact in the European history

of the last twenty years has been the restless search of Germany for

colonies and fields of exploitation. She felt her way in South Africa;

the British Empire expanded to exclude her. She turned a timid glance to

Brazil; the Monroe Doctrine was the flaming sword at the gate of that

Paradise. She coveted Morocco; the British navy cleared its decks. She

penetrated Turkey down the spine of the Bagdad Railway; she was met at

the Gulf with opposing sea-power. A League of the Satisfied might appeal

to London and Paris and Petrograd. But Berlin will ask, “What hope does

it offer to me that when my population is still denser, my industry still

more expansive, my need for markets and fields of exploitation for my

capital even more clamant than it is to-day, your League of Peace will

provide me with an outlet? You bar the future, and you call it peace.”

[Sidenote: The Philadelphia Conference.]

The recent Philadelphia conference on The League to Enforce Peace was

extraordinarily sensible because it recognized so clearly its own

limitations. It did not propose to stop the war. It did not urge anybody

to act before he was ready to act. It did not try to stampede our

government or any European government into some theoretical program. It

tried merely to focus the ideas which have been most common in England

and America during the last ten months. Under impressive circumstances,

in a hall filled with noble memories, it crystallized a number of vague

ideas into an hypothesis. The conference was visibly trying to reach

some minimum agreement for the purpose of clarifying the thinking of

individuals and groups all over the world.

Nobody is expected to act upon the resolutions, but everybody is

expected to give what thought and knowledge and imagination he may have

towards maturing the intentions which they expressed. The conference

did what every person must do constantly for himself whenever he is

trying to think out a long and complex problem. It stopped for breath

and for a renewal of faith; it made a tentative proposal as a guide

for the thought which is to follow. With great sanity it took no

doctrinaire position, laid down no rule, such as peace-at-any-price,

honor-cannot-be-arbitrated, sovereignty-is-one-and-indivisible, or any

of the other assumptions which obscure pacifist and militarist argument.

The delegates in Philadelphia were scientific in their spirit; they did

not even attempt that over-precise definition of the final end which

always results in the misleading use of theory. They were not doctors who

begin their study of disease by trying to define the ideal healthy man,

they were not political doctrinaires who begin by defining the ideally

peaceful world. They were agreed, as doctors are agreed, that a sounder

organic constitution is required, and that pain and suffering should be

lessened as much as possible, but they did not attempt to say that they

would not inflict pain to cure pain, or wage war to preserve the peace.

The idea which the delegates had uppermost in their thoughts was a

league of nations that should give power to international law. It is an

extension of The Hague plan by which the nations attempt not only to set

up a court, but to compel those who have a dispute to go to the court.

As we understand the resolutions, they do not take the added step of

agreeing to enforce the decision of the court.

The idea is based on a tremendous compromise, as our own history shows.

We were once a league of foreign States, suspicious of common action

and jealous of each sovereign prerogative. On the greatest issue of our

history we fought our greatest war, and the States which represented

union and federalism put an end once for all to the unlimited sovereignty

of any individual State. Our Civil War established the supremacy of the

federal power over the States.

[Sidenote: A League to back international law.]

The United States of the World would face the same problem, though

on a much more difficult scale. It will find that a court to adjust

mistakes is not enough, for the really important conflicts that provoke

war are not “justiciable.” They are matters upon which a policy has

to be declared—upon which, in brief, legislation is needed. Some kind

of legislature a League of Peace would have to establish, and with a

legislature and court would have to go an executive. This would open up

the problem of representation, of the large and populous State as against

the small ones, of the “satisfied Powers” against the “unsatisfied.”

For it is clear that the British Empire will not consent to give to

Montenegro equal representation, or the United States to Venezuela. Here

will be the question of conflicts between international and national

legislation, similar to the conflicts which our Supreme Court is called

upon to settle. All the problems of home rule, such as that of Ireland

within the Empire, and of Ulster within Ireland, would have to be met in

territory like that of the Balkans, by the League of Peace. It would have

to determine whether, for example, the sovereignty of a national India

was an internal question for the British Empire, or a legitimate subject

for international settlement.

[Sidenote: The business of such a League.]

The League would have to work out the problem of unexploited territories,

of weaker peoples, and of disorderly States. Just as our original

Union had the whole West to organize, so the League would have Africa,

large parts of Asia, and the middle Americas as a kind of international

domain. It would have to meet those who want merely to exploit, and to

support those who are liberal enough to throw about weaker peoples that

protection under which they can really grow to freedom. Nor would that

be all. The League would have to legislate about concessions, trading

rights, tariffs, about spheres of influence, about the use of great ocean

and land highways. As soon as it grappled with the economic aspects of

diplomacy, it would find, just as our government found, that interstate

commerce cannot be regulated satisfactorily by conflicting state

interests.

In other words, there is no stopping short at a league to prevent war.

Such a league would either grow to a world federalism, or it would break

up in civil war. But that, far from being an argument against the League,

is the strongest possible argument for it. It is the first step towards

a closer world organization, and once that step is taken, the world will

have to choose between taking some of the next steps and returning to the

anarchy of sovereign nationalities. The vast implications of the League

of Peace are what make it important. And its real service to mankind

may well be that it will establish the first rallying point of a world

citizenship.

[Sidenote: It would mean a new world-federalism.]

The development of such a citizenship is one of the great moral

and educational problems of this century. It cannot mean a vague

cosmopolitanism. It must mean the training of people who have learned

to modify their national policies so that these do not make impossible

an international allegiance. This war has offered us an example of such

citizenship. The Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders who are

fighting in Flanders and at the Dardanelles are living and dying for

the largest political organization the world has so far known. Their

allegiance in the British Empire is to a State which embraces one-quarter

of the human race. Never before in history have men been loyal to so

great and so diversified a unit. They have literally come from all the

ends of the earth to preserve a union of democracies. They have shown by

example what any World League most needs to know, that federalism on a

grand scale is not an idle dream.

_The New Republic, March 20 and June 26, 1915._

THE ECONOMIC BOYCOTT

[Sidenote: The nations have a powerful non-military weapon.]

In the discussion of an International Executive entrusted with powers

to compel the fulfilment of treaty obligations, it must not be assumed

that coercion can only be exercised by the employment of armed force.

