they are inclined to believe that opinion is defeated in advance, and
the majority of thinkers in all countries share their pessimism. There
is a lack of courage here as well as of clear thinking. For just at this
time the power of opinion is immense. The most despotic of governments,
even though marching to victory, trembles before public opinion and seeks
to court it. Nothing shows this more clearly than the efforts of both
parties engaged in war, of their ministers, chancellors, sovereigns,
of the Kaiser himself turned journalist, to justify their own crimes,
and denounce the crimes of their adversary at the invisible tribunal of
humanity. Let this invisible tribunal be seen at last, let us venture to
constitute it. Ye know not your moral power, O ye of little faith! If
there be a risk, will you not take it for the honor of humanity? What
is the value of life when you have saved it at the price of all that is
worth living for?...
_Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas_....
But for us, the artists and poets, priests and thinkers of all countries,
remains another task. Even in time of war it remains a crime for finer
spirits to compromise the integrity of their thought; it is shameful to
see it serving the passion of a puerile, monstrous policy of race, a
policy scientifically absurd—since no country possesses a race wholly
pure. Such a policy, as Renan points out in his beautiful letter to
Strauss, “_can only lead to zoological wars, wars of extermination,
similar to those in which various species of rodents and carnivorous
beasts fight for their existence. This would be the end of that fertile
admixture called humanity, composed as it is of such various necessary
elements._” Humanity is a symphony of great collective souls; and he who
understands and loves it only by destroying a part of those elements,
proves himself a barbarian and shows his idea of harmony to be no better
than the idea of order another held in Warsaw.
[Sidenote: We are builders of the City of God!]
For the finer spirits of Europe there are two dwelling-places: our
earthly fatherland, and that other City of God. Of the one we are the
guests, of the other the builders. To the one let us give our lives and
our faithful hearts; but neither family, friend, nor fatherland, nor
aught that we love has power over the spirit. The spirit is the light. It
is our duty to lift it above tempests, and thrust aside the clouds which
threaten to obscure it; to build higher and stronger, dominating the
injustice and hatred of nations, the walls of that city wherein the souls
of the whole world may assemble.
I feel here how the generous heart of Switzerland is thrilled, divided
between sympathies for the various nations, and lamenting that it cannot
choose freely between them, nor even express them. I understand its
torment; but I know that this is salutary. I hope it will rise thence to
that superior joy of a harmony of races, which may be a noble example for
the rest of Europe. It is the duty of Switzerland now to stand in the
midst of the tempest, like an island of justice and of peace, where, as
in the great monasteries of the early Middle Ages, the spirit may find a
refuge from unbridled force; where the fainting swimmers of all nations,
those who are weary of hatred, may persist, in spite of all the wrongs
they have seen and suffered, in loving all men as their brothers.
I know that such thoughts have little chance of being heard to-day. Young
Europe, burning with the fever of battle, will smile with disdain and
show its fangs like a young wolf. But when the access of fever has spent
itself, wounded and less proud of its voracious heroism, it will come to
itself again.
Moreover I do not speak to convince it. I speak but to solace my
conscience ... and I know that at the same time I shall solace the
hearts of thousands of others who, in all countries, cannot or dare not
speak themselves.
_Romain Rolland, in Journal de Genève, September 15, 1914._
THE NEW IDEALISM
[Sidenote: Germany wishes lasting peace.]
What wishes may we have for the future? What tasks and what prospects
does the New Year unroll before us? Naturally, our first wish is for a
decisive victory,—a victory which will bring us an honorable peace. A
discussion of how the conditions of peace should be drawn up seems to
us premature, in fact it runs counter to our feeling; for we are still
too much under the tension and excitement of the fight to pursue such
thoughts. However, it may be said that the German people unanimously
desire a settlement which will guarantee a lasting peace and which
will prevent further wars. Moreover, the wish is general that, when it
is time for peace negotiations, not only professional diplomats, but
also representatives of the various professions and industries shall
be consulted. Just as war is an affair of the whole people, so, in its
conclusion, the voice of the whole people should have due weight.
[Sidenote: Life must be reinvigorated after the war.]
Closely bound up with the desire for an honorable peace is the hope
that the mighty spiritual movement, which the war has called forth, may
continue to influence German life after the war. This war must be the
starting-point of a new epoch. The tremendous sacrifices which it entails
will be justified only in case new life comes forth out of loss and death
and the achievements of the moment are transformed into permanent gain.
In this connection we think, first of all, of the wonderful consciousness
of unity which the war has awakened. The long history of the German
people furnishes no counterpart of such a unity of sentiment as we enjoy
to-day. We must now see to it that this unanimity of purpose is deeply
implanted in German life. Since, through common effort, so much has been
accomplished during the war, when peace has been re-established, no one
should be prevented from cooperating in the solution of our common tasks.
In the future there should be no discrimination on account of political
partisanship, whether in the pursuit of a profession or in the holding of
a public office.
But especially must we hope that the sense of belonging together,
the sense of being dependent on each other, the sense of being under
obligation to each other will persist beyond the war into peace. It is,
however, not only for the feelings of the individuals, but also for our
national life, that we should seek to win lasting gain from the storms
of the present. All the earnestness and all the mighty force, which we
have now exerted, must be used in an energetic fight against all that has
threatened to lower our standards of life.
Such a reinvigoration of German idealism parallels a similar movement
which has spread throughout the whole of humanity. Old forms of life have
often been found too narrow; they have, moreover, frequently lost their
basis in our minds. Therefore, the position of man in the universe has
seemed obscure and the purpose of his life has become very uncertain. On
the other hand, there now awakens a deep longing for the restrengthening,
deepening and inner renewal of life.
[Sidenote: German life must not be narrowly national.]
As Germans, we must consider our attitude towards the world of as much
importance as our attitude towards ourselves. We must not allow ourselves
to indulge in a narrow national life. We must not, and shall not, have
a false racial pride. On the contrary, we must ceaselessly broaden our
lives, steadily preserving our inter-relations with all mankind. Our
great nation cannot attain its proper level without keeping the whole
of humanity in mind. We wish to think highly enough of ourselves to
believe that we are capable of drawing to ourselves everything great and
good, that has arisen or shall arise anywhere, so that we may use it
in building up the ethical civilization (Wesenkultur) which our nature
demands.
_Rudolf Eucken, “German Thoughts and Wishes for the New Year, 1915.”_
THE FUTURE OF PATRIOTISM
[Sidenote: Patriotism is a retreat to what seems secure and protecting.]
There is another way of looking at this matter which will appeal to those
who are speculating upon the future of mankind. Any one who thinks about
the possibility of a world state is stopped to-day by the fact that there
is no world patriotism to support it. How are we to transfer allegiance
from the national to the international State?
The answer depends upon an analysis of nationality. I have described it
as a retreat to the authority and flavor of our earliest associations, as
a defensive-offensive reaction to what seems to us secure. Our loyalty
turns to what we associate with our protection and our ambitions. The
reason we are not loyal to mankind in general or to The Hague or to
internationalism is that these conceptions are cold and abstract beside
the warmth of the country and place where we were born. Impressed by
the fear of Russian invasion, the internationalism of German socialists
vanished. Internationalism offered no protection. The German army did.
To be a German was to be part of a tangible group with power; to be a
citizen of the world was to be homeless everywhere.
[Sidenote: Patriotism cries to-day for expansion.]
And yet we find Canadians and Australians and New Zealanders fighting
and dying for a thing called the British Empire, a vague, formless
organization of one-quarter of the human race. What is it that has
produced this super-national patriotism? Nothing less, it seems to me,
than a realization that the protection and growth of the Dominions is
bound up with the strength of the Empire. Home is the place where you are
safe; loyalty reaches back to the source of your security. That is why
danger has welded the British Empire instead of disintegrating it.
Imagine the Empire shattered, its navy gone, and the Dominions left to
fetch for themselves. What would Canada and Australia do? They would, it
seems to me, develop a great loyalty to the United States. They would
not face the world alone. They would have to find some larger political
organization in which they could feel secure.
In other words, loyalty overflows the national State because in the world
to-day the national State is no longer a sufficient protection. People
have got to a point in their development where isolation terrifies them.
They want to be members of a stronger group. In Europe they turned to
a system of alliances because no nation dared to stand alone. We have
turned in this country in part to an understanding with Great Britain, in
part to the Latin-American States. All of which proves that patriotism is
not a fixed quantity, that it is not attached to the map as it was drawn
when we were at school, and that it is not only capable of expansion, but
is crying for it.
Fear has almost always played a large part in welding States together.
The fear of England was a great argument for federal union under our
Constitution; the sense of weakness in the presence of unfriendly
neighbors undoubtedly helped to break down the separatism of the little
German principalities. Just as the appearance of an enemy tends to blot
out political differences within a nation, so it will often unite a
number of nations. The rise of Germany had that effect on the Great
Powers of Europe; the fear of her created a league almost coextensive
with western civilization. It covered up the feud between France and
England which comes down through the centuries; it jolted together an
understanding with Russia, the great bogy of liberals.
It is not pleasant to think of fear as one of the most powerful forces
that unify mankind. It would be more gratifying to think that cooperation
was always spontaneous and free. But the facts will not justify this
belief. The inner impulse to compose differences seems often to work
most actively when there is pressure from without. Forced by danger
to cooperate, men seem to discover the advantages of cooperation. The
Germans are daily discovering good qualities in the Turks; the British
are seeing deeper into the souls of Russians....
The only way in which, world organization can command a world patriotism
is by proving its usefulness. If it affords a protection and produces a
prosperity such as the national State cannot produce, it will begin to
draw upon the emotions of men. If they are capable of loving anything
so abstract and complicated as the British Empire, or even the United
States, they are not incapable of attaching themselves to a still larger
State. For the moment it was evident that patriotism could embrace
something more extensive and abstract than a village which a man might
know personally, world organization ceased to be an idle dream. If men
could be citizens of an empire scattered over all the seas, there was
no longer anything inconceivable about their becoming citizens of a
State which covered modern civilization. The idea has ceased to be a
psychological impossibility.
