THE STATUS QUO.
In many recent discussions of international affairs these two
originally innocent Latin words "_status quo_" have attained a really
malevolent significance. They seem to be regarded as meaning the same
thing as the motto "Whatever is, is wrong," and some who talk about the
_status quo_ appear to be in the same mind as Omar when he longed
"To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire
............................. --and then
Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire."
It may be well to give some critical examination to this question of
the _status quo_ and to see what, if anything, is meant by the ideas
which lie back of these criticisms.
In the first place, the thought of the critics usually relates to
existing international frontiers and, in some instances, to existing
international conditions.
Now as to frontiers, if we look at the _status quo_ historically, we
find that it is practically universally the result of changes in a
previous _status quo_. The cause of these changes may have been war,
may possibly have been agreements and may have been something other
than either of these.[1] I shall refer to them later. But here it
should be observed that there is hardly any region of the globe where
the _status quo_ does not result from some one or more of these changes
within times comparatively recent.
Of course there are some exceptions to this observation, the Arctic and
Antarctic, for example; but in the populated regions of the globe, the
_status quo_, so far as frontiers are concerned, is a thing
comparatively new.
If we look at this existing situation, this _status quo_ of
international frontiers, we find that under modern conditions a {29}
comparatively short period of time is all that is necessary to give to
the _status quo_ the sanctity of universal consent, regardless of its
origin. Let me give an instance or two of this.
The Southern frontier of the United States, for part of its extent is
the direct result of a war between the United States and Mexico, a war
which by many, and I am among them, is considered to have been a war of
aggression. Now no one but a madman would believe that there ought to
be a change in the _status quo_ of the communities now existing in New
Mexico, which in 1850 was uninhabited country, by delivering them over
to Mexican rule. It is true that, during the World War, Germany
proposed to Mexico in the celebrated Zimmerman note[2] that this should
be done; but that incident only emphasizes the truth of my remark.
One of the most recent instances of a change in the _status quo_, so
far as the United States is concerned, is the case of the Virgin
Islands, which were bought from Denmark in 1916.[3] There was a change
made by agreement, made for a purchase price which was satisfactory to
the ceding country and made after a plebiscite of the inhabitants, who
voted almost unanimously for the change. Here, again, for reasons
differing from those of the foregoing instance, no one in his senses
would consider that the existing _status quo_ was not one of justice
and common sense.
Now, if we take the situation generally, we will find, in accordance
with the instances that I have mentioned, that the international
situation as to frontiers the world over[4] is, as to perhaps 99%,
either consecrated by usage which is the equivalent of common consent
or at least of common sense, or else is the result of agreement which
contains in it both elements.
The fact is, as any realist will admit, that every frontier, no matter
how absurd originally or even now, contains, in the very fact of its
existence, elements of stability and of reason which to _some extent_
justify its existence. The ordinary individual near a {30} frontier,
as distinguished from the agitator, becomes used to it. Business
transactions adjust themselves to it and in a very short time after its
creation any proposed change implies inherently a certain amount of
undesirability. It is impossible, perhaps, to imagine or to draw a
more absurd frontier than that between Switzerland and France in the
region of Geneva.[5] It is a monstrosity, geographically and
economically, and yet every one is contented with it or at least more
contented with it than with the idea of changing it. Naturally there
are certain attendant annoyances, as in a motor ride out of Geneva
which involves two or more Customs frontier examinations within a few
kilometres; and there are certain absurdities involved in catching
Swiss fish and French fish in different parts of Lake Leman; and one is
amused in reading Customs regulations which permit cows to pasture in
one country and be milked in the other without duty; but still every
one has gotten used to these matters and gets along with them.
So on the whole these two maligned words represent a rather peaceful
condition.
Before the World War the irritation produced in the minds of many by
the then existing _status quo_ largely related to the frontiers in
Eastern Europe and the somewhat similar irritation now existing among
alleged liberal thinkers is due to the frontiers created by the Peace
Treaties in general which are so usually and inaccurately referred to
as the Treaty of Versailles.