The boycott is a weapon which could be employed with paralyzing power

by a circle of nations upon an offender against the public law of the

world. No nation to-day, least of all the great industrial and military

Powers, is or can become socially and economically self-sufficient. It

depends in countless ways upon intercourse with other nations. If all

or most of these avenues of intercourse were stopped, it would soon be

reduced to worse straits than those which Germany is now experiencing. If

all diplomatic intercourse were withdrawn; if the international postal

and telegraphic systems were closed to a public law-breaker; if all

interstate railway trains stopped at his frontiers; if no foreign ships

entered his ports, and ships carrying his flag were excluded from every

foreign port; if all coaling stations were closed to him; if no acts of

sale or purchase were permitted to him in the outside world—if such a

political and commercial boycott were seriously threatened, what country

could long stand out against it? Nay, the far less rigorous measure of

a financial boycott, the closure of all foreign exchanges to members of

the outlaw State, the prohibition of all quotations on foreign stock

exchanges, and of all dealings in stocks and shares, all discounting and

acceptances of trade bills, all loans for public or private purposes, and

all payments of moneys due—such a withdrawal of financial intercourse,

if thoroughly applied and persisted in, would be likely to bring to its

senses the least scrupulous of States.

[Sidenote: But effective use requires co-operation. And a boycott injures

also those who apply it.]

Assuming that the members of the League included all or most of the

important commercial and financial nations, and that they could be relied

upon to press energetically all or even a few of these forms of boycott,

could any country long resist such pressure? Would not the threat of it

and the knowledge that it could be used form a potent restraint upon the

law-breaker? Even the single weapon of a complete postal and telegraphic

boycott would have enormous efficiency were it rigorously applied.

Every section of the industrial and commercial community would bring

organized pressure upon its Government to withdraw from so intolerable

a position and to return to its international allegiance. It may be

said, Why is it that such a powerful weapon of such obvious efficacy has

never been applied? The answer is that the conditions for its rapid and

concerted application have never hitherto existed. For in order that it

may be effective, a considerable number of nations must have previously

undertaken to apply it simultaneously and by common action. And, what

is more, each nation must have confidence in the _bona fides_ of the

intention of other nations to apply it. For the detailed application of

the boycott, in most points, must of necessity remain in the hands of

the several national Governments. Here comes the practical difficulty.

Every boycott has a certain injurious rebound. It hits back the nation

that applies it. The injury of suspended intercourse is, of course, not

equal, otherwise the process would be futile. If the whole circle of

A’s neighbors boycott him, each suffers half the loss of his separate

intercourse with A, but A suffers this loss multiplied by the number of

his neighbors. Now if A’s intercourse with all his neighbors is of equal

magnitude, each of them can probably afford easily to bear the sacrifice

involved in the boycott, trusting to the early effect of their action

in bringing A to terms. But if one or two of A’s neighbors are in much

closer relations with A than the others, and if, as may be the case,

they are getting more advantage from this intercourse than A, the risk

or sacrifice they are called upon to undergo will be proportionately

greater. They must bear the chief brunt of a policy in the adoption of

which they have not the determinant voice.

Take, for example, the case of Germany. An all-round boycott applied to

her would evidently cause more damaging reactions to Holland, Belgium,

and Denmark than to any of the greater nations whose united voice might

have determined its application. The injury to Holland, in particular,

might in the first instance be almost as grave as that sustained by

Germany, the supposed object of the boycott. It would evidently be

necessary to make provision against this unequal incidence by devising a

system of compensations or indemnity to meet the case of such a special

injury or sacrifice.

A brief allusion to the other side of the objection will suffice, viz.,

the fact that any such boycott would be far less potent or immediate

in its pressure against some nations than against others. While Great

Britain would have to yield at once to the threat of such pressure,

Russia, or even the United States, could stand out for a considerable

time, and China might even regard the boycott as a blessing. But it is

pretty evident that in the long run no civilized nation could endure such

isolation, and that this weapon is one which the League might in certain

cases advantageously employ.

[Sidenote: Other difficulties.]

Other aspects of the social-economic boycott raise other difficulties.

While certain modes and paths of intercourse lie directly under the

control of the Governments of the cooperating States, others belong to

private enterprise. Though postal, railway, and telegraphic intercourse

could be cut off easily by agreements between Governments, private

trading could not so easily be stopped. It is not found a simple matter

to stop all trading between members of nations actually at war when

national sentiment sides strongly with the legal prohibition. It might

be much more difficult to prevent all commercial intercourse for private

gain when there was no special hostility between the two nations in

question. But this is, after all, only a minor difficulty. Provided that

the respective Governments were prepared to use their normal powers of

control over the principal modes of communication and of transport, the

potency of the boycott so established would appear exceedingly effective.

It involves, however, a risk which needs recognition. The extreme

pressure of the boycott might lead to forcible reprisals on the part of

the boycotted State which would, in fact, precipitate a war. Declaring

what would be in effect a blockade by sea and land, it might be necessary

for the League to patrol the seas in order to stop “illegal traffic,”

and to keep some force along the land frontiers for general purposes.

A boycotted nation might, in the stress and anger of the case, begin

hostilities against those of its neighbors who were most active in the

operations of the boycott. In that event the economic boycott would have

to be supported by armed pressure. This would also be the case where the

breach of international law against which action was taken consisted,

not in refusing to arbitrate or conciliate an issue but in an actual

opening of hostilities. Such an act of war, directed necessarily against

some one or more States, could not be met merely by a boycott. It would

involve armed cooperation as well, the economic boycott forming an

accompaniment.

[Sidenote: International Bank would strengthen League.]

There is another method of bringing financial pressure upon a

law-breaking State which deserves consideration. It is put forward in

the following terms by Mr. F. N. Keen in his able little book, “The

World in Alliance”: “The States comprised in the international scheme

might be required to keep deposited with, or under the control of,

the International Council sums of money, proportioned in some way to

their relative populations or financial resources, which might be made

available to answer international obligations, and an international

bank might be organized, which would facilitate the giving of security

by States to the International Council for the performance of their

obligations and the enforcement of payments between one State and another

(as well as probably assisting in the creation of an international

currency and discharging other useful international functions).”

The organized concentration of international finance by the formation

of an international bank is a line of action which might immensely

strengthen that body of pacific forces the rising importance of which

Mr. Norman Angell has so effectively expounded. It might consolidate to

an almost incalculable degree the effective unity of the International

League by placing under it the solid foundation of world-peace, while

the power which such an institution would wield, either for purposes of

fiscal or financial boycott, would be enormous.

