Constituted? By WILLIAM L. RANSOM Of the New York Bar; Chief Counsel of the New York State Public Service Commission for the First District; former Justice of the City Court of New York. DR R. LEVERMORE'S scholarly analysis (in THE WORLD COURT for June-July) of the proposals which have been brought forward from time to time as to the mode of choosing the members of the ultimate world-tribunal, is now most opportune. In any comment upon Dr. Levermore's re-presentation of the matter for vital discussion, I think it important, however, that changed aspects and setting of the problem shall be ascertained and frankly taken into account. If adverse comment were in any respect to be passed upon Dr. Levermore's most valuable summary, I think it would be that his analysis of possible methods seemed to be based on the assumption that the matter is to be taken up at the point where it was left off, years before the war, rather than on the assumption that a fresh start and a radically new viewpoint may be wholly feasible, if not in fact inevitable, when the subject is taken up anew at the close of the great conflict. Dr. Levermore's effort to renew concrete discussion of the topic is timely, because the need for reaching soon a consensus of international opinion as to methods is at least no less urgent than before. It is probably true that, years before the out break of the present conflict, there was international accord as to the desirability of the early establishment of a World Court for the adjudication of controversies with international aspects. Nevertheless, such a consummation, which conceivably might have been a factor in forestalling the cataclysm of 1914, never came about, for the reason that a multitude of small nations held to a view of their interests which made impossible an agreement on what then seemed the best plan for the selection of the judges of the great Court. The Great Powers permitted the smaller nations to raise objections to the suggested mode of choice and thereby to withhold from the Great Powers an instrumentality of adjudication which might have helped to keep the Great Powers from each other's throats in the weary, blood-drenched months which have followed July of 1914. No doubt the Great Powers now realize keenly the cost and consequence of their acquiescence in small - power protests against a particular method of securing a universally-desired result. The smaller nations, on the other hand, have no doubt come to recognize that as neutrals as well as belligerents, they have lost much and suffered severely by the resort to force which has taken place in the absence of, and perhaps due to the absence of, some adequate, respected, spected competent tribunal of international judicature. Conceivably, the smaller nations will hereafter see that their interest and stake in international arbitrament has far deeper aspects than mere numerical representation in the personnel of a World Court. Lest mode of choosing the judges be again, at the end of the war, a cause of controversy making for further postponement of the creation of the World Court, present discussion of method is timely. I do feel, however, very strongly, as I have intimated, that the matter is likely to be approached hereafter from a very different viewpoint and in a radically changed appreciation of the factors which are vital. 1 Over emphasis on what was recommended and contended prior to the present war is not likely to be helpful. Nations small and large are likely to approach the matter with an enhanced realization that the court and the principle of adjudication of controversy are essential, and that the mode of choosing the judicial officers is far less important than it once seemed. Smaller nations have come to recognize more fully the high-minded leadership and responsi bility of the larger Powers for the permanency of civilization, and qualities of judicial statesmanship are likely to be sought more eagerly than of old, with far less of jealous scramble for representation of locality. Keeping in mind that it is desired to create a World Court and {* ༄ T not merely a Gro not merely a Great Power Court, I am inclined to think in many ways a fresh start can and must be made on the on the whole problem, and that the matter of method may prove to be much less a point of contention than heretofore. At the same time, there must be a method, and renewed discussion is likely to evolve a method suitable to the changed temper of the nations. To2). A glenn Two rules of representation seem to me essential to the truly judicial character of an international tribunal. sembly to choose the judges seems desirable, made up of one representative from each nation. Each State should be asked to nominate a qualified judge and an assistant judge, from among its own citizenship or otherwise. France, England, Germany, Russia, Austria, Japan, Holland, and the United States, should each be entitled to designate one judge and one assistant judge, after conference between representatives of those nations in the conference or electoral assembly. The principal of continental election and representation might well also be recognized. For example, all of the electoral representatives of each nation of South America, North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, might well meet in separate conferences and, after discussion, each such conference choose a judge and one assistant judge, to represent that continent. Choice should be confined to the names nominated by the respective nations on that continent, and no representative of one of the Great Powers above named should be permitted to vote in its continental conference for the election of any citizen of any Great Power as the judge or assistant representing that continent. to make up a Court of seventeen might well be chosen at large from the persons nominated by the respective States, each State to be entitled, through its electoral representative, to four votes for judges at large, with the privilege of cumulative voting, if desired, so that a State might cast its four votes for one man or distribute them among two, three or four men desired. No country whose citizenship is already represented by a judge chosen by it or chosen as a continental representative in the Court shall be entitled to cast any of its votes for another of its own citiAssistant judges at large should be chosen in a similar way. The Court itself should choose its presiding officer. zens. Seven of its members constitute a quorum. Judges and assistant judges of the Court should serve for life or during the life of the agreement creating the Court. A judge should be removable by a two-third's vote of all the chosen members of the electoral conference or assembly, after the filing of written charges, full hearing, and public vote. The foregoing is tentative and somewhat impromptu. It is submitted in diffidence, and only in The four additional judges required deference to request. By FRANKLIN N. JEWETT Member of the Faculty of the Fredonia (New York) Normal School. President of the World League Club, Fredonia. 