Here, I think it is fair to make a certain distinction regarding the
causes internationally of a given _status quo_ at any particular time
and of the existing situation in particular. These causes are two,
generally speaking--agreement and war. The instances in modern history
of changes in frontiers reached by free agreement are innumerable. I
do not see how any one who recognizes the existing state system can
object to them or believe that force should be used to change them. Of
course there are critics who object to the existing state system and
from {31} a theoretical point of view there is something to be said for
these objections. The real answer to them at this time is, that
whether they are good or bad, the present state system is one that, so
far as any human being can see now, is certain to exist for some more
centuries at least; and accordingly, outside of dreamland, we must take
this system as it is. Given that state system, agreements between
states as to their frontiers should be sacred. If a state can make an
agreement about its frontier, and then, because it made a bad agreement
or a stupid agreement or because circumstances changed after the
agreement was made, may go to war to set aside the agreement, the
result would only be international anarchy--the state system and
everything else would have disappeared together.
The other source of changes in the _status quo_ is war or strictly
speaking the treaties of peace that result from war. I pass by the
legal position, which is theoretically correct, that a treaty of peace
made by a vanquished Power with a victor is supposedly a free
agreement. This is true enough from the technical point of view but
has no bearing here. The fact is that when one side wins a war and the
other loses it, the treaty of peace is made under compulsion and
constraint.
The argument that is made by those who criticize the _status quo_ of
the Peace Treaties of 1919 and 1920 runs about as follows;
1. In certain respects the frontiers and arrangements created by
the Peace Treaties are unjust.
2. The setting up by the Peace Treaties of an international
organization against war is an attempt to sanctify the
wickednesses of the _status quo_.
3. Both the Treaties and the international organization which they
set up should at least be denounced and probably rejected.
This conclusion in various minds is different and uncertain,
but I think that I have stated it fairly.
Let us take these points up in their order.
As a preliminary, let me say that the Treaties of Peace in this
connection cannot include the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey.
Certainly at the time that that Treaty was negotiated there was {32} no
imposed peace on Turkey; as a matter of fact the Turkish negotiators
had things pretty much their own way with the Allies. So that we are
considering merely the Treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary and
Bulgaria.
In the first place, the question in many cases as to whether or not
there is any such thing as a "just" frontier is at least a very
doubtful one. I put it this way. If you have a situation where
reasonable, impartial and informed minds can differ, you do not have a
situation where it can be arbitrarily said by any one that any one
frontier is _the_ just frontier. Of course I am not talking of the
type of mind which insists that the particular line that he would draw
is the one and only line, despite the views of anybody else, because to
admit such a theory would mean the admission of the existence of
perhaps fifty different frontiers between the same two countries at the
same time.
Now as to the Peace Treaties, we certainly have that situation to a
very large extent. I do not see how any one could contend that the
existence of the Polish corridor is a perfect solution, nor do I see
how any one could contend that the absence of the Polish corridor would
be a perfect solution. One of the Polish Delegation said to me in
Paris in December, 1918, in substance, that it would be impossible to
draw a frontier between Germany and Poland which would not do an
injustice to one country or to the other or to both, and I believe that
his observation is perfectly sound.
The same thing is true as between Roumania and Hungary, and perhaps
more true.
My sympathies as to Vilna are rather with the Lithuanians than with the
Poles, but no one can read the documents without seeing that the Poles
have a case.
My own view has always been that the frontier between Poland and Russia
is too far to the East, but none the less the Russians, after a
fashion, agreed to it.
Most of those whose opinions I respect believe that it was wrong to
give the Austrian Tyrol to Italy. Despite those views, I have always
believed that the decision was defensible.
{33}
Different American experts of the highest qualifications, of the utmost
sincerity and of complete impartiality took different views as to Fiume
and the Italian-Yugo-Slav frontier generally. In such circumstances,
who could say, what tribunal could decide, the "just" frontier?
I am willing to admit that this uncertainty on the question of justice
may not exist in every case. I have always believed that some of the
cessions of territory forced on Bulgaria were utterly indefensible from
any point of view whatsoever. I refer, not to Macedonia, that
impossible jumble of contradictions, but more particularly to Western
Thrace.
My own view is that, on the whole and taken by and large, the existing
frontiers in Europe are more near to justice than ever before in modern
history.
But I am going to assume for the rest of this discussion that some of
these frontiers are wrong and should be changed. What is our answer to
that situation?