[Sidenote: The international police force.]

But however highly we estimate the potentialities of the boycott as

a valuable adjunct to the pressure of public opinion in compelling

obedience to treaty obligations, it is idle to pretend that the

confidence required to induce the chief nations to rely upon the due

performance of these obligations by all their co-signatories will be

possible without placing at their disposal, for use in the last resort,

an adequate armed force to break the resistance of an armed law-breaking

State. Somewhere behind international law there must be placed a power of

international compulsion by arms. If that force were really adequate, it

is probable that it would never be necessary to employ it for any purpose

save that of repelling invasions or dangerous disorders on the part of

outsiders. Its existence and the knowledge of its presence might suffice

to restrain the aggressive or lawless tendencies which will survive in

members of the League. But in the beginnings of the organization of

international society it is at least possible, perhaps likely, that some

dangerous outbreak of the old spirit of state-absolutism should occur,

and that some arrogant or greedy Power, within the circle of the League,

might endeavor to defy the public law.

For the States entering such a League will be of various grades of

political development: some may enter with reluctance and rather because

they fear to be left out than because they believe in or desire the

success of the League. It is idle to imagine that a society starting with

so little inner unity of status and of purpose can dispense entirely

with the backing of physical force with which the most highly evolved of

national societies has been unable to dispense.

[Sidenote: How constituted.]

What form, then, should the required international force take, and who

should exercise it?

The proposal to endow some executive international body with the power

of levying and maintaining a new land and sea force, superior to that

of any Power or combination it may be called upon to meet, scarcely

merits consideration. Apart from the hopelessness of getting the Powers

to consent to set up a Super-State upon this basis, the mere suggestion

of curing militarism by creating a large additional army and navy would

be intolerable. Nor is it any more reasonable to expect the Powers

to abandon their separate national forces, simply contributing their

quota towards an international force under the permanent control of an

International Executive. No such abandonment of sovereign power, no such

complete confidence in the new internationalism, could for a long time

to come be even contemplated. Each nation would insist upon retaining

within its own territory and at its own disposal the forces necessary to

preserve internal order and to meet at the outset any sudden attack made

from outside. It is evident, in other words, that the forces required

by the International League in the last resort, for the maintenance of

public law and the repression of breaches of the treaty, must be composed

of contingents drawn upon some agreed plan from the national forces

and placed for the work in hand at the disposal of an international

command. Such armed cooperation is, of course, not unknown. Several times

within recent years concerted action has been taken by several European

Powers, and though the Pekin expedition in 1900 cannot be regarded as

a very favorable example, it illustrates the willingness of Powers to

act together for some common end which seems to them of sufficient

importance. Is it too much to expect that the nations entering the

Confederation will realize with sufficient clearness the importance of

preserving the integrity of their international agreement to be willing

to entrust a permanent executive with the duty of commandeering the

forces necessary to achieve this purpose when they may be required?

[Sidenote: Armies and navies must be held in trust for the

world-community. Each nation would get more security at less cost.]

It will doubtless be objected that there is a world of difference between

the occasional willingness of a group of Powers to take concerted action

upon a particular occasion, for which each reserves full liberty of

determination as to whether and to what extent it will cooperate, and

the proposal before us. It is absurd, we shall be told, to expect that

States bred in the sense of sovereignty and military pride will seriously

entertain a proposal which may bring them into war in a quarrel not

specifically theirs and compel them to furnish troops to serve under

an international staff. But many events that have seemed as absurd

are brought to pass. A few decades ago nothing would have seemed more

absurd than to suppose that our nation would be willing to equip an

Expeditionary Force of several million men to operate upon the Continent

under the supreme control of a French general. Whether, in fact, such

cooperation as we here desiderate is feasible at any early period

will depend upon two factors: first, the realization on the part of

Governments and peoples of the civilized world of the supreme importance

of the issue at stake in this endeavor to lay a strong foundation for

the society of nations; secondly, the diminution in the influence of

militarism and navalism as factors in national life that is likely to

occur if sufficient belief in the permanence and efficacy of the new

arrangement is once secured. If nations can be brought to believe that

national armies and navies are too dangerous toys to be entrusted to the

indiscretion of the national statesmen and generals, and are only safe

if they are held in trust for the wider world community, this conviction

will modify the surviving sentiments of national pride and national

pugnacity and make it easier to accept the new international status.

Moreover, if, as the first-fruits of the new order, a sensible reduction

of national armaments can be achieved, this lessening of the part which

armed force plays within each national economy will be attended by a

corresponding increase in the willingness to place the reduced forces

at the international disposal. For the root motive of the international

policy is the desire of each nation to get a larger amount of security

at a smaller cost than under the old order. Those, therefore, who

confidently assert that States will not consent on any terms to entrust

their national forces to an international command for the maintenance of

the treaty obligations under the proposed scheme in effect simply assert

the permanency of the reign of unreason in the relations between States.

For though the general agreement of States to submit their disagreements

to processes of arbitration and conciliation with pledges to abide by

the results would be a considerable advance towards better international

relations, even if no sanction beyond the force of public opinion existed

to enforce the fulfilment of the obligations, it would not suffice to

establish such confidence in future peace as to secure any sensible and

simultaneous reduction of armed preparations. No Government would consent

to any weakening of its national forces so long as there was danger

that some Power might repudiate its treaty obligations. This being the

case, the burdens and the perilous influences of militarism and navalism

would remain entrenched as strongly as before in the European system,

advertising, by their very presence, the lack of faith in the efficacy

of the new pacific arrangements. So long as these national armaments

remained unchecked the old conception of State absolutism would still

survive. There would still be danger of militarist Governments intriguing

for aggression or defense in new groupings, and new efforts to tip the

balance of armed power in their favor.

It is ultimately to the dread and despair of this alternative that I look

for the motive-power to induce nations to make the abatements of national

separatism necessary to establish an international society. Whether the

end of this war will leave these motives sufficiently powerful to achieve

this object will probably depend upon the degree of enlightenment among

mankind at large upon the old ideas of States and statecraft.

_J. A. Hobson, “Toward International Government,” pp. 90-100._

ECONOMIC COERCION

[Sidenote: There must be effective penalties for aggression.]