[Sidenote: Problem is to broaden the basis of loyalty.]
Our problem is to broaden the basis of loyalty. And for that task we have
considerable experience to guide us. Within a hundred and twenty-five
years we have seen the welding together of the United States, Germany,
Italy, and Austria-Hungary. We have seen small rival States converted
into members of federal unions. We have watched patriotism expand from
the local unit to the larger one. We have seen Massachusetts patriots
converted into American patriots, Bavarians into Germans, Venetians into
Italians. In the last few years we have been witnessing the growth of an
imperial patriotism within the British Empire.
[Sidenote: Loyalty will not stop at existing frontiers.]
There is, so far as I can see, not the least ground for supposing that
the broadening of loyalty must stop at the existing frontiers. The task
of the great unifiers, like Hamilton, Cavour, and Bismarck, looked just
as difficult in their day as ours does now. They had States’ rights,
sovereignty, traditional jealousy, and economic conflicts to overcome.
They conquered them. Who dares to say that we must fail?...
Loyalty is a fluctuating force, not attached by any necessity to some one
spot on the map or contained within some precise frontier. Loyalty seeks
an authority to which it can be loyal, and when it finds an authority
which gives security and progress and opportunity it fastens itself
there. The problem of world organization is to attach enough loyalty to
the immature World State to enable it to weather the inevitable attacks.
_Walter Lippmann, “The Stakes of Diplomacy,” pp. 172-188._
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION
[Sidenote: Our task is to extend the sphere of Law.]
What hopes dare we cherish, in this hour of conflict, for the future of
civilization?
The great, the supreme task of human politics and statesmanship is to
extend the sphere of Law. Let others labor to make men cultured or
virtuous or happy. These are the tasks of the teacher, the priest, and
the common man. The statesman’s task is simpler. It is to enfold them in
a jurisdiction which will enable them to live the life of their soul’s
choice. The State, said the Greek philosophers, is the foundation of
the good life; but its crown rises far above mere citizenship. “There
where the State ends,” cries Nietzsche, echoing Aristotle and the great
tradition of civilized political thought, “there _men begin_. There,
where the State ends, look thither, my brothers! Do you not see the
rainbow and the bridge to the Overman?” Ever since organized society
began, the standards of the individual, the ideals of priest and teacher,
the doctrines of religion and morality, have outstripped the practise
of statesmanship. For the polestar of the statesman has not been love,
but law. His not the task of exhorting men to love one another, but the
simpler duty of enforcing the law, “Thou shalt not kill.” And in that
simple, strenuous, necessary task statesmen and political thinkers have
watched the slow extension of the power of Law, from the family to the
tribe, from the tribe to the city, from the city to the nation, from the
nation to the Commonwealth. When will Law take its next extension? When
will warfare, which is murder between individuals and “rebellion” between
groups of citizens, be equally preventable between nations by the common
law of the world?
The answer is simple. When the world has a common will, and has created a
common government to express and enforce that will.
[Sidenote: The World is already one great Society.]
In the sphere of science and invention, of industry and economics, as
Norman Angell and others have taught us, the world is already one Great
Society. For the merchant, the banker, and the stockbroker political
frontiers have been broken down. Trade and industry respond to the
reactions of a single, world-wide, nervous system. Shocks and panics
pass as freely as airmen over borders and custom-houses. And not “big
business” only, but the humblest citizen, in his search for a livelihood,
finds himself caught in the meshes of the same world-wide network.
“The widow who takes in washing,” says Graham Wallas, in his deep and
searching analysis of our contemporary life, “fails or succeeds according
to her skill in choosing starch or soda or a wringing machine under the
influence of half a dozen competing world-schemes of advertisement....
The English factory girl who is urged to join her Union, the tired old
Scotch gatekeeper with a few pounds to invest, the Galician peasant when
the emigration agent calls, the artisan in a French provincial town whose
industry is threatened by a new invention, all know that unless they
find their way among world-wide facts, which only reach them through
misleading words, they will be crushed.” The Industrial Revolution of the
past century, steam-power and electricity, the railway and the telegraph,
have knit mankind together, and made the world one place.
[Sidenote: But it lacks a common will and emotion.]
But this new Great Society is as yet formless and inarticulate. It is
not only devoid of common leadership and a common government; it lacks
even the beginnings of a common will, a common emotion, and a common
consciousness. Of the Great Society, consciously or unconsciously,
we must all perforce be members; but of the Great State, the great
World-Commonwealth, we do not yet discern the rudiments. The economic
organization of the world has outstripped the development of its
citizenship and government—the economic man, with his far-sighted vision
and scientific control of the resources of the world, must sit by and
see the work of his hands laid in ashes by contending governments and
peoples. No man can say how many generations must pass before the
platitudes of the market and the exchange pass into the current language
of politics.
In the great work which lies before the statesmen and peoples of the
world for the extension of law and common citizenship and prevention of
war there are two parallel lines of advance.
[Sidenote: The ideal of Inter-State Law must be revived.]
One road lies through the development of what is known as International,
but should more properly be called _Inter-State Law_, through the
revival, on a firmer and broader foundation, of the Concert of Europe
conceived by the Congress of Vienna just a hundred years ago—itself
a revival, on a secular basis, of the great medieval ideal of an
international Christendom, held together by Christian Law and Christian
ideals. That ideal faded away forever at the Reformation, which grouped
Europe into independent sovereign States ruled by men responsible
to no one outside their own borders. It will never be revived on an
ecclesiastical basis. Can we hope for its revival on a basis of modern
democracy, modern nationality, and modern educated public opinion? Can
Inter-State Law, hitherto a mere shadow of the majestic name it bears,
almost a matter of convention and etiquette, with no permanent tribunal
to interpret it, and no government to enforce it, be enthroned with the
necessary powers to maintain justice between the peoples and governments
of the world?
Such a Law the statesmen of Great Britain and Russia sought to impose on
Europe in 1815, to maintain a state of affairs which history has shown to
have been intolerable to the European peoples. There are those who hope
that the task can be resumed, on a better basis, at the next Congress.
“Shall we try again,” writes Professor Gilbert Murray, “to achieve
Castlereagh’s and Alexander’s ideal of a permanent Concert, pledged to
make collective war upon the peace-breaker? Surely we must. We must, at
all cost and in spite of all difficulties, because the alternative means
such unspeakable failure. We must learn to agree, we civilized nations
of Europe, or else we must perish. I believe that the chief counsel of
wisdom here is to be sure to go far enough. We need a permanent Concert,
perhaps a permanent Common Council, in which every awkward problem can be
dealt with before it has time to grow dangerous, and in which outvoted
minorities must accustom themselves to giving way.”
[Sidenote: Peace will be based on Law.]
Other utterances by public men, such as Mr. Roosevelt and our own Prime
Minister, might be cited in the same sense; but Professor Murray’s has
been chosen because he has the courage to grasp the nettle. In his
words the true position is quite clearly set forth. If Inter-State Law
is to become a reality we must “be sure to go far enough.” There is
no half-way house between Law and no Law, between Government and no
Government, between Responsibility and no Responsibility. If the new
Concert is to be effective it must be able to compel the submission of
all “awkward problems” and causes of quarrel to its permanent Tribunal
at The Hague or elsewhere; and it must be able to enforce the decision
of its tribunal, employing for the purpose, if necessary, the armed
forces of the signatory Powers as an international police. “Outvoted
minorities must accustom themselves to giving way.” It is a bland and
easy phrase; but it involves the whole question of world-government. “Men
must accustom themselves not to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth,” the earliest law-givers might have said, when the State first
intervened between individuals to make itself responsible for public
order. Peace between the Powers, as between individuals, is, no doubt,
a habit to which cantankerous Powers “must accustom themselves.” But
they will be sure to do so if there is a Law, armed with the force to be
their schoolmaster towards peaceable habits. In other words, they will do
so because they have surrendered one of the most vital elements in the
independent life of a State—the right of conducting its own policy—to the
jurisdiction of a higher Power. An Inter-State Concert, with a Judiciary
of its own and an army and navy under its own orders, is, in fact, not
an Inter-State Concert at all; it is a new State: it is, in fact, the
World-State. There is no middle course between Law and no Law: and the
essence of Statehood, as we have seen, is a Common Law....
In discussing proposals for a European Council, then, we must be quite
sure to face all that it means. But let us not reject Professor Murray’s
suggestion off-hand because of its inherent difficulties: for that men
should be discussing such schemes at all marks a significant advance
in our political thought. Only let us be quite clear as to what they
presuppose. They presuppose the supremacy, in the collective mind of
civilized mankind, of Law over Force, a definite supremacy of what may
be called the civilian as against the military ideal, not in a majority
of States, but in every State powerful enough to defy coercion. They
presuppose a world map definitely settled on lines satisfactory to the
national aspirations of the peoples. They presuppose a _status quo_
which is not simply maintained, like that after 1815, because it is a
legal fact and its disturbance would be inconvenient to the existing
rulers, but because it is inherently equitable. They presuppose a similar
democratic basis of citizenship and representation among the component
States. They presuppose, lastly, an educated public opinion incomparably
less selfish, less ignorant, less unsteady, less materialistic, and less
narrowly national than has been prevalent hitherto. Let us work and hope
for these things: let us use our best efforts to remove misunderstandings
and promote a sense of common responsibilities and common trusteeship for
civilization between the peoples of all the various sovereign States;
but meanwhile let us work also, with better hopes of immediate if less
ambitious successes, along the other parallel road of advance.
