tional State-will be completed when this treaty is made. The States of Europe will all be started anew upon a basis of a nationality more completely realized than ever before in history. Of course, no possible solution will enable the Peace Conference to group into single States all those having common aspirations, common traditions, or common language. The Peace Conferees will do the best they can within the geographic limitations which confront them. For weal or for woe, however, the principle they will follow will be the principle of nationality. If this increases the likelihood of international disturbance the remedy must be found in some new international order and not by declining to give independence to those who have legitimate aspirations for separate nationality. The responsibility created at Westphalia in 1648 and since evaded must be sincerely, courageously, and honestly faced. We must not, however, deceive ourselves. It is most important clearly to recognize that we are trying to get two things. If we want world peace at whatever price, we can take our eyes away from liberty and think only of order, and the principle of nationality will go by the board. If we want unrestricted national liberty at whatever cost, we can think only of the separate national States and the price will be the aban donment of a League of Nations. Our first step is another movement away from the peace of force. We are making a final elimination of the Roman Peace. We are creating new States which will have new conflicting interests. We are recognizing liberty at the possible expense of order, because we believe it is worth the price. The reconciliation of these two aims-world order and national independence is the problem of the Peace Conference. We must go at our task with open eyes. We must start by admitting that we cannot get something for nothing, that if national States are vital to the orderly development of the world, as we believe they are, we must sacrifice some world order for the sake of the development of national characteristics. BIBLIOGRAPHY THEODORE RUYSSEN, The Principle of Nationality. JAMES BRYCE, Essays and Addresses in Wartime, DAVID JAYNE HILL, World Organization as Affected by the Nature of the Modern State. ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE, Nationality and the War. LEON DOMINIAN, The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe. A. F. POLLARD, Factors in Modern History. W. CUNNINGHAM, Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects, Book V. R. W. SETON-WATSON, et al., The War and Democ racy. VIII CAN THE CONFLICT BETWEEN WORLD ORDER AND NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE BE RECONCILED? Ν IN the preceding chapters we have referred to the insistent demand of the peoples who have taken part in this war that there should be some better method of settling international disputes than war. We have reviewed some of the more important "peace plans" that have been made by philosophers and rulers during the past three hundred years, most of which plans laid little, if any, stress upon the strong national spirit which makes a group of people want to develop their own destiny, with a government under their own control. We have considered, also, the patient, plodding work of the diplomatists and jurists who for three hundred years and more have been building up, step by step, what we know as international law. We have also outlined some of the international agencies, such as the Universal Postal Union, which have been forced upon the world by science and commerce; and we have reviewed the co-operative effort which the great war compelled the Allied nations to make. Having discussed these various forces, spiritual and material, which have tended to bring distant parts of the world close together, we have then considered that great force which, unrestrained, has kept the world apart-the spirit of nationality. And we have shown that that spirit, instead of weakening, has been growing stronger during the past three hundred years, especially during the past century. We have indicated that the real problem of the Peace Conference is the problem of reconciling the desire of men for world order with their desire to develop their own governments in accordance with their national aspirations-the old conflict between order and liberty. Is a reconciliation possible, and, if so, how and when? Immanuel Kant was born in 1724, a German with a Scotch grandfather. He published his essay on "The Natural Principle of Political Order, or the Idea of a Universal History," in 1784, the essay on "The Principle of Progress in 1793, and "Eternal Peace" in 1795.1 Be 1 English translations of all these essays are available. In the summary given below we have used the translations of W. Hastie and M. Campbell Smith. The little book called Eternal Peace, published by The World Peace Foundation, with an introduction |