I want to suggest here that the forces of Europe will not be readily

deterrent of aggression until the following conditions at least are

fulfilled: (a) The forces placed behind a policy the first object of

which shall be to deter aggression; (b) aggression so defined as to have

no reference to the merits of a dispute between two nations or groups,

but to consist simply in taking any belligerent action to enforce a

State’s claim against another without first having submitted that claim

to international enquiry; (c) the economic pressure which is an essential

part of military operations rendered effective by the cooperation of

States which do not necessarily give military aid at all; (d) economic

pressure so organized as to be capable of prolongation beyond the period

of military operations; and (e) the penalties attaching to aggression

made so plain as to be realized beforehand by any people whose government

tends to drift towards aggression.

If the new Congress of Vienna is effective, these conditions will be

fulfilled.

[Sidenote: Offending nation could be outlawed.]

Any arrangement which includes them would partake of the nature of a

league of mutual guarantee of integrity, and would be one in which there

would be fair hope of economic pressure gradually replacing military

force as the compelling sanction. Economic pressure might be that

first felt if the outstanding feature of the arrangement were that any

constituent State resorting to hostilities as the result of a difference

with another, not previously submitted to an international court of

enquiry, by that fact caused boycott or non-intercourse to be proclaimed

and maintained against it by the whole group. This would not prevent

certain members of the group from carrying on military operations, as

well, against it. Some of the group would go to war in the military

sense—all in the economic sense; the respective rôles would be so

distributed as to secure the most effective action. From the moment of

the offending nation’s defiance of the international agreement to which

it had been a party, its ships could enter no civilized ports outside

its own, nor leave them. Payment of debts to it would be withheld; the

commercial paper of its citizens would not be discounted; its citizens

could not travel in any civilized country in the world, their passports

being no longer recognized.

Thus, the outlaw nation could neither receive from nor send to the

outside world material or communication of any kind—neither food nor

raw material of manufacture, nor letters, nor cables. Money due to him

throughout the world would be sequestrated for disposal finally as the

international court’s judgment should direct; and that rule would apply

to royalties on patents and publications, and would, of course, involve

precautionary seizure or sequestration of all property—ships, goods, bank

balances, business—held by that nation’s citizens abroad.

It is doubtful whether at the present stage of international

understanding this arrangement could be carried beyond the point of using

it as a means to secure delay for enquiry in international disputes.

Its use as a sanction for the judgments of international tribunals will

probably require a wider agreement as to the foundations of international

law than at present exists. But a union of Christendom on the basis of

common action against aggression would be a very great step to the more

ambitious plans.

[Sidenote: Terms of outlawry: the Fabian plan.]

It has, however, been suggested (by the Fabian Society) to use this

method as a sanction for the judgment of an international court in the

following terms:

In the event of non-compliance with any decision or decree or injunction

of the International High Court, or of non-payment of the damages,

compensation, or fine within the time specified for such payment, the

Court may decree execution and may call upon the Constituent States or

upon some or any of them, to put in operation, after duly published

notice, for such period and under such conditions as may be arranged, the

following sanctions:

(a) To prohibit all postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and wireless

communication with the recalcitrant State;

(b) To prohibit all passenger traffic (other than the exit of

foreigners), whether by ship, railway, canal, or road, to or from the

recalcitrant State;

(c) To prohibit the entrance into any port of the Constituent States

of any of the ships registered as belonging to the recalcitrant State,

except so far as may be necessary for any of them to seek safety, in

which case such ship or ships shall be interned;

(d) To prohibit the payment of any debts due to the citizens, companies,

or subordinate administrations of the recalcitrant State, or to its

national Government; and, if thought fit, to direct that payment of such

debts shall be made only to one or other of the Constituent Governments,

which shall give a good and legally valid discharge for the same, and

shall account for the net proceeds thereof to the International High

Court;

(e) To lay an embargo on any or all ships within the jurisdiction of such

Constituent State or States registered as belonging to the recalcitrant

State;

(f) To prohibit any lending of capital or other moneys to the citizens,

companies, or subordinate administrations of the recalcitrant State, or

to its national Government;

(g) To prohibit the issue or dealing in or quotation on the Stock

Exchange or in the press of any new loans, debentures, shares, notes, or

securities of any kind by any of the citizens, companies or subordinate

administrations of the recalcitrant State, or of its national Government;

(h) To prohibit all imports, or certain specified imports, coming from

the recalcitrant State, or originating within it;

(i) To prohibit all exports, or certain specified exports consigned

directly to the recalcitrant State, or destined for it.

[Sidenote: Co-operation must be organized as part of international law.]

It should be noted that if the future European coalition means business

at all in giving permanent effect to its settlement provisions, the chief

Powers would be committed, during any period of war, by virtue of their

military obligations, to everything contained in the plan just outlined.

All that the project under discussion involves in addition is that (1)

certain States interested in the observance of public right, but which,

by their circumstances, are not suited to military cooperation, should

give economic aid by taking part in the embargo arrangements. They should

not be neutral, but should refuse intercourse with the recalcitrant State

while according it to the others. (2) That such cooperation should be

duly organized beforehand by public arrangement and be recognized as

part of the normal measures of international public safety and, being

duly recognized in this way, should become part of international law—an

amended law in so far as the rules of neutrality are concerned. (3) That

the arrangements should include provisions for prolonging embargo or

discrimination against an offending State after the period of military

operations had ceased.

[Sidenote: Boycott would threaten offending nation after the war.]

The first point that occurs to one, of course, in considering such a plan

is that it has proven ineffective in the present war since this condition

of non-intercourse is exactly that in which Germany now finds herself,

and it is not at all effective.

To which I reply:

1. That Germany, as already pointed out, is not yet subject to a

condition of complete non-intercourse, since from the beginning of

the war she has been receiving her mail and cables and maintaining

communication with the outside world, morally an immensely important

factor. Nor is it entirely moral. Large supplies have, despite the naval

blockade, come to her through Scandinavia and Holland.

2. That, though of slow operation, it is the economic factor which in

the end will be the decisive one in the operations against Germany; as

the ring tightens and a necessary raw material like cotton is absolutely

excluded, the time will come when this fact will tell most heavily.

If the non-intercourse had been world-organized the effect would have

operated from the first. Incidentally, of course, America and England,

between them, control the cotton of the world.