[Sidenote: We must work for “The Principle of the Commonwealth.”]
The other road may seem, in this hour of dreams and disaster, of extremes
of hope and disillusionment, a long and tedious track: it is the old slow
high road of civilization, not the short cut across the fields. It looks
forward to abiding results, not through the mechanical cooperation of
governments, but through the growth of an organic citizenship, through
the education of the nations themselves to a sense of common duty and
a common life. It looks forward, not to the definite establishment, in
our day, of the World-State, but only to the definite refutation of the
wicked theory of the mutual incompatibility of nations. It looks forward
to the expression in the outward order of the world’s government of
what we may call “the Principle of the Commonwealth,” of Lord Acton’s
great principle of the State composed of free nations, of the State as
a living body which lives through the organic union and free activity
of its several national members. And it finds its immediate field of
action in the deepening and extension of the obligations of citizenship
among the peoples of the great, free, just, peace-loving, supra-national
Commonwealths whose patriotism has been built up, not by precept and
doctrine, but on a firm foundation of older loyalties.
[Sidenote: This is a world-principle.]
The principle of the Commonwealth is not a European principle: it
is a world-principle. It does not proceed upon the expectation of a
United States of Europe; for all the Great Powers of Europe except
Austria-Hungary (and some of the smaller, such as Holland, Belgium, and
Portugal) are extra-European Powers also. Indeed if we contract our view,
with Gladstone and Bismarck and the statesmen of the last generation, to
European issues alone, we shall be ignoring the chief political problem
of our age—the contact of races and nations with wide varieties of social
experience and at different levels of civilization. It is this great and
insistent problem (call it the problem of East and West, or the problem
of the color-line) in all its difficult ramifications, political, social,
and, above all, economic, which makes the development of the principle
of the Commonwealth the most pressing political need of our age. For
the problems arising out of the contact of races and nations can never
be adjusted either by the wise action of individuals or by conflict and
warfare; they can only be solved by fair and deliberate statesmanship
within the bosom of a single State, through the recognition by both
parties of a higher claim than their own sectional interest—the claim of
a common citizenship and the interest of civilization. It is here, in the
union and collaboration of diverse races and peoples, that the principle
of the Commonwealth finds its peculiar field of operation. Without this
principle, and without its expression, however imperfect, in the British
Empire, the world would be in chaos to-day.
We cannot predict the political development of the various Great Powers
who between them control the destinies of civilization. We cannot
estimate the degree or the manner in which France, freed at last from
nearer preoccupations, will seek to embody in her vast dominion the great
civilizing principles for which her republic stands. We cannot foretell
the issue of the conflict of ideas which has swayed to and fro in Russia
between the British and the Prussian method of dealing with the problem
of nationality. Germany, Italy, Japan—here, too, we are faced by enigmas.
One other great Commonwealth remains besides the British. Upon the United
States already lies the responsibility, voluntarily assumed and, except
during a time of internal crisis, successfully discharged, of securing
peace from external foes for scores of millions of inhabitants of the
American continent. Yet with the progress of events her responsibilities
must yearly enlarge: for both the immigrant nationalities within and
the world-problems without her borders seem to summon her to a deeper
education and to wider obligations.
[Sidenote: The responsibility of the British Commonwealth to hold the
scales of Peace, and to bring home to all the meaning of Law.]
But upon the vast, ramifying, and inchoate Commonwealth of Great Britain
lies the heaviest responsibility. It is a task unequally shared between
those of her citizens who are capable of discharging it. Her task within
the Commonwealth is to maintain the common character and ideals and
to adjust the mutual relations of one quarter of the human race. Her
task without is to throw her weight into the scales of peace, and to
uphold and develop the standard and validity of inter-State agreements.
It is a task which requires, even at this time of crisis, when, by
the common sentiment of her citizens, the real nature and purpose of
the Commonwealth have become clear to us, the active thoughts of all
political students. For to bring home to all within her borders who bear
rule and responsibility, from the village headman in India and Nigeria,
the Basutu chief and the South Sea potentate, to the public opinion
of Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions, the nature of the
British Commonwealth, and the character of its citizenship and ideals,
and to study how those ideals may be better expressed in its working
institutions and executive government—that is a task to which the present
crisis beckons the minds of British citizens, a task which Britain owes
not only to herself but to mankind.
_Alfred E. Zimmern, “The War and Democracy,” pp. 371-382._
TOWARDS THE PEACE THAT SHALL LAST
[Sidenote: War must pass away like human sacrifice.]
At every stage of warfare in the past, men and women in all nations have
endeavored to abate and lessen it. Their repeated endeavors have been
answered by repeated wars, until the present war in Europe completes the
works of death, desolation, and tyranny.
In spite of this, these protests against war are destined to succeed; as
once before in the history of the race, the sentiment of pity, of respect
for human life, called a halt to senseless slaughter.
There came a time in the history of the Greek and Jewish people when a
few set their faces against _human sacrifice as a religious rite_ of
their highest faith,—bound up, like our wars, with old fealties and
solemn customs and with their most desperate fears. Humble men and women,
out of sheer affection for their kind, revolted. In face of persecution
and ridicule, they warned their countrymen that in pouring human blood
upon altars to the gods, they wrought upon their kind more irreparable
wrong than any evil against which they sought to forefend. Finally, there
came to be enough people with courage and pity sufficient to carry a
generation with them; and human sacrifice became a thing of the past.
It took the human race many centuries to rid itself of human sacrifice;
during many centuries more it relapsed again and again in periods of
national despair. So have we fallen back into warfare, and perhaps
will fall back again and again, until in self-pity, in self-defense, in
self-assertion of the right of life, not as hitherto, a few, but the
_whole people of the world_, will brook this thing no longer.
OUR RIGHT TO PROTEST
[Sidenote: We have a right to protest against war.]
By that opportunity, now ours as never before, to weigh the case against
war and to draw the counts from burning words spoken by those who
protest and who are of all peoples—_we make single judgment and complete
indictment_.
By that good fortune which has placed us outside the conflict; by that
ill fortune by which the belligerent and his rights have heretofore
bestrode the world; by mine-strewn channels, and by international codes
which offer scant redress—_we speak as people of a neutral nation_.
By the unemployed of our water-fronts, and the augmented misery of our
cities; by the financial depression which has curtailed our school
building and crippled our works of good-will; by the sluicing of human
impulse among us from channels of social development to the back-eddies
of salvage and relief—_we have a right to speak_.
By the hot anger and civil strife that we have known; by our pride,
vain-glory, and covetousness; by the struggles we have made for national
integrity and defense of our hearthstones; by our consciousness that
every instinct and motive and ideal at work in this war, however lofty or
however base, has had some counterpart in our national history and our
current life—_we can speak a common language_.
By that comradeship among nations which has made for mutual
understanding; by those inventions which have bound us in communication
and put the horrors of war at our doors; by the mechanical contrivances
which multiply and intensify those horrors; by the quickening human
sympathies which have made us sensitive to the hurts of others—_we can
speak as fellow-victims of this great oppression_.
By our heritage from each embattled nation; by our debt to them for
languages and faiths and social institutions; for science, scholarship
and invention; by the broken and desolated hearts that will come to us
when the war ends; by our kinships and our unfeigned friendships—_we can
speak as brothers_.
By all these things, we hold the present opportunity for
conscience-searching and constructive action to be an especial charge
upon us; upon the newcomers among us from the fatherlands; and upon the
joint youth of all the peoples of the two Americas.
WHAT WAR HAS DONE AND IS DOING
_Its Blights_
[Sidenote: War has blighted Life.]
War has brought low our conception of the _preciousness of human life_ as
slavery brought low our conception of human liberty.
It has benumbed our growing sense of the _nurture of life_; and at a time
when we were challenging Reichstag, Parliament, and Congress with the
needlessness of infant mortality and child labor, it entrenches a million
youths with cold and fever and impending death.
[Sidenote: It has violated humanity.]
It has thwarted the chance of our times toward the _fulfilment of life_,
and scattered like burst shrapnel the hands of the sculptors and the
violinists, the limbs of the hurdlers and swimmers, the sensitive muscles
of the mechanics and the weavers, the throats of the singers and the
interpreters, the eyes of the astronomers and the melters—every skilled
and prescient part of the human body, every type of craft and competence
of the human mind.
It has set back our promptings toward the _conservation of life_; and
in a decade when England and France and Russia, Germany and Austria and
Belgium, have been working out social insurance against the hazards of
peace, it throws back upon the world an unnumbered company of the widowed
and the fatherless, and of aged parents left bereft and destitute.
It has blocked our way toward _the ascent of life_, and in a century
which has seen the beginnings of effort to upbuild the common stock, has
cut off from parenthood the strong, the courageous and the high-spirited.
_Its Injuries_
It has in its development of armaments, pitted human flesh against
machinery.
It has wrested the power of self-defense from the hands of free-men who
wielded lance and sword and scythe, and has set them as machine-tenders
to do the bidding of their masters.
[Sidenote: It has turned effort into destruction.]
It has brought strange men to the door-sills of peaceful people; men like
their own men, bearing no grudges one against another; men snatched away
from their fields and villages where their fathers lie buried, to kill
and burn and destroy till this other people are driven from their homes
of a thousand years or sit abject and broken.
It has stripped farms and ruined self-sustaining communities, and poured
into a bewildered march for succor, the crippled and aged and bedridden,
the little children and the women great with child unborn.
It has razed the flowing lines in which the art and aspiration of earlier
generations expressed themselves, and has thus waged war upon the dead.
It has tortured and twisted the whole social fabric of the living.
It has burdened our children and our children’s children with a
staggering load of debt.
It has inundated the lowlands of the world’s economy with penury and
suffering unreckonable, hopelessly depressing standards of living already
much too low.
