traders, or missionaries, there would be little chance of war between them. As the separate units come in contact with one another, however, differences disclose themselves. These differences must be settled. If they cannot be settled by agreement, they may become so vital that men will feel they can be settled only by force. The settlement of differences at any particular time, whether by agreement or by force, may result in the two units remaining independent, and thereafter having close relationships with each other under some modus vivendi which enables them to adjust from time to time differences as they arise. hand, it may result in the two amalgamated into a single State. Such a process of amalgamation went on in France five hundred years ago, such a process brought England and Scotland and Wales together, such a process made Texas a part of the United States, such a process made a united Italy. Obviously, amalgamations of this kind can come about in only two ways-by force or by agreement; and it must be admitted that there are many more instances in history of amalgamation by force than by agreement.

On the other

States being

With the growth of civilization, with the increase of connecting links between the great civilized States, we had generally come to be

lieve that the time-honored practice of incorporating one State into another by the method of force had gone by, and that future consolidations of States would come only by agreement. We were mistaken. Prussia, by its conduct in 1864, in 1866, in 1870, had given the world every reason to believe that it still adhered to the method of force. America declined to believe it until Prussia struck in 1914. For four years and a half the world has been fighting as a protest against this ancient method of force. It has been fighting to demonstrate that such a method is impossible of success. It has been fighting to reduce the likelihood of that method ever being used again. The world has been fighting in the hope that some means may be found to substitute agreement for force. As Mr. Asquith put it, we have been fighting for the "enthronement of the idea of public right." Germany made many protests that other States had used the method of force in times gone by. Let that be admitted. All the more reason was there for joining together to denounce the precedents which seemed to warrant such a tragedy. President Wilson stated the issue in his Mount Vernon speech:

The past and the present are in deadly grapple and the peoples of the world are being done to

death between them. There can be but one issue. The settlement must be final. There can be no compromise. No half-way decision would be tolerable. No half-way decision is conceivable.

There has been no compromise. Germany has been beaten. Her defeat has been more crushing than most people expected. We have proved to ourselves, and to the rulers and people of Germany, that for her this war has not paid. We have shown that even an unprepared world has been able to arise in its wrath to stopthough at fearful cost-the pretensions of autocratic power to impose its will by force upon its neighbors. The world at least has gained that much from the war. But is that enough?

The leading statesmen of all the countries have pronounced that it is not enough. They have promised the people a new world order. Very early in the war Mr. Asquith expressed the hope that the ending of the war would bring a "real European partnership," and he went on to say: "A year ago that would have sounded like a Utopian idea. It is probably one that may not, or will not, be realized either to-day or to-morrow. If and when this war is decided in favor of the Allies it will at once come within the range, and before long within the grasp, of European statesmanship." As the intensity and destructiveness of the war in

creased, the leaders of the warring States became more and more convinced that something must be done to prevent the repetition of such a tragedy. President Wilson in the speech which sets forth his fourteen points refers to this war as the "culminating and final war for human liberty." Mr. Lloyd George stated in his address on September 12, 1918, that "this must be the last war"; and on November 11, 1918, when he announced the terms of the armistice, he said: "I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came an end to all wars." Mr. Taft was reported in the London Times of December 10, 1918, as having said: "I say to you that unless a league of nations emerges from the conference in Paris the whole war is a failure." And it is not only in the words of statesmen that this desire for some new international order is heard. Millions of people are expecting some concrete realization of the promises of the statesmen. In the statement of the Inter-Allied Labor War Aims it is expressed thus: "Whoever triumphs, the people will have lost unless an international system is established which will prevent war." And Mr. Samuel Gompers, in presenting the war aims of the American Federation of Labor to the Inter-Allied Labor and Socialist Conference held in London on September 18, 1918, stated that the first

fundamental principle which must underlie the Peace Treaty should be "a League of the free peoples of the world in a common Covenant for genuine and practical co-operation to secure justice, and therefore peace, in relations between nations."

It will not suffice to tell the people that a solution is impracticable. You cannot permanently combat an ideal with a negation; you can combat it only with another ideal. The people of Russia are seeking international peace by a new pathway. Will it be of any avail to tell them that their pathway does not lead to the goal they seek? The statesmen must offer the world a remedy, a remedy that promises a hope of avoiding, or reducing the frequency of, future armed conflicts. And the statesmen must not be afraid to try new methods. In the words of President Wilson:

If hopeful and generous enterprise is to be renewed, if the healing and helpful arts of life are to be revived when peace comes again, a new atmosphere of justice and friendship must be generated by means the world has never tried before.

There are two implications in the expression just quoted. The first is that the vital thing is to generate "a new atmosphere of justice and friendship"; the second is that in trying to