3. The effect of the suggested embargo, boycott or economic pressure

would be most decisive as a deterrent to aggression, not so much by what

it might be able to accomplish during a war as by what its prolongation

would mean to the aggressor afterwards.

_Norman Angell, “The World’s Highway,” pp. 318-324._

WORLD-ORGANIZATION AND PEACE

[Sidenote: Types of social organization.]

The end of armed conflict is conceivable as the result of either of two

achievements. Permanent peace may come either upon the establishment of

successful means for the settlement of disputes or upon the elimination

of the causes which produce disputes. This paper is limited to discussion

of the second of these alternatives....

In large-scale organizations purposefully created because of their

utility, history discloses few in which that utility, in its broader

aspect, has been appreciated by all of the cooperating members. Only

in organizations approaching a pure democracy has an approximation to

such conditions been attained. In other forms of organization, force

or reward has been employed to gain the cooperation of persons outside

a limited number of organizers, who alone have appreciated the full

utility of organization. Even in democracies, however, when population

is too large for all to participate in government, it is possible only

for the majority of the members of the organization to exercise control

over general policies; executive functions are of necessity delegated.

Thus three sub-forms of the utility type of organization are to be

distinguished. They may be termed respectively the organizer-force, the

organizer-reward, and the democratic-control-expert-executive forms.

Brief analysis and appeal to history will serve to indicate the relative

stability of these forms, both with respect to each other and to the

sympathy type of organization.

[Sidenote: Peace cannot come from the organizer-force system.]

Of the organizer-force form the slavery system and the militaristic

empire are examples. Neither of these systems, however, has inherent

stability. Both run the danger of revolt. The militaristic empire breaks

down sooner or later because unlikeness of peripheral regions causes

local patriotism to assert itself whenever there is possibility of

success. Slavery does not survive the growth of intelligence. Governments

of the organizer-force form, moreover, have to face the constant threat

of revolution. If Germany be cited as a possible exception, the reply

is, that special conditions have stimulated the loyalty of the Germans

to their sovereign. Germany was unified but recently and then only

by war. Her people have not yet wholly overcome the distrust of one

another engendered by long-standing local differences. Germany has thus

required a strong hand to create and to preserve her unity. In addition,

the Germans, not altogether without reason, have believed themselves

surrounded by hostile nations. These conditions sufficiently account for

the exception. It must not be overlooked, however, that even in Germany

there has been a growing dissatisfaction with the form of organization

of her government. Thus the briefest examination of the organizer-force

form of organization discloses the futility of expecting permanent

international peace to result from an extension of this form throughout

the world. Even in its local manifestations this form exhibits inherent

instability and lack of harmony.

[Sidenote: The organizer-reward and democratic systems.]

The organizer-reward form of organization also appears to have its own

peculiar tendency towards instability. This was true of the feudal

systems of the past, and is true of the great business corporations of

to-day, both of which are examples of the organizer-reward form. In

the feudal system the reward offered by the organizers in return for

service was protection; in modern industry the reward is a money wage. In

both cases, however, when subordinate members of the organization have

been ignorant, there has been some tendency towards the exploitation

as well as the utilization of such members. To the extent, however,

that intelligence has developed, there has been less and less voluntary

continuance of organizations whose utility has been thought by the

subordinate members to be limited to one class in the organization.

Force has been met by force. Since intelligence is increasing, it is not

fortuitous that the great internal problem of advanced nations is the

control of such exploitive industry as exists, while the great political

problem of less advanced nations is the struggle for democracy. In both

cases the struggle is to prevent the organizer-reward form from becoming

the organizer-force form and to replace the instability and the lack of

harmony of these forms by the greater stability and greater harmony of

the democratic-control-expert-executive form. Far more than is the case

in the other utility forms, the democratic form directs its policies with

a view to the welfare of all its members. Minorities are represented

on the executive staff. All members of the organization participate in

control. The danger of dissatisfaction on the part of non-executive

members is reduced to a minimum.

[Sidenote: National homogeneity means strength.]

The most striking fact, however, with respect to the question of the

relative stability and harmony of the various forms of organization

is that the largest and the most permanent relatively harmonious

organizations that have appeared among men are those great modern nations

whose inhabitants live in a unified area of characterization and are

essentially alike in language, race, customs, traditions and religion.

Homogeneity in all these respects, it is true, does not as yet exist

even on a national scale and there is certainly no prospect of such

homogeneity on a world scale in the near future. These considerations

must not blind us to the fact, however, that England, France, Spain,

Germany, Russia, Italy, the Scandinavian nations, the United States,

Japan and China—the largest and internally the most harmonious

organizations yet known to man—are each composed of individuals the

vast majority of whom are relatively alike in language, customs and

traditions, and for the most part in race and religion. Nations that

are markedly heterogeneous in the characteristics mentioned, such as

the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Balkan States and European Turkey,

are notoriously unstable. Furthermore, the stability possessed by the

various utility-form organizations that exist within or among the stable

nations of the world is, in large part, the result of the stability and

permanence of the nations themselves. The stability of all three of the

utility forms thus rests upon the inherent stability of the sympathy type

of organization.

If the foregoing analysis be correct, certain propositions of great

importance for the problem of international peace may now be stated.

First, nationality on the basis of sympathy is likely to persist

for an indefinite period. Second, because of the ignorance of the

inhabitants of a number of important nations, the organizer-force and

the organizer-reward forms of government and of business organization

are also likely to persist, for a considerable period, in various parts

of the globe. Third, where the organizer-force or organizer-reward form

of organization is superimposed on nationality, readiness to maintain

harmony with other national groups can exist only when such international

harmony is to the interest of the organizer class in each of such

nations. Where the democratic-control-expert-executive form prevails,

readiness to maintain harmony with other national groups can exist only

when such international harmony is to the interest of each nation so

organized, taken as a whole.

[Sidenote: Peace will follow increasing like-mindedness among the

nations.]

These propositions mean that, under present conditions, permanent

world peace can be produced only if in the organizer-force and in the

organizer-reward nations the organizer is less interested in personal

fame than in the welfare of the whole organization, if the organizing

class does not seek aggrandizement or if the organizing class is

willing to permit a peaceful transition within the nation to the

democratic-control-expert-executive form of organization rather than to

seek perpetuation of its own control through foreign war. They mean also

that such peace can be maintained only if democratic nations can be kept

free from that trooping of emotion which sometimes suddenly sweeps vast

bodies of men into unreasoning demand for aggressive action, and if the

interests of such nations lead them to desire international peace....