It has rent and trampled upon the net-work of world cooperation in trade
and craftsmanship which had made all men fellow-workers.
It has whetted a lust among neutral nations to profit by furnishing the
means to prolong its struggles.
It has blasted our new internationalism in the protection of working
women and children.
It has distracted our minds with the business of destruction and stayed
the forward reach of the builders among men.
It has conscripted physician and surgeon, summoning them from research
and the prolongation of life to the patchwork of its wreckage.
It has sucked into its blood and mire our most recent conquests over
the elements—over electricity, and air and the depths of ocean; and has
prostituted our prowess in engineering, chemistry and technology, to the
service of terror and injury.
It has bent our achievements in transportation into runways, so that
neither volcanoes nor earthquakes, nor the rat-holes of famine, but only
the plagues can match war in unbounded disaster.
_Its Wrongs_
It has in its compulsory service made patriotism a shell, empty of
liberty.
It has set up the military independent of and superior to the civil
power.
It has substituted arbitrary authority and the morals of foot-loose men
who escape identity in the common uniform, for the play of individual
conscience, and that social pressure which in household and village, in
neighborhood and State, makes for individual responsibility, for decency,
and fair play.
It has battened on apathy, unintelligence and helplessness such as
surrender the judgment and volition of nations into a few hands; and has
nullified rights and securities, such as are of inestimable value to the
people and formidable to tyrants only.
It has threatened the results of a hundred martyrdoms and revolutions,
and put in jeopardy those free governments which make possible still
newer social conquests.
It has crushed under iron heels the uprisings of civilization itself.
_Its Evils_
[Sidenote: It has poisoned intelligence.]
It has turned the towers of art and science into new Babels, so that our
philosophers, and men of letters, our physicists and geographers, our
economists and biologists and dramatists, speak in strange tongues, and
to hate each other has become a holy thing among them.
It has made were-wolves of neighboring peoples, in the imaginations of
each other.
It has put its stamp upon growing boys and girls, and taught them to hate
other children who have chanced to be born on the other side of some
man-made boundary.
It has massed and exploded the causes of strife, fostering religious
antagonisms and racial hates, inbreeding with the ugliest strains of
commercialism, perverting to its purposes the increase of over-dense
populations and their natural yearning for new opportunities for
enterprise and livelihood.
It has not only shattered men’s breasts, but loosened the black fury of
their hearts; so that in rape, and cruelty, and rage, we have ancient
brutishness trailing at the heels of all armies.
It has found a world of friends and neighbors, and substituted a world of
outlanders and aliens and enemies.
It has lessened the number of those who feel the joys and sorrows of all
peoples as of their own.
It has strangled truth and paralyzed the power and wish to face it, and
has set up monstrous and irreconcilable myths of self-justification.
It has mutilated the human spirit.
It has become a thing which passeth all understanding.
STRIKING HANDS
[Sidenote: We must join in throwing off this tyranny.]
We have heard the call from overseas of those who have appealed to men
and women of good-will in all nations to join with them in throwing off
this tyranny upon life.
We must go further; we must throw open a peace which shall be other than
a shadow of old wars and a prelude to new. We do more than plead with men
to stay their hands from killing. We hail living men. As peace-lovers, we
are charged with the sanctity of human life; as democrats and freemen we
are charged with its sovereignty.
By the eight million natives of the warring States living among us
without malice or assault one upon another, let us leave the occasions of
fighting no longer for idle war boards to decide.
By the blow our forebears struck at barbarism when they took vengeance
out of private hands, let us wrest the manufacture of armaments and
deadly weapons from the gun-mongers and powder-makers who gain by it.
By those electric currents that have cut the ground from under the old
service of diplomacy, and spread the new intelligence, let us put the ban
upon intrigue and secret treaties.
For we hold that not soldiers, nor profit-takers, nor diplomats, but the
people who suffer and bear the brunt of war should determine whether war
must be; that with ample time for investigation and publicity of its
every cause and meaning, with recourse to every avenue for mediation
and settlement abroad, war should come only by the slow process of
self-willing among men and women who solemnly publish and declare it to
be a last and sole resort.
[Sidenote: America must lead the nations.]
With our treated borderland, 3000 miles in length without fort or trench
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which has helped weld us for a century
of unbroken peace with our neighbors to the north, we would spread faith
not in entrenched camps but in open boundaries.
With the pacts of our written constitutions before us which bind our own
sovereign States in amity, we are convinced that treaty-making may be
lifted to a new and inviolable estate, and lay the foundations for that
world organization which for all time shall make for peace upon earth and
good-will among men.
With our experience in lesser conflicts in industrial life, which have
none the less embraced groups as large as armies, have torn passions and
rasped endurance to the uttermost, we can bear testimony that at the end
of such strife as cleaves to the heart of things, men are disposed to lay
the framework of their relations in larger molds than those which broke
beneath them.
With our ninety million people drawn from Alpine and Mediterranean,
Danubean, Baltic, and Slavic stocks; with a culture blended from these
different affluents, we hold that progress lies in the predominance of
none; and that the civilization of each nation needs to be refreshed by
that cross-breeding with the genius and the type of other human groups,
that blending which began on the coast lands and islands of the Ægean Sea
where European civilization first drew its sources from the Euphrates and
the Nile.
[Sidenote: We must lead through our own ideals in the war on war.]
With memories of the tyranny which provoked our Revolution, with
the travail still upon us by which we in our turn have paid for the
enslavement of a people, with the bitterness only now assuaged which
marked our period of mistrust and reconstruction, we bear witness that
boundaries should be set where not force, but justice and consanguinity
direct; and that, however boundaries fall, liberty and the flowering-out
of native cultures should be secure.
With our fair challenge to the spirit of the East and to the chivalry of
the West in standing for the open door in China when that Empire, now
turned Republic, was threatened by dismemberment, we call for the freeing
of the ports of every ocean from special privilege based on territorial
claims, throwing them open with equal chance to all who by their ability
and energy can serve new regions to their mutual benefit.
With the faith we have kept with Cuba, the regard we have shown for the
integrity of Mexico and our preparations for the independence of the
Philippine Islands, we urge the framing of a common colonial policy which
shall put down that predatory exploitation which has embroiled the West
and oppressed the East and shall stand for an opportunity for each latent
and backward race to build up according to its own genius.
By our full century of ruthless waste of forest, ore and fuel; by the
vision which has come to us in these latter days of conserving to the
permanent uses of the people, the water power and natural wealth of our
public domain, we propose the laying down of a planetary policy of
conservation.
[Sidenote: For the sake of freedom.]
By that tedium and monotony of life and labor for vast companies of
people, which when war drums sound, goads the field worker to forsake
his harvest and the wage-earner to leap from his bench, we hold that the
ways of peace should be so cast as to make stirring appeal to the heroic
qualities in men, and give common utterance to the rhythm and beauty of
national feeling.
By the joy of our people in the conquest of a continent; by the rousing
of all Europe, when the great navigators threw open the new Indies and
the New World, we stand for such a scheming-out of our joint existence
that the achieving instincts among men, not as one nation against
another, nor as one class against another, but as one generation after
another, shall have freedom to come into their own.
_Jane Addams_,
_Lillian Wald_,
_Paul U. Kellogg_.
APPENDIX
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
1. INTERNATIONAL
NEUTRAL CONFERENCE FOR CONTINUOUS MEDIATION, STOCKHOLM
[Sidenote: Ford Neutral Conference at Stockholm.]
_To the Governments, Parliaments and Peoples of the Warring Nations_:
A conference composed of delegates from six neutral countries—Denmark,
Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States—has been
convened at Stockholm upon the initiative of Henry Ford to work for the
achievement of an early and lasting peace, based upon principles of
justice and humanity. This conference represents no government. It has
no official sanction. It represents the good will of millions throughout
the civilized world who cannot stand idly by while the deadly combat
rages unchecked. It does not attempt to impose its judgment upon the
belligerents, but its members, as private individuals, unhampered by
considerations which restrain governments, have resolved to do everything
within their power to promote such discussion as may tend to bring the
belligerents together on just and reasonable terms.
Through a thousand channels utterances have already reached the
conference pleading that a long continuance of the struggle will mean
ruin for all, but as both sides believe that only complete victory can
decide the issue, ever new sacrifices of blood and treasure are made,
exhausting the present and impoverishing the future. Still, we are
convinced that an agreement between the warring nations might even now be
reached were certain universal principles to be accepted as a basis of
discussion; principles which cannot be violated with impunity, whatever
the military results of the war.
The first duty of a neutral conference, then, is to call attention to
those universal principles and concrete proposals upon which agreement
seems possible, and upon which there may be founded a peace that will not
only satisfy the legitimate demands of the warring nations themselves,
but also advance the welfare of humanity at large. The neutral conference
does not propose to discuss all the issues at stake. Nor does it desire
to set forth a plan for the construction of a perfect world. But it
emphasizes the universal demand that peace, when it comes, shall be real,
insuring mankind against the recurrence of a world war. Humanity demands
a lasting peace.
In presenting this appeal to governments, parliaments and peoples for
discussion and comment the neutral conference hopes that no formal
objection may prevent its sympathetic consideration both by those in
authority and by the people whom they represent.
(_A_) _Right of Nations to Decide Their Own Fate._—History demonstrates
that dispositions contrary to the wishes of the peoples concerned bring
with them the danger of future wars of liberation. Hence the acceptance
of these principles appears generally to be regarded as an essential
prerequisite to the satisfactory settlement of this war; namely, that
no transfer of territory should take place without the consent of the
population involved, and that nations should have the right to decide
their own fate.
It follows that the restoration of Belgium must first be agreed upon
before there can be an understanding between the belligerent powers.
Furthermore, the occupied French territory should be returned. A
reconsideration of the difficult Alsace-Lorraine question is also an
absolute necessity. The independence of Serbia and Montenegro should be
assured.