Let me point out in the first place that the mere fact that a frontier
was imposed by force resulting in a peace treaty is not necessarily
anything against it. Take the case of Alsace-Lorraine, for example; or
take a still more striking case, the case of Germany and Denmark.
Admittedly, in and out of Germany, the result as to Slesvig was just
and should continue.
Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that the _imposed_ origin of
a situation may not continue as the cause of that situation. It _may_
become accepted and voluntary, a full agreement. An instance here is
the reparations question. The _status quo_ as to reparations (a very
uncertain one) imposed by the Treaty of Versailles upon Germany, has
now, under that very Treaty, become an agreed _status quo_ by reason of
the voluntary adoption by Germany of the Dawes Report; for in reality
as well as in strictness of law that plan could not have been adopted,
much less be carried out, without the voluntary assent of Germany to
its provisions.
However, taking the frontier _status quo_ of the Peace Treaties at its
worst, that is to say at its alleged worst, admitting, in other {34}
words, that parts of it are unjust and are the result only of force,
what are we to say as to the future?
The possibility of change which, under the supposition that I have
made, would in itself be admittedly desirable, is along two lines, the
line of agreement or the line of war. The so-called fixation or
consecration of this _status quo_ under the League of Nations in no way
precludes a change by agreement, _the utmost that it can do is to
preclude a change by war_.
Accordingly, we are confronted at the outset with the question as to
whether the continuance of this _status quo_ is, or is not, a worse
evil than war. Even those who assume or who believe that war is the
preferable of the two must, in order to reach that belief, hold that
change by agreement is impossible. Such an assumption is contrary to
the facts of history, but for the sake of this discussion it may be
admitted.
In other words, I am willing to assume that a particular part of the
frontier _status quo_ is wrong, is unjust, and was brought about by
force, and should be changed, and that it cannot be changed by
agreement, and come directly to the question if, in these
circumstances, it should or should not be changed by war. My answer to
this question is: No. And I do not think it is necessary to put this
answer merely on the ground of the evil of the war itself, the death,
the destruction and so on. It is sufficient to support a negative
answer to point out that the effect of the war could not be limited.
War never is limited, it goes to lengths that have nothing to do with
the supposed injustice for which it is commenced.
Let me give an instance as a concrete supposition. Take the
Bulgarian-Greek frontier and suppose, as I do, that it ought to be
changed, and suppose further, as the advocates of war assert, that it
should be changed by war between Bulgaria and Greece; one of two things
would happen in all human probability. Either Greece would be the
victor and then not only would the boundary be as unjust to Bulgaria as
it is now, but much more so. Or else Bulgaria would be the victor, in
which case the injustice would simply be reversed; the frontier would
not move to any {35} theoretical point of justice, but would move to
the point dictated by the new Peace treaty.
In other words, war is not like a litigation which ends in the
settlement of a particular dispute. Any war, in its settlement, goes
far beyond the dispute which brought it about; every war opens up every
possible ambition and desire of the victor.[6] Did the World War end
merely in deciding the question about the rights of Austria and Serbia
in connection with the murder of the Archduke? Where was the fate of
the German colonies decided--in East Africa and in the Pacific, or on
the Western Front?
This whole question is of vital importance in connection with the
Protocol of Geneva. If that Protocol comes into force and is accepted
by Germany, by Austria, by Hungary and by Bulgaria, it will have this
effect at least; it will change what I may call the status of the
_status quo_ in regard to these countries to this extent, that in lieu
of that _status quo_ being one imposed by force, it will have become
one agreed to, at least to the point that it is agreed that the _status
quo_ may not be changed by war but only by agreement.[7] As a
practical example, it will mean, as we now see, that the German effort
to regain some of her lost colonies under the mandate system, will
again be an effort of negotiation[8] and not an effort of force.
All that the Covenant or the Protocol of Geneva attempts to do about
the _status quo_ is to say that frontiers shall not be changed _as a
result of aggression_. Indeed, the Protocol[9] protects even an
aggressor against loss of territory or of independence as a penalty for
its aggression; discussion, leading up perhaps to peaceful agreement
but to nothing else, is permitted by Articles 11 and 19 of the
Covenant, but that is all.
{36}
My view is that these provisions are sound and that they should not be
extended.