_Let there be produced sufficient likeness among the peoples of the

world, and harmonious organization based on sympathy will follow of

itself._ If there be created a sufficient likeness among all peoples in

ideals of progress, in the desire for the betterment of the entire human

race, and in other equally important mental and moral respects, then

world harmony, based on sympathy, will ultimately develop in the same

way that the present harmony within homogeneous nations has resulted, in

large part, from a sympathy spontaneously created by resemblance in race,

language, religion and customs.

That final permanent international peace can come, however, only on the

basis of world-wide like-mindedness is the chief contention of this

essay. If this contention is correct, advocates of international peace

must not only adopt policies calculated to produce like-mindedness,

but must not shrink from the endeavor to produce the central executive

organization—the natural result of like-mindedness, and in itself, if

established, a creator of like-mindedness.

From the standpoint of producing like-mindedness it is of comparatively

small moment what one of a number of possible projects is used for the

initial attempt. It is of supreme importance only that the project chosen

should be the one most likely to succeed in evolving common response and

cooperation.

[Sidenote: Action be taken towards securing this like-mindedness.]

The practical suggestions which follow, therefore, are based on these

two notions: first, the desirability of creating like-mindedness among

the peoples of the world on a plane above race, religion, language and

customs; and second, the desirability of creating a central executive

organization, so far as possible responsible to the peoples behind each

national government, rather than responsible to constituent governments.

They suggest action on the basis of combining the two most stable forms

of harmonious organization, namely, the sympathy form growing out of

like-mindedness, and the democratic-control-expert-executive form of the

utility type.

The first suggestion under the principles thus outlined is that there

be established a world consular staff, to assume some at least of the

functions of the present national consular services. The first duty

undertaken by a world consular service would be to systematize, for

the benefit of business the world over, such investigations as are now

carried on in a somewhat haphazard way by each national consular service.

By centralization, much duplication of effort would be eliminated and a

much more comprehensive plan of investigation carried out. The results,

as now, would be available for all business men of all nationalities.

From the beginning, so far as possible, the chief executives of such a

consular staff should be elected by the people of each nation, rather

than appointed by governments—the purpose of this being to create in each

voter the world over, some sense of participation in a world-undertaking,

and to some extent a sympathy with other voters the world over. The

cost both of the consular service and of the election of the executive

officers of the service should be met, not by appropriations from

national governments, but by a fixed percentage of the revenues of each

nation. The usefulness of the service itself to all the people of the

world would be, eventually, the guarantee that the contribution of this

percentage would be maintained. Proposed changes in the percentage would

ultimately have to be submitted to the voters of all peoples.

[Sidenote: A world consular service.]

The suggestion as thus outlined is an ideal not likely to be soon

realized, but it is possible that some beginning toward a world consular

service could be provided for by the peace treaty to be signed at the

close of the present war. Such a beginning might well be a provisional

world-chamber of commerce, organized on the basis of constituent national

chambers, the character and organization of which should be provided

for in the treaty. The subject will hardly receive notice during the

peace negotiations, however, unless, as the result of previous publicity

and discussion, the possibilities of world organization latent in the

proposition are fully realized.

[Sidenote: World-bureaus for conservation and human betterment.]

The second suggestion for the production of world-wide like-mindedness is

that there be undertaken a world investigation into the natural resources

of the earth, and that a central world-conservation investigation

commission be created. At the present time the conservation movement is

organized on national rather than on world-wide lines, and the natural

result is to strengthen local rather than international sympathy. The

principle of scientific management would become much more effective if

adopted from a world standpoint. Moreover, there is no reason why the

results of a world-wide conservation investigation should not produce

recommendations that, through appeals to the peoples back of the national

governments, the governments themselves would be forced to heed. The

machinery for the conservation investigation might develop out of the

world consular service or become a part of the work of that service.

The third suggestion for the production of world-wide like-mindedness is

that there be established a central bureau of advice and information on

all “human betterment” projects. Thus far we have not advanced beyond

the point of developing national bureaus of commerce and labor, hygiene,

child welfare and other similar interests, and of holding “international

congresses.” A permanent world bureau would be far more systematic in

the dissemination of knowledge of successful experiments. It would also

tend to create world sympathy. With increasing prestige the bureau would

naturally extend its functions to those of recommendation and advice to

national and local governments.

The fourth suggestion is that there be established a permanent world

commission on international migration. At the present time problems of

migration, such, for example, as those of the Japanese and Chinese to the

United States, are settled by the nations primarily interested, without

recognition of the fact that migration is essentially a world problem

in which all humanity has an interest. The local problems of migration

that arise from time to time are but a part of an age-long movement of

population which is gradually producing an equilibrium between density of

population and natural resources in every part of the world. Movements

between two nations, however, will never be settled on reasons other than

local. A world commission would at least work toward a world-policy in

this possibly the most important of world-problems.

[Sidenote: World-publicity, and world monetary-systems.]

The fifth suggestion is that these and all other projects for the

creation of the world-mind and centralized organization be furthered

by utilizing all the modern methods of the commercial “accelerator

of public opinion,” the publicity agent and the advertiser versed

in psychologically efficient methods. There should be an adequate

world-publicity service, the task of which should be to develop

like responses to the proposed projects in the populations back of

governments, and by publicity methods to develop that like-mindedness

which is essential for world-wide organization on the sympathy basis.

The development of many other projects similar to those outlined

above, it is apparent, would inevitably tend toward the production

of centralized organization with many departments. Separate world

organizations for different purposes could not long exist without

integration. The central organization would inevitably assume the duties

of the international postal union; it would create a world monetary

system; and it would assume the functions of an international court.

With increasing prestige, such an organization would gain greater and

greater moral power. Resting on like-mindedness in the populations back

of national governments, it would ultimately develop a world-loyalty

and find its recommendations enforced by the moral sense of the world.

Force, except for local police purposes, would not be needed.

[Sidenote: Peace proposals should inaugurate like-mindedness.]