In its wider interpretation, the principle of the right of nations to
decide their own fate postulates the solution of a problem like the
Polish question by guaranteeing the union of the Polish nation as an
independent people. Further applications would be the adjustment of the
frontiers between Austria and Italy, as far as possible, according to
the principle of nationality; autonomy for Armenia under international
guarantee, and the solution of various national questions in the Balkans
and in Asiatic Turkey by international agreement.
(_B_) _Economic Guarantees._—Economic competition is generally admitted
to be one of the causes of the present war. Hence the demand becomes
more and more insistent that the economic activity of all peoples
should be afforded development on equal terms. The recognition of the
principle of the open door in the colonies, protectorates, and spheres
of influence would be an important step in this direction, as would also
the internationalization of certain waterways, e. g., the Dardanelles and
the Bosphorus. The German colonies ought to be returned, the exchange of
colonies made possible by satisfactory compensation, and Germany’s access
to the Near East guaranteed.
(_C_) _Freedom of the Seas._—The principle of the freedom of the seas
should be recognized.
(_D_) _Parliamentary Control of Foreign Policy._—Effective parliamentary
control of foreign policy should be established, so that secret treaties
and secret diplomacy may no longer endanger the most vital interests of
the nation.
(_E_) _International Organization._—Far more important, however, for
the welfare of humanity than the solutions thus far suggested is the
creation of an international organization, founded, upon law and justice,
which would include an agreement to submit all disputes between States
for peaceful settlement. Hence the almost universal opinion that in the
coming treaty of peace the principle of such an international order of
justice must be accepted.
(_F_) _Disarmament._—Equally important with the insistence upon an
international organization is the demand that disarmament be brought
about by international agreement.
(_G_) _A World Congress._—In order to bring about the creation of an
international order of justice it will be necessary to secure the
adherence thereto of both belligerents and neutrals. The difficulties
that result from the present catastrophe do not affect the warring
nations alone. They affect the whole world. In their settlement the
whole world should participate. A world congress should therefore be
called together. Such a congress should concern itself with more than
the immediate questions arising out of this war. Problems like that of
guaranteeing political and spiritual freedom to special nationalities
united with other peoples, though not direct issues of this war, are
nevertheless of vital importance to the future maintenance of peace.
In the foregoing an attempt has been made to suggest a possible approach
to the task of uniting again the international bonds that have been torn
asunder in this fratricide war. Whatever may be the ultimate solution,
there is abundant evidence of the growing conviction among belligerents
and neutrals alike that the hope of the world lies in the substitution
of law and order for international anarchy. The neutral conference,
therefore, feels justified in hoping that the end of this war will
witness the institution of an international order of justice which shall
make possible an enduring peace for all mankind.
Easter, 1916.
CENTRAL ORGANIZATION FOR A DURABLE PEACE
The Hague.
[Sidenote: Central Organization for Durable Peace.]
An important international gathering was held at The Hague from the
seventh to the tenth of April, 1915. The meeting, for which arrangements
had been made by the “Dutch Anti-War Council,” who sent invitations to
a limited number of persons, was composed of more than thirty people,
belonging to the following countries: United States of America, Austria,
Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Norway, Sweden and
Switzerland. Letters of sympathy were also received from Denmark, France,
Italy, Russia and Spain.
The object of the meeting was not to suggest steps to bring the war to
an end, but to consider by what principles the future peace of the world
could be best guaranteed. After full discussion a minimum program was
unanimously adopted.
MINIMUM-PROGRAM
1. No annexation or transfer of territory shall be made contrary to the
interests and wishes of the population concerned. Where possible their
consent shall be obtained by plebiscite or otherwise.
The States shall guarantee to the various nationalities, included in
their boundaries, equality before the law, religious liberty and the free
use of their native languages.
2. The States shall agree to introduce in their colonies, protectorates
and spheres of influence, liberty of commerce, or at least equal
treatment for all nations.
3. The work of the Hague Conferences with a view to the peaceful
organization of the Society of Nations shall be developed.
The Hague Conference shall be given a permanent organization and meet at
regular intervals.
The States shall agree to submit all their disputes to peaceful
settlement. For this purpose there shall be created, in addition
to the existent Hague Court of Arbitration (a) a permanent Court
of International Justice; (b) a permanent international Council of
Investigation and Conciliation. The States shall bind themselves to take
concerted action, diplomatic, economic or military, in case any State
should resort to military measures instead of submitting the dispute to
judicial decision or to the mediation of the Council of Investigation and
Conciliation.
4. The States shall agree to reduce their armaments. In order to
facilitate the reduction of naval armaments, the right of capture shall
be abolished and the freedom of the seas assured.
5. Foreign policy shall be under the effective control of the Parliaments
of the respective nations.
Secret treaties shall be void.
UNION OF INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: BRUSSELS
_Secretary-General_: Paul Otlet.
[Sidenote: Union of International Associations.]
Project of World-Charter (“Charte Mondiale”), by M. Paul Otlet.
1. Court of arbitration and court of justice.
2. Council of inquiry and conciliation.
3. Council of States, taking in concert diplomatic, economic and military
measures. International armed force consisting of national contingents
under an international general staff.
4. International Parliament with two houses—the lower composed of
delegates from the various Parliaments; upper, of delegates from the
international associations representing the fundamental social forces.
5. No annexation and no right of conquest. Guarantee of rights of
minorities. Freedom of nationalities.
6. Democratic control of foreign policy. Suppression of alliances and of
secret treaties.
7. Considerable reduction of armies, and application of war budgets to
education, etc.
8. Freedom of commerce, at least in colonies.
9. Woman suffrage. Reform of education and of the press.
INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF PEACE (BUREAU INTERNATIONAL DE LA PAIX)
_President_: H. La Fontaine.
[Sidenote: International Bureau of Peace.]
1. Neutral States should be called to participate in the peace
negotiations, because a permanent peace ought to be guaranteed by the
signature of all the powers of the world.
2. No annexations must take place without the consent of the populations
concerned. In all the States of diverse nationalities the rights of
minorities must be guaranteed.
3. There should be established an international organization of States,
with permanent bodies and especially an international tribunal before
which will be brought international disputes.
4. Armaments must be reduced according to general agreement and placed
under an international control. All industrial establishments occupied
with the manufacture of munitions must be expropriated.
5. Diplomacy in all the nations must be put under the control of
parliaments and public opinion. All treaties and agreements which are not
made public and have the ratification of the representative bodies of the
nation are to be considered null and void.
6. All alliances, offensive or defensive, are to be prohibited.
7. To all colonies without distinction must be applied the principle of
the “open door.” No State shall be able to impose a tariff system on
another. The development of free trade through international agreements
must be furthered.
8. The public institutions and the honor of each nation are to be
protected against foreign insult by penal regulations internationally
devised and guaranteed by an international judicial body.
9. A new peace conference is to be called with the object of establishing
the permanent character of the institution and ensuring its automatic
reunion.
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF WOMEN
The Hague, Holland, April 28th, 29th, 30th, 1915
[Sidenote: International Congress of Women.]
In a preparatory meeting of English, German, Belgian and Dutch women,
held at Amsterdam (February, 1915), the following resolutions were drawn
up to be put before the International Congress:
I. _Plea for definition of terms of peace._
Considering that the people in each of the countries now at war believe
themselves to be fighting, not as aggressors but in self-defense and for
their national existence, this International Congress of Women urges the
Governments of the belligerent countries, publicly to define the terms on
which they are willing to make peace and for this purpose immediately to
call a truce.
II. _Arbitration and conciliation._
This International Congress of Women, believing that war is the negation
of all progress and civilization, declares its conviction that future
international disputes should be referred to arbitration or conciliation;
and demands that in future these methods shall be adopted by the
governments of all nations.
III. _International pressure._
This International Congress of Women urges the Powers to come to an
agreement to unite in bringing pressure to bear upon any country which
resorts to arms without having referred its case to arbitration or
conciliation.
IV. _Democratic control of foreign policy._
War is brought about not by the peoples of the world, who do not desire
it, but by groups of individuals representing particular interests. This
International Congress of Women demands therefore that Foreign Politics
shall be subject to Democratic Control; and at the same time declares
that it can only recognize as democratic a system which includes the
equal representation of men and women.
V. _Transference of territory._
This International Congress of women affirms that there should be no
transference of territory without the consent of the men and women in it.
VI. _Women’s responsibility._
This International Women’s Congress is convinced that one of the
strongest forces for the prevention of war will be the combined influence
of the women of all countries and that therefore upon women as well
as men rests the responsibility for the outbreak of future wars. But
as women can only make their influence effective if they have equal
political rights with men, this Congress declares that it is the
duty of all women to work with all their force for their political
enfranchisement.
VII. _Women delegates in the conference of the powers._
Believing that it is essential for the future peace of the world that
representatives of the people should take part in the Conference of the
Powers after the war, this International Women’s Congress urges, that
among the representatives women delegates should be included.
VIII. _Woman suffrage resolution._
This International Women’s Congress urges, that in the interests of
civilization the Conference of the Powers after the war should pass
a resolution affirming the need in all countries of extending the
parliamentary franchise to women.
IX. _Promotion of good feeling between nations._
This International Congress of Women, which in itself is evidence of the
serious desire of women to bring together mankind in the work of building
up our common civilization, considers that every means should be used for
promoting mutual understanding and good will between the nations and for
resisting any tendency to hatred and revenge.
RESOLUTIONS OF WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONGRESS AT THE HAGUE
I.—WOMEN AND WAR
1. _Protest._
We women, in International Congress assembled, protest against the
madness and the horror of war, involving as it does a reckless sacrifice
of human life and the destruction of so much that humanity has labored
through centuries to build up.