In saying, as I did, that the possibility of change in the _status quo_
is along only two lines, the line of agreement and the line of war, I
did not lose sight of the proposals made in various forms that there
should be some method under the League of Nations or otherwise by which
a tribunal of some sort would be empowered to make such changes from
time to time. Most of these proposals envisage plebiscites in one form
or another.
These proposals by their advocates are thought to have the advantage of
adaptability to changing conditions and to be more conformable to the
theory of the consent of the governed as a basis of Government.[10]
Of course, changes of frontiers made by any form of tribunal would in a
sense be changes of frontiers made by agreement among the parties; for
there would be necessarily an agreement in advance setting up such a
tribunal and engaging to conform to its conclusions.
It may perhaps be imagined that as between two particular countries
some such arrangement is possible along limited lines and relating to a
particular area or areas. I doubt even this possibility; but certainly
no general agreement in accord with such theories is possible and in my
judgment it would be highly undesirable if it were possible.
A tribunal which was charged with the duty of determining changes in
frontiers would clearly be a superstate, full-fledged, and in any sense
of that much abused term. Obviously, a change of frontier, if it went
far enough, might result in the substantial, or even the literal,
disappearance of one state by its incorporation within the territories
of another. It is inconceivable that any country would agree to such a
proposition. Even if it were limited very strictly, it would present
enormous difficulties and would certainly arouse fierce passions, as is
well illustrated by {37} discussion regarding the tribunal which is now
sitting to consider the frontier between Northern and Southern Ireland.
Nor would the matter be resolved by the suggested idea of plebiscites.
Anyone who will consider this question of plebiscites will realize that
the determining factor is not wholly the vote itself but to a large
extent the terms in which the plebiscite paper is written. He who
drafts the agreement for the plebiscite has much to do with what the
plebiscite will determine.[11] The questions are: Is the area to vote
as a whole or by districts, and where is the line of the voting area to
be drawn? The first of these was one of the great questions in the
Upper Silesia case. To apply the idea to an existing episode, let us
again refer to the case of Ireland. If the plebiscite were in the
whole of Ireland, it would go for Dublin; if it were in Ulster, it
would go for Belfast; if it were in Tyrone or Fermanagh, the result
would perhaps depend on the exact date when it was taken, as recent
elections indicate.
Another difficulty about plebiscites is this: Is their effect perpetual
or not, and if not how long does it last? If Tyrone votes for Dublin
today, is it an eternal decision or only till another vote in 1930, or
till when? There must be some time limit at least; plebiscites cannot
be held every year or even every five years, a fact which illustrates
the quiet advantages of some kind of a _status quo_.
Another question about a plebiscite is this: Let us concede that an
overwhelming vote such as took place in the regions of East Prussia
under the Peace Treaties is to be decisive forever. But suppose the
vote is very close; how about a vote where a little over half of the
population go one way and a trifle under half go the other? Is this
conclusive? Does it have the same moral effect as a larger vote? Is a
majority of one vote just as good as a majority of ninety per cent.?
{38}
In reality, the truth about these proposals for changing frontiers by
some sort of international procedure is that those who advocate them do
not believe in them as a general proposition. An Englishman who
believes in this sort of thing, for example, believes in it as regards
Macedonia or some such region; he does not for a moment think that such
a procedure should enable the people of British Columbia, say, to
become part of the United States. I do not mean to intimate that the
people of British Columbia have any such idea; but how is it going to
be possible to give the privilege (if it be a privilege) to people
along a few selected frontiers?
Another point, a fatal objection to such a scheme, is the inevitable
uncertainty which it would set up.
It may be a better thing to live in Manitoba than in North Dakota, or
to live in North Dakota than in Manitoba; but worse than almost any
conceivable place of residence would be a status which might change in
the future, so that one could not tell say five years ahead in what
country he was going to live. A frontier is not merely a line drawn on
a map or demarcated on the ground; a frontier means a _nexus_ of
customs, of laws, of traditions and of innumerable other things that
directly affect the daily life and conduct of every inhabitant. Any
lawyer who has had any experience in the matter will realize the
enormous difficulties that surround any transfer of territory merely in
connection with the drafting of the necessary papers[12]; and any
student who wishes to see how far-reaching the practical difficulties
may be need only consider the present situation in Alsace-Lorraine in
its bearing upon the relations between France and the Vatican.