The final suggestion based on the preceding analysis is that the

principle underlying these projects be adopted as at least one of the

fundamental propositions for the guidance of peace negotiators at the

close of the present war. Peace should be established not upon the

basis of the interests of victorious nations alone, nor even upon the

combined interests of victors and vanquished, but upon the basis of

the future welfare of all peoples. The inauguration of policies for

the production of like-mindedness might well be provided for in the

peace treaty itself. National boundaries should not be set on a basis

which will intensify national self-sufficiency and aloofness, but on a

basis which will encourage inter-communication and the development of

like-mindedness throughout the world. Moreover, the choice of national

representatives for the peace negotiations should include men capable

of taking the world-view rather than the exclusively nationalistic

view. Representatives of the neutral nations should be admitted to the

proceedings. A popular demand that these representatives be of the

world-mind type should be created immediately by publicity methods. So

far as possible, practical projects for the creation of the world-mind

and world-organization should be provided for in the treaty of peace,

and as a guarantee of good faith no indemnity other than a pro-rata

contribution for the maintenance of these projects should be exacted.

Provision should be made also for permanently meeting the cost of such

projects, by agreement that a definite percentage of national taxes

be set aside for the use of the world organizations created by the

treaty. In short, an authoritative and intelligent beginning toward

world-organization should be made at the close of the present war.

_A. A. Tenney, “Theories of Social Organization,

and the Problems of International Peace,”

Political Science Quarterly, March, 1915._

PART III

TOWARDS THE FUTURE

THE NEW OUTLOOK

[Sidenote: The war, a Katharsis for humanity.]

No one dare predict just what the end of this world war will be, or when

that end will come. It is possible, of course, that this cataclysm marks

the end of centuries of progress, and it is possible that man in 1914

crossed over the watershed of civilization and is now to descend on the

other side towards steadily growing barbarism and the steadily extending

rule of force. That I say is possible; but I for one am an unconquerable

optimist. I prefer to read history differently and to see in this

appalling catastrophe what the Greek called a _katharsis_, a cleansing of

the spirit. I prefer to think of it as history’s way of teaching beyond

peradventure or dispute the fallacy and the folly of the old ways and the

old policies. Surely that struggle for the balance of power which the

historian Stubbs described as the principle which gives unity to the plot

of modern history,—surely that struggle has proved its futility. Surely

we can see the vanity of Ententes and Alliances and of a division of the

world into heavily armed camps each waiting for an opportunity or for an

excuse to pounce upon the other. Surely the international politics of a

Palmerston, or a Disraeli, or a Bismarck, striking and splendid as they

were in their own way,—surely those policies are put behind us and are

outgrown forever.

A democratic federated people can teach the world democracy and the

use of the federative principle. A people devoted to civil liberty

and to international honor, no less lightly held than the honor of an

individual—that people can teach the world the foundations upon which to

rebuild the shattered fabric of international law and of broken treaties.

[Sidenote: We must think internationally!]

The outlook before the people of the United States has changed. When

Joseph Chamberlain returned from South Africa his message to the people

of Great Britain was: “You must learn to think imperially.” The message

which any American alive to the world’s situation to-day must bring to

his fellow citizens is, you must learn to think internationally! Domestic

policies and problems are perhaps no less important than they have been

in the past, but by their side and for the immediate future surpassing

them in interest and in importance are the international problems and

the international policies of the people of the United States. For those

problems and for those policies we must prepare—prepare thoughtfully,

seriously, speedily; for when the war shall be ended, we may truly say,

as Gambetta said to the French people forty-five years ago, “Now that the

danger is past, the difficulties begin.”

_Nicholas Murray Butler, Address at 147th Annual Banquet of Chamber

of Commerce of the State of New York, Nov. 18, 1915._

ABOVE THE BATTLE

[Sidenote: The tragedy and heroism of self-sacrificing youth!]

O young men that shed your blood with so generous a joy for the starving

earth! O heroism of the world! What a harvest for destruction to reap

under this splendid summer sun! Young men of all nations, brought into

conflict by a common ideal, making enemies of those who should be

brothers; all of you, marching to your death, are dear to me. Slavs,

hastening to the aid of your race; Englishmen fighting for honor and

right; intrepid Belgians who dared to oppose the Teutonic colossus, and

defend against him the Thermopylæ of the West; Germans fighting to defend

the philosophy and the birthplace of Kant against the Cossack avalanche;

and you, above all, my young compatriots, in whom the generation of

heroes of the Revolution lives again; you, who for years have confided

your dreams to me, and now, on the verge of battle, bid me a sublime

farewell....

O my friends, may nothing mar your joy! Whatever fate has in store, you

have risen to the pinnacle of earthly life, and borne your country with

you. And you will be victorious. Your self-sacrifice, your courage, your

whole-hearted faith in your sacred cause, and the unshaken certainty

that, in defending your invaded country, you are defending the liberty

of the world—all this assures me of your victory, young armies of the

Marne and Meuse, whose names are graven henceforth in history by the side

of your elders of the Great Republic. Yet even had misfortune decreed

that you should be vanquished, and with you France itself, no people

could have aspired to a more noble death. It would have crowned the life

of that great people of the Crusades—it would have been their supreme

victory. Conquerors or conquered, living or dead, rejoice! As one of you

said to me, embracing me on the terrible threshold: “A splendid thing it

is to fight with clean hands and a pure heart, and to dispense divine

justice with one’s life.”

[Sidenote: But have the leaders done their duty by you!]

You are doing your duty, but have others done theirs? Let us be bold

and proclaim the truth to the elders of these young men, to their moral

guides, to their religious and secular leaders, to the Churches, the

great thinkers, the leaders of socialism; these living riches, these

treasures of heroism you held in your hands; for what are you squandering

them? What ideal have you held up to the devotion of these youths so

eager to sacrifice themselves? Their mutual slaughter! A European war! A

sacrilegious conflict which shows a maddened Europe ascending its funeral

pyre, and, like Hercules, destroying itself with its own hands!

And thus the three greatest nations of the West, the guardians of

civilization, rush headlong to their ruin, calling in to their aid

Cossacks, Turks, Japanese, Cingalese, Soudanese, Senegalese, Moroccans,

Egyptians, Sikhs and Sepoys—barbarians from the poles and those from the

equator, souls and bodies of all colors. It is as if the four quarters

of the Roman Empire at the time of the Tetrarchy had called upon the

barbarians of the whole universe to devour each other.