2. _Women’s Sufferings in War._
This International Congress of Women opposes the assumption that women
can be protected under the conditions of modern warfare. It protests
vehemently against the odious wrongs of which women are the victims in
time of war, and especially against the horrible violation of women which
attends all war.
II.—ACTION TOWARD PEACE
3. _The Peace Settlement._
This International Congress of Women of different nations, classes,
creeds and parties is united in expressing sympathy with the suffering of
all, whatever their nationality, who are fighting for their country or
laboring under the burden of war.
Since the mass of the people in each of the countries now at war believe
themselves to be fighting, not as aggressors but in self-defense and
for their national existence, there can be no irreconcilable difference
between them, and their common ideals afford a basis upon which a
magnanimous and honorable peace might be established. The congress
therefore urges the governments of the world to put an end to this
bloodshed and to begin peace negotiations. It demands that the peace
which follows shall be permanent, and therefore based on principles of
justice, including those laid down in the resolutions adopted by this
congress—namely:
That no territory should be transferred without the consent of the men
and women in it, and that the right of conquest should not be recognized.
That autonomy and a democratic parliament should not be refused to any
people.
That the governments of all nations should come to an agreement to refer
future international disputes to arbitration or conciliation, and to
bring social, moral and economic pressure to bear upon any country which
resorts to arms.
That foreign politics should be subject to democratic control.
That women should be granted equal political rights with men.
4. _Continuous Mediation._
This International Congress of Women resolves to ask the neutral
countries to take immediate steps to create a conference of neutral
nations which shall without delay offer continuous mediation. The
congress shall invite suggestions for settlement from each of the
belligerent nations, and in any case shall submit to all of them,
simultaneously, reasonable proposals as a basis of peace.
III.—PRINCIPLES OF A PERMANENT PEACE
5. _Respect for Nationality._
This International Congress of Women, recognizing the right of the people
to self-government, affirms that there should be no transference of
territory without the consent of the men and women residing therein, and
urges that autonomy and a democratic parliament should not be refused to
any people.
6. _Arbitration and Conciliation._
This International Congress of Women, believing that war is the negation
of progress and civilization, urges the governments of all nations
to come to an agreement to refer future international disputes to
arbitration and conciliation.
7. _International Pressure._
This International Congress of Women urges the governments of all nations
to come to an agreement to unite in bringing social, moral and economic
pressure to bear upon any country which resorts to arms instead of
referring its case to arbitration or conciliation.
8. _Democratic Control of Foreign Policy._
Since war is commonly brought about not by the mass of the people, who
do not desire it, but by groups representing particular interests, this
International Congress of Women urges that foreign politics shall be
subject to democratic control, and declares that it can only recognize as
democratic a system which includes the equal representation of men and
women.
9. _The Enfranchisement of Women._
Since the combined influence of the women of all countries is one of the
strongest forces for the prevention of war, and since women can only
have full responsibility and effective influence when they have equal
political rights with men, this International Congress of Women demands
their political enfranchisement.
IV.—INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
10. _Third Hague Conference._
This International Congress of Women urges that a third Hague Conference
be convened immediately after the war.
11. _International Organization._
This International Women’s Congress urges that the organization of
the Society of Nations should be further developed on the basis of a
constructive peace, and that it should include:
(a) As a development of The Hague Court of Arbitration, a permanent
International Court of Justice to settle questions or differences of a
justiciable character, such as arise on the interpretation of treaty
rights or of the law of nations.
(b) As a development of the constructive work of The Hague Conference,
a permanent international conference holding regular meetings, in which
women should take part, to deal not with the rules of warfare but
with practical proposals for further international cooperation among
the States. This conference should be so constituted that it could
formulate and enforce those principles of justice, equity and good-will
in accordance with which the struggles of subject communities could
be more fully recognized and the interests and rights not only of the
great Powers and small nations, but also those of weaker countries and
primitive peoples, gradually adjusted under an enlightened international
public opinion.
The International Conference shall appoint: A permanent council of
conciliation and investigation for the settlement of international
differences arising from economic competition, expanding commerce,
increasing population and changes in social and political standards.
12. _General Disarmament._
This International Congress of Women, advocating universal disarmament
and realizing that it can only be secured by international agreement,
urges as a step to this end that all countries should, by such an
international agreement, take over the manufacture of arms and munitions
of war and should control all international traffic in the same. It sees
in the private profits accruing from the great armament factories a
powerful hindrance to the abolition of war.
13. _Commerce and Investments._
The Congress urges that in all countries there shall be liberty of
commerce, that the seas shall be free and the trade routes open on equal
terms to the shipping of all nations.
Inasmuch as the investment by capitalists of one country in the resources
of another and the claims arising therefrom are a fertile source of
international complications, this congress urges the widest possible
acceptance of the principle that such investments shall be made at the
risk of the investor, without claim to the official protection of his
government.
14. _National Foreign Policy._
This International Congress of Women demands that all secret treaties
shall be void, and that for the ratification of future treaties the
participation of at least the legislature of every government shall be
necessary.
This International Congress of Women recommends that national commissions
be created and international conferences convened for the scientific
study and elaboration of the principles and conditions of permanent
peace which might contribute to the development of an international
federation. These commissions and conferences should be recognized by the
governments and should include women in their deliberations.
15. _Women in National and International Politics._
This International Congress of Women declares it to be essential, both
nationally and internationally, to put into practise the principle that
women should share all civil and political rights and responsibilities on
the same terms as men.
V.—THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN
16. This International Congress of Women urges the necessity of so
directing the education of children that their thoughts and desires may
be directed toward the ideal of constructive peace.
VI.—WOMEN AND THE PEACE SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE
17. This International Congress of Women urges that in the interests of
lasting peace and civilization the conference which shall frame the peace
settlement after the war should pass a resolution affirming the need in
all countries of extending the parliamentary franchise to women.
18. This International Congress of Women urges that representatives of
the people should take part in the conference that shall frame the peace
settlement after the war, and claims that among them women should be
included.
VII.—ACTION TO BE TAKEN
19. _Envoys to the Governments._
In order to urge the governments of the world to put an end to this
bloodshed and to establish a just and lasting peace, this International
Congress of Women delegates envoys to carry the message expressed in the
congress resolutions to the rulers of the belligerent and neutral nations
of Europe and to the President of the United States.
These envoys shall be women of both neutral and belligerent nations,
appointed by the international committee of this congress. They shall
report the result of their missions to the International Women’s
Committee for Constructive Peace as a basis for further action.
20. _Women’s Voice in the Peace Settlement._
This International Congress of Women resolves that an international
meeting of women shall be held in the same place and at the same time
as the conference of the Powers which shall frame the terms of the
peace settlement after the war, for the purpose of presenting practical
proposals to that conference.
CONFERENCE OF SOCIALISTS OF THE ALLIED NATIONS
London, Feb. 14, 1915.
I
[Sidenote: Socialists of Allied Nations.]
This conference cannot ignore the profound general causes of the European
conflict, itself a monstrous product of the antagonisms which tear
asunder capitalist society and of the policy of colonial dependencies
and aggressive imperialism, against which international Socialism has
never ceased to fight, and in which every government has its share of
responsibility.
The invasion of Belgium and France by the German armies threatens the
very existence of independent nationalities, and strikes a blow at
all faith in treaties. In these circumstances a victory for German
imperialism would be the defeat and the destruction of democracy and
liberty in Europe. The Socialists of Great Britain, Belgium, France, and
Russia do not pursue the political and economic crushing of Germany; they
are not at war with the people of Germany and Austria, but only with the
governments of those countries by which they are oppressed. They demand
that Belgium shall be liberated and compensated. They desire that the
question of Poland shall be settled in accordance with the wishes of the
Polish people, either in the sense of autonomy in the midst of another
State, or in that of complete independence. They wish that throughout
all Europe, from Alsace-Lorraine to the Balkans, those populations that
have been annexed by force shall receive the right freely to dispose of
themselves.
While inflexibly resolved to fight until victory is achieved to
accomplish this task of liberation, the Socialists are none the less
resolved to resist any attempt to transform this defensive war into a
war of conquest, which would only prepare fresh conflicts, create new
grievances, and subject various peoples more than ever to the double
plague of armaments and war.
Satisfied that they are remaining true to the principles of the
International, the members of the Conference express the hope that
the working class of all the different countries will before long
find themselves united again in their struggle against militarism and
capitalist imperialism. The victory of the Allied Powers must be a
victory for popular liberty, for unity, independence, and autonomy of the
nations in the peaceful federation of the United States of Europe and the
world.
II
On the conclusion of the war the working classes of all the industrial
countries must unite in the International in order to suppress secret
diplomacy, put an end to the interests of militarism and those of the
armament makers and establish some international authority to settle
points of difference among the nations by compulsory conciliation and
arbitration, and to compel all nations to maintain peace.
III
The Conference protests against the arrest of the deputies of the Duma,
against the suppression of Russian Socialist papers and the condemnation
of their editors, as well as against the oppression of Finns, Jews, and
Russian and German Poles.
CONFERENCE OF SOCIALISTS FROM SWEDEN, NORWAY, DENMARK AND HOLLAND, HELD
AT COPENHAGEN
[Sidenote: Socialists of Neutral Nations.]
The Conference states that Capitalism, in its imperialistic form,
expressed by the constantly increasing armaments, and by arrogant
politics of aggrandizement, supported by the secret and irresponsible
diplomacy of the Great Powers, have now led the world to the catastrophe
predicted and always warned against by the Social Democracy.
In this moment, when the world is struck with terror at the horrible
devastation this war has caused, the Conference desires to give
expression to the firm and strong will to peace, existing within the
nations represented at the Conference.