The impossibility and the undesirability of setting up any system for
changing frontiers, such as has been discussed, are equally evident.
There is another phase of this general question of the _status {39}
quo_ which is sometimes discussed by those who seem to have a natural
antipathy to the words and that is what I may call the "raw materials"
phase. There is, let us say, no coal in Switzerland, and yet
Switzerland must have coal for her people to exist. There are no oil
wells in Norway, and yet in Norway there must be, if civilization is to
continue, automotive engines. It is obvious that there can be no
physical change in such a _status quo_. People who live in the
territory that is now Switzerland must get their coal somewhere else,
and motor transport in Norway must get its gasoline from other lands.
What is the international phase of such situations as this? There are
perhaps three possibilities. One is a war of conquest commenced by a
country in the situation of Norway in order to obtain dominion over
foreign oil lands; the second is some kind of agreement such as has
been suggested in a vague way by the Italians and others for some sort
of an international supervision in such matters; and the third is that
the situation shall continue as it is now--a matter of bargain and
sale, of supply and demand.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, among these three,
the first would be as impossible as it would be wicked; the second is
wholly outside the realm of practical politics for centuries to come;
the third is the _status quo_, which has not in any case of world peace
resulted in any serious injustice.
Of course, if we go beyond such cases as Norway and Switzerland and
take countries much less favored, it is always a mystery as to why
people live in them. It is very difficult to understand, for example,
why there are settlers in Labrador, or why people are fond of Greenland
as a home; none the less these things are so. And under the existing
system of exchange of commodities there has perhaps never been a time
when even the people who live in these countries without certain
particular natural resources have not generally been able to obtain
sufficient of them as a result of their own efforts in the occupations
which the character of those lands permits.
Of course some countries are naturally richer than others and {40} must
remain so. In the Delta of the Nile, the land produces as many as four
crops a year and sells for something like $3,000 an acre. Such a
condition cannot be duplicated in a climate where only one crop is
possible.
But the notion that _any_ State or any combination of States, less than
world-wide, _could_ be substantially self-sufficient in respect of
_all_ raw materials is untenable. Even the United States lacks
(mentioning minerals only) nickel, cobalt, platinum, tin, diamonds.
Its supplies of the following are inadequate: antimony, asbestos,
kaolin, chromate, corundum, garnet, manganese, emery, nitrates, potash,
pumice, tungsten, vanadium, zirconium. Outside of minerals we lack
jute, copra, flax fiber, raw silk, tea, coffee, spices, etc. This mere
enumeration suggests the absurdity of the "raw materials" argument
against the _status quo_.[13]
Without going into it in detail, the mere fact that there are no copper
mines in Germany[14] or in England has never prevented either country
from obtaining all the copper that it needed by means of the exchange
of its own commodities and its own labor for the copper, say, of Spain,
or of the United States, or of Chili; and from any possible point of
view that is now conceivable it is only by the continuance of such a
system that the deficiency of particular articles in particular
countries can be supplied.
All that we can say is, in other words, that so long as the people in a
particular country are able to produce enough of something that the
rest of the world needs, so long will they be able to supply their own
necessities. And if in any country, in Labrador, for example, the
people are unable, because of the situation of the country, to produce
a sufficiency of consumable and exchangeable commodities, the
inevitable result will be the evacuation of that country by civilized
human beings. If such a result could be changed by conquest, the
change would be only temporary. To attempt to change it by agreement
would be to attempt a sort of international charity by means of which
{41} people would be able to live in Labrador by the use of part of the
surplus production, say, of Kentucky, given to them for nothing.
There is a very exaggerated notion in the minds of some as to the
effect of what is called "control of raw materials."
Of course, in time of war, control of raw materials _has_ importance.
But this does not mean "control" in the sense of _ownership_ of foreign
supplies, as, _e. g._, British ownership of Persian oil fields or
American ownership of Bolivian tin mines. It means merely either (1)
the possession of adequate domestic supplies, or (2) safe and unimpeded
_access_ to foreign sources of supply, as, _e. g._, German access,
during the war, to Swedish iron ore. The military significance of raw
materials, aside from purely domestic supplies, is related to such
things as naval power, blockade, "freedom of the seas," "free transit,"
etc., rather than to national _ownership_ of sources of supplies.
