The presence among us of the eminent statesman, the Secretary of State
of the United States, is indeed of great significance and surpassing
importance in the course of our political life, as a singular and
unmistakable token of friendship offered by that powerful republic, and
as a generous effort to create between the nations of America a stable
regime of true understanding and concord.
This work of peace, which is linked with an unvarying respect for the
rights of all without regard to the extent of their power, with the
close union of their interests, and with a political unity of purpose
which springs from the historical origin of the republics of America and
the analogy of their institutions, is outlined in a masterly manner in
the address which our illustrious guest recently delivered before the
congress of American delegates convened at Rio de Janeiro.
The general idea he has expressed therein of the principles of
democratic regime, of its severe trials and accidental mistakes, of the
virtues which sustain popular government, and of the public education
that must prepare and secure it, reveals to us the secret of the
prosperity and welfare of the freest and most flourishing republic that
has ever existed, and how it has reached the preponderant rank it now
occupies among nations.
The noble purpose of our powerful sister of the North, who with a
persevering and ever steadfast persistency presses on, is the endeavor
to combine continental interests lacking sufficient cohesion, and to
promote their common development, thus seeking to reach "the complete
rule of justice and peace among nations in lieu of force and war."
These words of Mr. Root contain, in their severe simplicity, a complete
statement of his mission of friendship and advice. He seeks to stimulate
the common aim of harmonizing the several interests on a permanent basis
upon which is to be established the uniform rule of our common
existence, the rule of justice never subservient to private and selfish
convenience; a barrier against the arbitrary and brutal decisions of
force, nearly always dissembled under plausible forms and motives of
international tradition.
There exists a fundamental sentiment which opposes the cumulus of
violence and usurpation, which in a great degree constitutes historic
international law and corrects the deductions made from purely
speculative theories,--a sentiment we accept without demur, and which is
asserted like the axioms that serve as the basis and foundation of all
reasoning and as a rule inspiring human actions.
This concept is that of a law of coexistence, an intuition of the
universal conscience, which all human society upholds by reason of the
sole fact of its existence.
But the completely empiric and egotistical manner in which nations have
understood and applied the right of sovereign independence in their
outward dealings, has, up to the present time, been the almost
insuperable obstacle to the universal establishment of a rule of justice
which governs, in a permanent and uniform manner, the concourse of
interests; each state following one of its own modeling, in accordance
with the power it holds and the ambitions it is thereby enabled to
pursue.
This tendency, whether open or covert, hardly restrained by the
formalities of modern civilization, which seldom succeeds in masking the
painful reality, has created the singular spectacle witnessed at the
present time,--that is, the undefined aggravation of a military
situation which absorbs the greater part of the resources of nations,
wrung from the labor of humanity.
The constant fear of armed aggression has brought about political
alliances of a purely transitory character, which assure nothing and, in
truth, mean nothing but the mutual imputation of violence and outrage,
unhappily but too well demonstrated as justifiable motives for
apprehension, by reason of the ominous antecedents of an international
regime founded on the supremacy of power.
This precarious guaranty, the fruit of an unsteady and purely political
combination which may undergo the most unexpected alterations, cannot
assure a stable situation, because it is not in itself the constitution
of a common, strong, and commanding law; but, on the contrary, is the
distrust of the efficacy of the latter and a certain traditional disdain
for a humane and peaceful solution of international affairs.
When the anxiety of danger or an unforeseen obstacle does not prevent
recourse to arms, war breaks out if the motive is simply the securing of
an advantage sustained by a military power which the country chosen as
the object of aggression cannot forcibly check.
True it is that at the present time wars are less frequent and more
humane in the manner they are conducted than heretofore; but their
causes are ever the same, and the intervals between them are only due to
the increasing number of military powers, and to the fear of consequent
complications of political interests which it is hazardous to provoke.
Treaties of peace since the seventeenth century, which recorded the
birth of the modern law of nations, have on some occasions passed
through real transformation in obedience to the law of evolution of
human societies, which favor equilibrium, not as established by frail or
artificial alliances, nor by combinations of the powerful, but by its
ethnical factors and the amplitude of the national life based primarily
on the progress of its institutions, in the ever-increasing intervention
of the people in their own affairs and the reality and soundness of its
political and civil liberty.
The definite establishment of an international juridical organ,
sufficiently authorized and efficacious in its action, is yet a future
event. Law in this respect has not as yet gone beyond the limits of a
sphere that is at most one of pure speculation,--a worthy ideal, it is
true, but one which in actuality has only succeeded in modifying the
forms of violence by recording in the customary code of nations a few
rules to lessen the brutality of the action, without eliminating the
arbitrariness inherent in the sovereignty of arms.
In the work of common security and prosperity that involves the future
of this continent, and once carried into effect, will signalize the most
effective advance in the law of nations, a prominent part belongs to the
great republic that has staked her power and fortune on peace. In this
work we have endeavored to cooperate in good faith and without reserve,
and in it, also, the ardent sympathy and the boundless confidence of the
Peruvian people will follow.
And since the unmerited honor has fallen to my lot to address myself on
this memorable occasion to the distinguished personage, to the high
dignitary of the nation which represents the greatest intensity of
national life on account of the unrestricted development of the human
faculties and the most certain and practical evolution of law among
nations, I believe that I interpret the unanimous sentiment of my
colleagues and of my country, in furnishing him the complete evidence of
our cordial adherence and of our faith in the work intrusted to his
talents and to his high character.