1. That upon the close of this war the civilized nations of the world should form a union which shall henceforth have final authority for settlement of all international differences that prove incapable of settlement by arbitration or diplomacy. 2. That the nations should speedily and officially declare themselves in favor of a league with such powers. 3. That preliminary deliberations should be begun without delay looking towards the detailed structure of such a league. In the present unparalleled crisis foresight is as much needed as action. It is easily possible for nations to find themselves as unprepared for the close of this war as they were for the beginning. A clearly defined object to be reached will help much when the end shall come, and it might very well hasten the end. Among various objects entertained that of broadest scope is the establishment of some new system of international relations.* The necessity for this is now almost everywhere accepted; but no plan sufficiently comprehensive for the new order seems yet to have appeared. What is here advocated and urged as an object to be achieved, is the establishment for the civilized nations of The League to Enforce Peace. The World Court League. The League of Nations, voiced for Great Britain by Mr. Bryce. Action of Sixty-fourth Congress authorizing the President to move in the organization of a World League. law over all and equality before the law as they have long been established for individuals, and the guiding principles must be the familiar ones of equity and fair dealing. The opposite principles in international dealings have had their day, and the end of this war should witness their passing. Their present fruitage should be conclusive upon this point. And in the new order no place should be left for international brigandage after a set period of Prominent fruitless negotiations. schemes for world union permit this. They leave the way open for warany kind of war, after the lapse of a year, if the deliberations shall have failed to produce a settlement. Now the enforced delay of a year, together with the prescribed investigations and reports, or the attempts at conciliation, will be much better than nothing. We would prefer such a League to no League, but it leaves the whole matter of international order lamentably unregulated. Under it nations could still arm without limit; and an ambitious and predatory nation could easily render futile all negotiations affecting its own interests. Then after a year it could quite legally plunder, devastate and slaughter in the same old way. Nations do not say to their citizens, “After so long a time spent in ineffectual deliberations you may resort to robbery, murder and unspeakable barbarities." Neither are cities or provinces any longer permitted to resort to such practices. But the arguments for and against them on a smaller scale are of exactly the same character as those for and against them on the international scale. If the world has done well in suppressing them as far as it has, it should proceed farther in the same direction. It is time to stop the whole practice. It is time to compel the stopping of it, if nations or their governments will not discontinue it otherwise. Mankind has advanced too far in intelligence and moral character, and the interests of all civilized peoples have become too closely intertwined, longer to suffer ruthless, predatory propensities to dominate the world. It is time to make considerations of equity and fair dealing dominant among nations, and to organize for it. Where doubt upon this point existed before the war we submit that it should exist no longer. But some object to such organization and instead say, "Educate." We say both. Most assuredly, in the new order the world will need unprecedented and illimitable education and development of character. And it must work for these results consciously and persistently and on a scale hitherto unknown. But to rely entirely for international security and justice upon the development of intelligence and character would be to face a future like the present and the past. Communities do not so order their internal affairs. Society does not rely for its security solely upon the character of all its individual citizens. It could not do so and be safe. To call attention to this fact is not in the least to ignore or disparage the degree of security and justice assured in a community by the individual character of its members. This, of course, can hardly be overestimated, but it has long and of necessity been supplemented by the law with legal procedure and sustained authority. Now that nations are so closely associated with one another, whether they will it or not, the plain logic of the situation requires a similar procedure. This is in strict conformity with the evolution of institutions hitherto. The world situation now requires for the relations of the civilized nations to one another a common law, a common justice, a common authority, of all, by all, for all. No super-men or super-nations, privileged and qualified to dominate the rest of the world, even as wild beasts dominate one another, have yet appeared. Trial of individuals by their peers, as substitution for social chaos and endless conflict, marked a great advance. Trial of individual nations by their peers, with similar legal procedure, is equally needed, and will be equally epoch-making. It has got to come. Now, as to the magnitude of the task. This is admittedly very great. Many say impossible. They say that out of the present warring ambitions, jealousies, prejudices and |