_Access to the market_ is the important thing, although the question of
finance may be more difficult in respect of foreign supplies than of
domestic.
But in time of peace, the "control of raw materials" in the last
analysis means that the owners of those materials can do only two
things with them, use them or to sell them. This is perhaps most
obvious in the case of such raw materials as are perishable, but it is
true of all.
Take such a product as copper, for example. Some countries have copper
mines, others have none. But the ownership of a copper mine is of no
possible advantage unless the copper produced from that mine is
manufactured into something else or is sold. Of course temporarily a
mine owner may leave his ore in the ground or may store a supply of
copper above ground; but these are expedients to be resorted to only in
some time of over-production and impossible of continuance. If the
product of the mine is not either used or sold, its advantage is purely
a theoretical possibility of the future. It has no more value in
present reality than a bank note on a desert island.
The really important factor, as to raw materials, is _access to the
market_ on an _equal footing_.
{42}
In practice there are only two ways in which a State or its citizens
can be discriminated against, in time of peace, so far as the State's
access to supplies of raw materials is concerned. They are as follows:
(1) By discriminatory export duties, or similar duties. In practice
these are _not_ important.
(2) By discrimination in respect of prices, or similar matters, by
_monopolistic_ producers. To achieve this result it is necessary not
merely that one _State_ should have a "monopoly" of the supply of some
raw materials, but also that _within_ that State, the production and
sales of the raw materials should be in the hands of monopoly.
Further, the domestic monopolistic organization, must, in order that
discrimination should be an outcome of the situation, find it
_profitable_ (not merely "patriotic") to discriminate in favor of the
domestic market. There is _no_ important instance of such
discrimination.
Such conjunction of circumstances is one which is exceedingly unlikely
to occur. There is more chance that there will be discrimination _in
favor of_ the foreign buyer. In short, the matter is not one of great
practical importance, for
(1) a raw material supplied only by one State
and (2) controlled, _within_ the State, by a monopoly, which
also (3) finds it profitable to discriminate against foreign
buyers
is something to be found only in imagination.
I venture to say that there has never been a time in modern
civilization when the people of any country have been prevented by the
international situation from obtaining any raw material whatever for
which they had the capacity to pay. The only possible exception to
this statement has been in time of war[15]; and the only possible
change in the situation in time of peace would, as I have suggested,
amount to some form of compulsory international charity.
{43}
If we look generally at this question of the _status quo_ from the
international point of view during the past two centuries, we find two
divergent and irreconcilable lines of treatment.
The jurists and the writers have generally considered that the _status
quo_ is or ought to be sacred from the point of view of outside
attack.[16] In most of the books the question is treated under the
heading of "Intervention" and, perhaps with some qualifications, the
writers do not admit the legality of intervention. They make
exceptions on the ground of self preservation of the intervening State,
sometimes on the ground of protection of human life and so on. But, at
least with these exceptions, they generally maintain that the State
against which the intervention is directed may legally object to
it--that is, may legally insist upon the maintenance of the _status
quo_ (or of its right, in a proper case, to change the _status
quo_[17]) and furthermore that such a State might justly, if able (as
it usually is not), resort to war against the intervention.
On the other hand, the history of international affairs during this
period is quite to the contrary.[18] Over and over again States,
sometimes individually, sometimes some of them collectively, have
interfered with the affairs of another State with which they Had
strictly no legal concern, on many different occasions and on all sorts
of pretexts. They have defended such intervention at times on the
vague grounds of the rights of humanity, the interests of commerce, the
restoration of order and so on.
Any one who is familiar, even in a cursory way, with the history of
Europe will be able to recall numerous such instances; and it must in
fairness be admitted that in some of them the result has seemed
beneficent.[19]
And it must not be forgotten that it is not only the wicked powers of
Europe that have acted along these lines. In reference {44} to the
affairs of other countries, though not its own, the United States has
maintained this privilege of paternal intervention by force. We
maintained it, for example, in Cuba in 1898, chiefly on the ground of
the sake of humanity.[20] In connection with the Panama Canal, Mr.
Root set up the famous proposition[21] that the sovereignty of Columbia
over the Isthmus was limited and qualified by the general right of
mankind to have a canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and to
have that canal kept open for the commerce of all.