The delegates are of opinion that the chief aim of the conference is to
be the strengthening and uniting of that public will which, undoubtedly,
in all countries, demands the end of the war in such a way that a
permanent peace may be secured. To realize this aim, the conference
addresses itself to the democratic workmen, particularly to those of the
belligerent countries, pointing at the same time to those principles of
international solidarity and proletarian conception of justice which have
been sanctioned at all our international congresses. These principles
were expressed by the Congress of Copenhagen, 1910, in the following way:
The parliamentary representatives of the Social Democracy are bound to
work in order to realize the following aims:
1. International compulsory arbitration.
2. Restriction of the preparations for war ending in final disarmament.
3. Abolition of secret diplomacy with full parliamentary responsibility
as to foreign politics.
4. Recognition of the right of self-determination of nations, of
resistance to oppression and war-intrigues.
The Conference considers it the duty of all socialistic parties to be
active in order to render possible an early conclusion of peace, and to
work energetically in favor of such conditions of peace as may form a
basis of international disarmament and of the democratization of foreign
politics.
The Conference protests against the infringement of international right
in the case of Belgium and expresses a hope that the Social Democracy in
all belligerent countries will in the strongest way possible oppose every
violent annexation at variance with the right of self-determination of
the peoples.
The Conference, thus, reiterates the principles of peace of the
International, and summons the International Bureau to convoke the social
democratic parties to joint deliberation, if not earlier, at least at
the beginning of the negotiations of peace, in order to examine the
conditions of peace, because the Conference considers it absolutely
necessary that the conditions of peace be not stipulated without the
collaboration of the working men and women, or against their will, and
summons the working class in all countries to concentrate their efforts
in order to realize a permanent peace throughout the world. This war,
with all its horrors, has only been possible, because the Capitalist
class of the different countries still holds the power in its hands. The
Conference hence summons the Socialists to work with the greatest energy
in order to conquer the political power, so that Imperialism may be
ruined, and that the International Social Democracy may fulfil its great
mission of emancipating the people.
Copenhagen, Jan. 17-18, 1915.
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
2. UNITED STATES
LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE
OBJECTS
[Sidenote: League to enforce Peace.]
1. An International Court to try all justiciable questions.
2. A Council of Conciliation for consideration of non-justiciable
questions.
3. Use of joint economic pressure and military force against signatory
beginning hostilities contrary to terms of alliance.
4. Formulation and adoption of a code of international law.
The League’s proposal is that economic pressure and military force
shall be used to compel signatory Powers to take their international
differences to the court for adjudication rather than to the battlefield.
It frankly hopes to promote peace and aid its establishment by using
economic and military force.
NATIONAL PEACE CONVENTION,
HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE EMERGENCY PEACE FEDERATION, CHICAGO,
February 27 and 28, 1915.
[Sidenote: National Peace Convention.]
1. Foreign policies of nations should not be aimed at creating alliances
for the purpose of maintaining the “balance of power,” but should be
directed to the establishment of a “Concert of Nations,” with
(_a_) An international court for the settlement of all disputes
between nations;
(_b_) An international congress, with legislative and
administrative powers over international affairs, and with
permanent committees in place of present secret diplomacy;
(_c_) An international police force;
(_d_) The embodiment in international law of the principle
of non-intercourse, as the sanction and enforcement of
international obligations.
2. The gradual reduction and final abolition of national armaments should
be accomplished upon the adoption of this peace program by a sufficient
number of nations, or by nations of sufficient power to ensure protection
to those disarmed; such reduction should be graduated in each nation
according to the degree of disarmament elected in other nations, and
should be progressive until complete abolition is finally attained.
3. The manufacture of armaments for private profit should be prohibited,
and the export of munitions of war from one country to another should be
directly under governmental control.
4. The protection of private property at sea, of neutral commerce and of
communications should be secured by the neutralization of the seas, and
of such maritime trade routes as the Dardanelles and the Panama and Suez
Canals.
5. National and international action should be aimed at the removal of
inequitable trade barriers and other more fundamental economic causes of
war.
6. The democracies of the world should be extended and reinforced by
general application of the principles of self-government and of universal
adult suffrage.
7. No province should be transferred from one government to another
without the consent of the population of such province.
8. No treaty, alliance, or other arrangement should be entered upon
by any nation, unless ratified by the representatives of the people;
treaties for securing delay before commencing hostilities, and adequate
machinery for insuring democratic control of foreign politics should be
created.
WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION
Boston, Mass.
[Sidenote: World Peace Foundation.]
1. No territory should be transferred from one nation to another in
disregard of the inhabitants, nor any readjustment be made of which the
effect would necessarily be to sow the seeds of future war.
2. As the alliances and ententes of Europe have proved their incapacity
to safeguard the welfare of the people, the nations of that continent
should establish and maintain a representative council in order to insure
mutual conference and concerted action.
3. Competition in armaments should end. The nations should agree to
abandon compulsory military service and to limit military force to
purposes of police and international defense.
4. All manufactures of arms, armaments and munitions for use in war
should hereafter be national property. No private citizen or corporation
should be permitted to engage in such manufacture. The export of such
goods for use in armies and fleets should be prohibited.
5. No neutral nation should permit its citizens to make loans to
belligerents for war purposes. As our own State Department has said:
“Loans by American bankers to any foreign nation which is at war are
inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality.”
AMERICAN SCHOOL PEACE LEAGUE
[Sidenote: American School Peace League.]
1. _A Concert of Europe._ The surest method of establishing permanent
peace is to bring about a Concert of Europe, based upon the knowledge
that, with nations as with individuals, cooperation and not conflict is
the law of progress. In order to insure mutual conference and concerted
action, there should be organized a representative Council whose
deliberations and decisions would be public. This would mark the end of
offensive alliances and ententes which have proved their inability to
safeguard the real and permanent interests of the people.
2. _Nationality Must be Respected._ No territory should be transferred
from one nation to another against the will of the inhabitants, nor
should any readjustments be made which might breed fresh wars. National
boundaries should coincide as far as possible with national sentiment.
No terms of settlement should be regarded as satisfactory if they impose
upon any nation such harsh and humiliating terms of peace as would be
inconsistent with its independence, self-respect, or well-being. All idea
of revenge should, of course, be rooted out.
3. _Limitation of Armaments._ Since the policy of huge national armaments
has lamentably failed to preserve peace, competition in armaments should
end. The nations should agree to have no military forces other than those
maintained for international police duty. Militarism should be abandoned
by all nations, because they recognize the absolute futility of force as
a means of advancing the moral or material well-being of any country. To
facilitate the elimination of militarism, the conditions of peace should
stipulate that all manufactories of arms, armaments, and munitions for
use in war shall hereafter be national property. No private citizen or
corporation should be permitted to engage in such manufacture.
PROGRAM OF WOMEN’S PEACE PARTY
Organized in Washington, January 10, 1915.
[Sidenote: Women’s Peace Party.]
1. The immediate calling of a convention of neutral nations in the
interest of early peace.
2. Limitation of armaments, and the nationalization of their manufacture.
3. Organized opposition to militarism in our own country.
4. Democratic control of foreign policies.
5. The further humanizing of governments by the extension of the
franchise to women.
6. “Concert of Nations” to supersede balance of power.
7. Action toward the gradual organization of the world to substitute law
for war.
8. The substitution of an international police for rival armies and
navies.
9. Removal of the economic causes of war.
10. The appointment of our Government of a commission of men and women,
with an adequate appropriation, to promote international peace.
PROGRAM OF WOMEN’S PEACE PARTY
Washington, January, 1916.
1. That no increased appropriations for war preparations be voted during
the present session.
2. That a joint committee be appointed to conduct a thorough
investigation with public hearings, and report within the next six months
upon the following matters:
a. The condition of our military and naval defenses with
special reference to the expenditures of past appropriations;
b. The probability of aggressive action by other nations
against the United States by reason of antagonism with respect
to race, trade, national expansion, property holding in foreign
lands and other causes of war;
c. The possibility of lessening by legislative or diplomatic
action the sources of friction between this country and other
nations.
3. That action be taken to secure by our Government the immediate calling
of a conference of neutral nations in the interest of a just and early
peace. (To that end we endorse the principles embodied in House Joint
Resolution 38.)
4. That action be taken to provide for the elimination of all private
profit from the manufacture of armaments.
5. That action be taken which shall provide Federal control over
unnaturalized residents.
6. That action be taken to bring about the creation of a joint commission
of experts representing Japan, China, and the United States to study
the complex and important question at issue between the Orient and
the United States and make recommendations to the various governments
involved.
7. That action be taken to convene the Third Hague Conference at the
earliest possible moment and that all voting American delegates shall
be civilians who represent various important elements in the country,
including if possible the business, educational and labor interests
and women, and that the delegates from the United States be instructed
to advocate world organization and a peaceful settlement of all
international difficulties.
One change was made in the platform adopted by the party a year ago.
Economic pressure, instead of an international police, was urged as a
substitute for rival armies and navies.
NEW YORK PEACE SOCIETY
[Sidenote: New York Peace Society.]
In the platform of the New York Peace Society appear these five
“conditions of a permanent peace”:
1. A union of a sufficient number of Powers to guarantee permanent peace
by the maintenance of military force which can be used at need as a
police against any Power which threatens hostilities.
2. A treaty which shall not only arrange the boundaries of the States and
their colonies, but also guarantee the territories so established against
attack either from within or without the league.
3. The removal of enmities. (a) By making peace in a generous spirit at
the close of the present war, and before the forces on either side shall
have been completely crushed. (b) By respecting racial affiliations in
the adjustments of territory made in the treaty of peace.
4. A renewal of the conferences at The Hague, the meetings to be held
so frequently as to constitute a Standing Committee of the nations
for promoting measures of common interest, and for removing in their
incipient stages causes of contention.
5. A treaty agreement to refer all differences within the league for
adjudication either to arbitration or to a permanent court.