Is our civilization so solid that you do not fear to shake the pillars

on which it rests? Can you not see that all falls in upon you if one

column be shattered? Could you not have learned if not to love one

another, at least to tolerate the great virtues and the great vices of

each other? Was it not your duty to attempt—you have never attempted it

in sincerity—to settle amicably the questions which divided you, the

problem of peoples annexed against their will, the equitable division of

productive labor and the riches of the world? Must the stronger forever

darken the others with the shadow of his pride, and the others forever

unite to dissipate it? Is there no end to this bloody and puerile sport,

in which the partners change about from century to century—no end, until

the whole of humanity is exhausted thereby?

[Sidenote: The cowardice of fatalism!]

The rulers who are the criminal authors of these wars dare not accept

the responsibility for them. Each one by underhand means seeks to lay

the blame at the door of his adversary. The peoples who obey them

submissively resign themselves with the thought that a power higher than

mankind has ordered it thus. Again the venerable refrain is heard: “The

fatality of war is stronger than our wills.” The old refrain of the herd

that makes a god of its feebleness and bows down before him. Man has

invented fate, that he may make it responsible for the disorders of the

universe, those disorders which it was his duty to regulate. There is no

fatality! The only fatality is what we desire; and more often, too, what

we do not desire enough. Let each now repeat his _mea culpa_. The leaders

of thought, the Church, the Labor Parties did not desire war.... That may

be.... What then did they do to prevent it? What are they doing to put an

end to it? They are stirring up the bonfire, each one bringing his fagot.

The most striking feature in this monstrous epic, the fact without

precedent, is the unanimity for war in each of the nations engaged. An

epidemic of homicidal fury, which started in Tokio ten years ago, has

spread like a wave and overflowed the whole world. None has resisted

it; no high thought has succeeded in keeping out of the reach of this

scourge. A sort of demoniacal irony broods over this conflict of the

nations, from which, whatever its result, only a mutilated Europe can

emerge. For it is not racial passion alone which is hurling millions

of men blindly one against another, so that not even neutral countries

remain free of the dangerous thrill, but all the forces of the spirit, of

reason, of faith, of poetry, and of science, all have placed themselves

at the disposal of the armies in every State. There is not one amongst

the leaders of thought in each country who does not proclaim with

conviction that the cause of his people is the cause of God, the cause of

liberty and of human progress. And I, too, proclaim it.

Strange combats are being waged between metaphysicians, poets,

historians—Eucken against Bergson; Hauptmann against Maeterlinck; Rolland

against Hauptmann; Wells against Bernard Shaw. Kipling and D’Annunzio,

Dehmel and de Régnier sing war hymns, Barrès and Maeterlinck chant

pæans of hatred. Between a fugue of Bach and the organ which thunders

_Deutschland über Alles_, Wundt, the aged philosopher of eighty-two,

calls with his quavering voice the students of Leipzig to the holy war.

And each nation hurls at the other the name “Barbarians....”

[Sidenote: Come! Let us make a stand!]

Come, friends! Let us make a stand! Can we not resist this contagion,

whatever its nature and virulence be—whether moral epidemic or cosmic

force? Do we not fight against the plague, and strive even to repair the

disaster caused by an earthquake? Or must we bow ourselves before it,

agreeing with Luzzatti in his famous article that “_In the universal

disaster, the nations triumph_”? Shall we say with him that it is good

and reasonable that “the demon of international war, which mows down

thousands of beings, should be let loose,” so that the great and

simple truth, “love of our country,” be understood? It would seem,

then, that love of our country can flourish only through the hatred of

other countries and the massacre of those who sacrifice themselves in

the defense of them. There is in this theory a ferocious absurdity, a

Neronian dilettantism which repels me to the very depths of my being. No!

Love of my country does not demand that I shall hate and slay those noble

and faithful souls who also love theirs, but rather that I should honor

them and seek to unite with them for our common good....

[Sidenote: We are at heart all brothers!]

There was no reason for war between the Western nations; French,

English, and German, we are all brothers and do not hate one another.

The war-preaching press is envenomed by a minority, a minority vitally

interested in maintaining these hatreds; but our peoples, I know, ask for

peace and liberty and that alone. The real tragedy, to one situated in

the midst of the conflict and able to look down from the high plateaus of

Switzerland into all the hostile camps, is the patent fact that actually

each of the nations is being menaced in its dearest possessions—in its

honor, its independence, its life. Who has brought these plagues upon

them? Brought them to the desperate alternative of overwhelming their

adversary or dying? None other than their governments, and above all,

in my opinion, the three great culprits, the three rapacious eagles,

the three empires, the tortuous policy of the house of Austria, the

ravenous greed of Czarism, the brutality of Prussia. The worst enemy of

each nation is not without, but within its frontiers, and none has the

courage to fight against it. It is the monster of a hundred heads, the

monster named Imperialism, the will to pride and domination, which seeks

to absorb all, or subdue all, or break all, and will suffer no greatness

except itself. For the Western nations Prussian imperialism is the

most dangerous. Its hand uplifted in menace against Europe has forced

us to join in arms against this outcome of a military and feudal caste,

which is the curse not only of the rest of the world but also of Germany

itself, whose thought it has subtly poisoned. We must destroy this

first: but not this alone; the Russian autocracy too will have its turn.

Every nation to a greater or less extent has an imperialism of its own,

and whether it be military, financial, feudal, republican, social, or

intellectual, it is always the octopus sucking the best blood of Europe.

Let the free men of all the countries of Europe when this war is over

take up again the motto of Voltaire: “_Ecrasons l’infâme!_”

[Sidenote: Not revenge, but the re-establishment of justice!]

When the war is over! The evil is done now, the torrent let loose and we

cannot force it back into its channel unaided. Moreover crimes have been

committed against right, attacks on the liberties of peoples and on the

sacred treasuries of thought, which must and will be expiated. Europe

cannot pass over unheeded the violence done to the noble Belgian people,

the devastation of Malines and Louvain, sacked by modern Tillys.... But

in the name of heaven let not these crimes be expiated by similar crimes!

Let not the hideous words “vengeance” and “retaliation” be heard; for a

great nation does not revenge itself, it re-establishes justice. But let

those in whose hands lies the execution of justice show themselves worthy

of her to the end.

It is our duty to keep this before them; nor will we be passive and wait

for the fury of this conflict to spend itself. Such conduct would be

unworthy of us who have such a task before us....

[Sidenote: Take risks for the honor of humanity!]