Many other instances might be cited. It is, however, worth while to
recall in connection with this alleged limited right of sovereignty of
Columbia over part of its territory that the United States subsequently
paid $25,000,000 to the owner of the qualified fee.
It is perhaps unnecessary to add that this alleged right of
intervention, as between great powers, was recognized by another name
as a method of changing the _status quo_, namely, the method of war.
The effect of the Protocol is unquestionably to consecrate the
international _status quo_ with a definite position of legality, not to
be disturbed by force.[22] The views of the writers, as opposed to the
practice of Great Powers, have been adopted.
Article 2 of the Protocol forbids a resort to war[23] as against any
{45} other State, a party to the Protocol, "except in case of
resistance to acts of aggression."[24]
Under Article 8, every Signatory agrees to abstain from any act which
might constitute a threat of aggression.
Under these provisions and the provisions of the Protocol for the
settlement of international disputes, intervention to upset the _status
quo_ (or to prevent a state from changing it where it legally may)
becomes aggression and is an international crime.
[1] Such as discovery, occupation of _terra nullius_, etc. See the
Treaty of Spitzbergen, A. J. I. L., Vol. XVIII, p. 109.
[2] A. J. I. L., Vol. XI, at p. 626.
[3] A.J. I. L, Vol. XI, Supp. 1917, p. 53.
[4] Some regions of Asia may be exceptions.
[5] See the Franco-Swiss Free Zones, by Louis Schulthess, in Foreign
Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 331, with map.
[6] "Et il faut bien remarquer, que la Guerre ne décide pas la
question; la Victoire contraint seulement le vaincu à donner les mains
au Traité qui termine le différend. C'est une erreur non moins absurde
que funeste, de dire, que la Guerre doit décider les Controverses entre
ceux qui, comme les Nations, ne reconnoissent point de Juge." Vattel,
Book III, Section 38.
[7] In general, this is the theory of Article Ten of the Covenant.
[8] See the Genesis of the War, Asquith, pp. 97, 98.
[9] Article 15.
[10] President Wilson's so-called first draft of the Covenant contained
a provision along these lines in Article III. See Woodrow Wilson and
World Settlement, Baker, Vol. III, p. 89.
[11] The statistics of language, etc., even when accurate, do not
always forecast the popular wish. Upper Silesia is an instance of this
fact. The statistics, as stated in the note of Clemenceau of June 16,
1919, showed 1,250,000 Poles and 650,000 Germans. The vote was 717,122
for Germany and 483,514 for Poland.
[12] The Convention between Germany and Poland relating to the régime
of Upper Silesia is a document of some 300 pages.
[13] I am greatly indebted to Professor A. A. Young for some of my
economic information; but he is in no way responsible for any of my
conclusions.
[14] Of course this is an over-statement. Germany produces about
one-tenth of her consumption of copper.
[15] Or a period due to war, such as 1919-1920.
[16] See Hall, International Law (Seventh Edition), Chapter VIII, for
an illuminating discussion.
[17] Such as the right of State A to cede territory to State B,
notwithstanding the objection of State C to such a cession.
[18] See Moore's Digest, Vol. VI, pp. 2-367.
[19] Such as the intervention in Greece in 1827 by Great Britain,
France and Russia. See Hertslet's Map of Europe by Treaty, Vol. I, p.
769.
[20] See the Message of President McKinley, April 11, 1898, Foreign
Relations, 1898, p. 750 at p. 757.
[21] The Ethics of the Panama Question, Sen. Doc. 471, 63rd Congress,
2nd Session, p. 39.
[22] There is a reference to the _status quo_ in the General Report
(Annex C, p. 181), which uses this language:
"There is a third class of disputes to which the new system of
pacific settlement can also not be applied. These are disputes
which aim at revising treaties and international acts in force,
or which seek to jeopardise the existing territorial integrity
of signatory States. The proposal was made to include these
exceptions in the Protocol, but the two Committees were unanimous
in considering that, both from the legal and from the political
point of view, the impossibility of applying compulsory
arbitration to such cases was so obvious that it was quite
superfluous to make them the subject of a special provision.
It was thought sufficient to mention them in this report."
[23] For the view that this includes acts of force, even in the absence
of a state of war, see _infra_, p. 55.
[24] The other exception "when acting in agreement with the Council,"
etc., is not here material. It is discussed _infra_, p. 50.
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