“The present war,” says the platform in part, “has made it clear that
the arming of all nations menaces the peace of all. A common reduction
of armaments under an international agreement seems to present itself
as the sole condition of tolerable security and welfare of all. Such a
consummation would give to humanity its own possible compensation for the
unparalleled tragedy of the war.”
SOCIALIST PARTY OF AMERICA
[Sidenote: Socialist Party of America.]
I. _Terms of peace at close of present war_ must be such as to protect
the nations from future wars and conserve the identity of the smaller
nations.
1. No indemnities.
2. No transfer of territory, except upon consent and by vote of the
people within the territory.
II. _International Federation—United States of the World._
1. Court or courts for the settlement of all disputes between nations.
2. International congress, with legislative and administrative powers
over international affairs, and with permanent committees in place of
present secret diplomacy.
3. International police force.
III. _National disarmament._
1. National disarmament shall be effected immediately upon the adoption
of the peace program by a sufficient number of nations, or by nations of
sufficient power so that the international police force developed by the
terms of the program shall be adequate to insure the protection of the
disarmed.
2. No increase in existing armaments under any circumstances.
3. Pending complete disarmament the abolition of the manufacture of
armaments and munitions of war for private profit.
4. International ownership and control of strategic waterways, such as
the Dardanelles, Straits of Gibraltar, and the Suez, Panama and Kiel
Canals.
5. Neutralization of the seas.
IV. _Extension of democracy._
1. Political democracy.
(_a_) The declaration of offensive war to be made only by
direct vote of the people.
(_b_) Abolition of secret diplomacy and the democratic control
of foreign policies.
(_c_) Universal suffrage, including woman suffrage.
2. Industrial democracy.
_Radical social changes in all countries to eliminate the economic causes
of war_, such as,
(_a_) Federation of the working classes of the world in a
league of peace.
(_b_) Socialization of the national resources, public utilities
and fundamental equipment of industry of the nations.
(_c_) Elimination of all unearned income.
(_d_) Immediate and progressive amelioration of the conditions
of labor.
V. _Immediate action._
1. Efforts to be made in every nation to secure the official adoption
of the above program, by the governing bodies at the earliest possible
date. The adoption of the program (contingent upon its acceptance by a
sufficient number of the nations to ensure its success) to be immediately
announced to the world as a standing offer of federation.
2. The federation of all the possible peace forces that can be united in
behalf of the above program for active propaganda among all nations.
3. Efforts through the international and the national organizations of
the Socialist party of all nations to secure universal cooperation of all
socialist and labor organizations in the above program.
DAVID STARR JORDAN’S RESOLUTIONS AS TO RATIONAL TERMS OF PEACE
[Sidenote: David Starr Jordan.]
Whereas, The Great War in Europe is working havoc without parallel among
the best racial elements in all nations concerned, thereby exhausting the
near future and bringing subsequent impoverishment to the race;
Whereas, An intolerable burden of sorrow and misery is thrown on the
women and children of Europe, those who had no part in bringing on the
war and no possible interests to be served by it;
Whereas, No possible gain, economic or political (the restoration of
Belgium being secured), can compensate any nation for the loss, distress
and misery involved in this war and aggravated by each day of its
continuance;
Whereas, No probability appears that military operations in any quarter
can of themselves bring the war to its end;
Whereas, A sweeping victory tends to leave an increasing legacy of hate,
with seeds of future wars;
Resolved, That the rational interests of the civilized world demand that
the war be brought to a speedy close; and
Resolved, That a way to honorable and lasting peace may be possible along
the following lines:
1. Recognition of the fact that no nation can establish rule or dominion
over any other civilized nation, large or small, that peace cannot be
maintained by the overruling power of any one nation, but rather by
international agreements of those nations which reject aggressive war.
2. Guaranteed security to the small States of Europe, with relief of
peoples held in unnatural allegiance.
3. The freedom, under international guarantees, of the High Seas and of
the channels of trade, with immunity of commerce from belligerent attack.
4. The removal of hampering tariff restrictions.
5. Compensation to Belgium, as determined by impartial arbitration.
6. The neutralization of Constantinople, with adequate safeguarding of
the rights of Christian and Jewish peoples within the Ottoman Empire.
7. An international conference to secure terms of peace; with reduction
of national armament, the establishment of a supreme international
tribunal, the maintenance of an international police force, accompanied
by recognition of the stability of International Law.
May 13, 1915.
SIX LESSONS OF THE WAR
[Sidenote: Nicholas Murray Butler.]
First.—That the various Hague Conventions, solemnly entered into in
1899 and in 1907, have been violated frequently since the outbreak of
hostilities, and that, obviously, some greater and more secure sanction
for such Conventions must be provided in the future.
Second.—That in not a few instances the rules and usages of international
law have been thrown to the winds, to the discredit of the belligerents
themselves and to the grave distress, physically and commercially, of
neutral powers.
Of course every one understands that international law is merely a series
of conventions without other than moral sanction. If, however, the world
has gone back to the point where a nation’s plighted faith is not moral
sanction enough, then that fact and its implications ought to be clearly
understood and appropriate punitive action provided for.
Third.—That any attempt to submerge nationalities in nations other than
their own is certain to result in friction and conflict in the not
distant future. Any attempt to create new nations, or to enlarge or
diminish the area of nations, without having regard to nationality, is
simply to organize a future war.
Fourth.—That the transfer of sovereignty over any given district or
people without their consent, is certainly an unwise, and probably an
unjust, action for any government to take, having regard for the peace
and happiness of the world.
Fifth.—That the international organizations which had been carried so
far in such fields as maritime law, postal service, railway service,
and international arbitration, should be taken up anew and pursued more
vigorously, but upon a sounder and a broader foundation, and made a
certain means of protecting the smaller and the weaker nations.
Sixth.—That competitive armaments, instead of being an assurance against
war, are a sure cause of war and an equally certain preventive of those
policies of social reform and advance that enlightened peoples everywhere
are eager to pursue.
_Nicholas Murray Butler, quoted in N. Y. Times, May 16, 1915._
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES
[Sidenote: Chamber of Commerce of the U. S.]
1. A more comprehensive and better-defined sea-law.
2. An international court.
3. A council of Conciliation.
4. International conferences for the better establishment and progressive
amendment of international law.
5. Power to enforce agreement: The organization of a system of commercial
and financial non-intercourse, to be followed by military force if
necessary, to be applied to those nations entering into the foregoing
arrangements and then going to war without first submitting their
differences to an agreed-upon tribunal.
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
3. GREAT BRITAIN
UNION OF DEMOCRATIC CONTROL
[Sidenote: Union of Democratic Control.]
1. No Province shall be transferred from one Government to another
without the consent by plebiscite or otherwise of the population of such
Province.
2. No Treaty, Arrangement, or Undertaking shall be entered upon in the
name of Great Britain without the sanction of Parliament. Adequate
machinery for ensuring democratic control of foreign policy shall be
created.
3. The Foreign Policy of Great Britain shall not be aimed at creating
Alliances for the purpose of maintaining the Balance of Power; but shall
be directed to concerted action between the Powers, and the setting up
of an International Council, whose deliberations and decisions shall be
public, with such machinery for securing international agreement as shall
be the guarantee of an abiding peace.
4. Great Britain shall propose as part of the Peace settlement a plan for
the drastic reduction by consent of the armaments of all the belligerent
Powers, and to facilitate that policy shall attempt to secure the general
nationalization of the manufacture of armaments, and the control of the
export of armaments by one country to another.
FABIAN SOCIETY
London, July 17, 1915.
PROPOSED ARTICLES OF SETTLEMENT
[Sidenote: Fabian Society.]
The signatory States, desirous of preventing any future outbreak of
war, improving international relations, arriving by agreement at an
authoritative codification of international law and facilitating the
development of such joint action as is exemplified by the International
Postal Union, hereby agree and consent to the following Articles:
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SUPERNATIONAL AUTHORITY
1. There shall be established as soon as possible within the period of
one year from the date hereof (_a_) an International High Court for the
decision of justiciable issues between independent Sovereign States;
(_b_) an International Council with the double function of securing, by
common agreement, such international legislation as may be practicable,
and of promoting the settlement of non-justiciable issues between
independent Sovereign States; and (_c_) an International Secretariat.
_The Constituent States_
2. The independent Sovereign States to be admitted as Constituent States,
and hereinafter so described, shall be:
(_a_) The belligerents in the present war;
(_b_) The United States of America;
(_c_) Such other independent Sovereign States as have been
represented at either of the Peace Conferences at The Hague,
and as shall apply for admission within six months from the
date of these Articles; and
(_d_) Such other independent Sovereign States as may hereafter
be admitted by the International Council.
_Covenant Against Aggression_
3. It is a fundamental principle of these Articles that the Constituent
States severally disclaim all desire or intention of aggression on any
other independent Sovereign State or States, and that they agree and
bind themselves, under all circumstances, and without any evasion or
qualification whatever, never to pursue, beyond the stage of courteous
representation, any claim or complaint that any of them may have against
any other Constituent State, without first submitting such claim or
complaint, either to the International High Court for adjudication and
decision, or to the International Council for examination and report,
with a view to arriving at a settlement acceptable to both parties.
_Covenant Against War Except as a Final Resource_
4. The Constituent States expressly bind themselves severally under
no circumstances to address to any Constituent State an ultimatum, or
a threat of military or naval operations in the nature of war, or of
any act of aggression; and under no circumstances to declare war, or
begin military or naval operations of the nature of war, or violate the
territory or attack the ships of another State, otherwise than by way of
repelling and defeating a forcible attack actually made by military or
naval force, until the matter in dispute has been submitted as aforesaid
to the International High Court or to the International Council, and
until after the expiration of one year from the date of such submission.