"Such a general association of states, having for its object the preservation of peace, might be termed the permanent Congress of Nations. Such was the diplomatic Conference formed at the Hague during the first part of the eighteenth century, with a similar view, consisting of the ministers of the greater part of the European courts and even of the smallest republics. In this manner all Europe was constituted into one federal state, of which the several members submitted their differences to the decision of this conference as their sovereign arbiter. Since that epoch the law of nations may be said to have remained in the books of the public jurists a dead letter without practical influence on the actual conduct of governments, or else has been invoked when too late to correct the irreparable evils inflicted by the abuse of force.

"Such a Congress and such a League are the only means of realizing the idea of a true public law, according to which the differences between nations would be determined by civil judicature, instead of resorting to war, a means of redress worthy only of barbarians."

The beneficent preaching of Kant was not only barren of converts but it was soon therafter brought into contempt by the younger philosopher, Hegel, who maintained that war is that state of things in which the hackneyed phrase of the vanity of temporal goods becomes a reality, a state of things in which the moral health of nations is preserved by action, as the movements of the winds and waves preserve the sea from that complete stagnation which a perpetual calm would necessarily produce. A state of perpetual peace, he asserted, if it could be realized, would produce a like moral stagnation among nations.

Aside from the merits of the question as to the place of armed force in any scheme of world organization

A flash of the words "World Peace" significantly marked the close of the San Diego, California, International Exposition. A current issue of the Universal Film Company's Animated Weekly at motion picture

looking to permanent peace we cannot ignore the facts that states are living organisms, subject to the natural laws of growth and decay; that there are inherent forces in life, individual as well as national, greater than any rational force that may seek to restrain them, and that any system not flexible enough to recognize these conditions is foredoomed to failure.

While the eighteenth century is interesting from a mere historical viewpoint, it is not comparable in actual achievement to the nineteenth century, under the quickening influences of scientific discoveries and invention. This change has been admirably summarized by Mr. Root, who says:

"Now, however, there may be seen plainly the effects of a long continued process which is breaking down the isolation of nations, permeating every country with better knowledge and understanding of every other country, spreading throughout the world a knowledge of each government's conduct, to serve as a basis for criticism and judgment, and gradually creating a community of nations in which standards of conduct are being established; and a world-wide public opinion is holding nations to conformity or condemning them for disregard of the established standards. The improved facilities for travel and transportation, the enormous increase of production and commerce, the revival of colonization, and the growth of colonies on a gigantic scale, the severance of the laborer from the soil, accomplished by cheap steamship and railway transportation and the emigrant agents, the flow and return of millions of emigrants across national lines, the amazing development of telegraphy and of the press, conveying and spreading instant information of every interesting event in regions however remote-all have played their part in this change."

theatres reproduces the scene. A magnificent pyrotechnical display culminates in the letters of fire: World Peace-then the lights of the Exposition are all out. Audiences rise to the sentiment of this climax.

HE American and British so

TH

cieties which have drafted two

similar schemes for the constitution of a League of Nations have taken the only possible course by devising a definite and moderate plan round which public opinion may rally. As an outline sketch there could hardly be a better startingpoint. But I would like to second (though from a different standpoint) the able plea of Mr. Pethick Lawrence, that these two outlines, good and useful as they are, ought not even yet to be treated as the final draft of what unofficial opinion demands. It is, I think, rather more than its authors realize, a product of the British and American mind, and we must be prepared for some modification of it when Continental thought has been brought to bear upon it. I have seen no detailed Continental criticisms, but if it is at all useful to make a guess, one might anticipate the raising of two points.

(1) I am sure that the two schemes are right in insisting that the League must contemplate the use of force in the last resort to ensure recourse to conciliation or arbitration in all disputes, and if it contemplates it, it must prepare for it. To leave this vague would merely mean that all the Powers would be driven, as the only alternative, to strive for security by the delusive, traditional methods of hostile alliances and competitive

armaments. But the scheme seems to

me in one respect to require too much and in another to provide too little. Is it really conceivable that all the States which would wish to adhere will take an unlimited and general pledge to back the League in every emergency with arms? Should we really be prepared to join Germany in coercing France by arms, if she were the offender? Would Austria join Italy in coercing Germany? Again, do we expect the little neutrals to assume all the duties of a Great Power? Are Denmark and Holland to promise to join at once in case of need in the possible coercion of Germany, or Sweden and Roumania in the possible coercion of Russia? To what extent do we expect the aid of any given Power? Are we going to call Japan and Argentina, for example, to take an unlimited share in a possible Continental war conducted by the League? We might exclude the small States who would shrink from these heavy obligations, but in that case the League would mean merely the dictatorship of the Great Powers, and it would miss the balancing voices of the neutrals in its counsels. The pledge, it seems to me, must be more elastic than these model drafts contemplate. Member-States, while all agreeing to support the League, must be able to do so, subject to the specific obligations into which each of them may freely enter.

This would be unworkable unless the League develops a Central Executive as well as a court and a council-at least in the sense of a permanent committee of ambassadors sitting for rapid deliberation in an agreed center. The British and American view is too little alive to the terrific risks which a general pledge would impose on Continental States.

(2) Britain and America are satisfied Powers. We have no unredeemed kinsmen, no lost provinces, no crying need for expansion. There results a tendency to think of peace as something static, and to underestimate the real needs for change in the world which make for war. So it comes about that while both schemes pledge the League to take coercive action to prevent the outbreak of war without a recourse to peaceful means of settlement, neither plan includes any provision by which even in the grossest cases, these peaceful means may be made effective. Is it really intended that if a bully is hypocrite enough to go to law, and then rejects the award of the court or the advice of the council, he may thereafter work his will on a weak and innocent adversary while the League looks on indifferent? It would, I am sure, be unwise to pledge the League to enforce awards or recommendations. But it certainly ought to contemplate cases in which it would have to take action. Once more it seems necessary to create an Executive and to charge this Executive with the duty of deliberating on what action, if any, is required, when war is likely to result through the failure of a dis

putant to accept an award or recommendation. Short of war, economic coercion may be applied, though it would be apt to lead to war. Most vital of all is, I think, that all Powers should enter into a declaration by which they repudiate any existing or future obligation to assist an ally who has gone to war without observing the procedure of the League, or has become involved in war through his failure to accept or execute an award or recommendation of a court or council of the League.

The objection to enforcing the recommendations of a Council of Counciliation, even if this enforcement be optional and not obligatory, is of course, as Mr. Pethick Lawrence pointed out, that if the members of a Council felt that its report might involve their own country in war, they would tend to make a compromising recommendation, and ideal justice would be unobtainable. In some measure, this is clearly true. But do we want ideal justice? Ideal justice would wreck any society which practised it. If the Council suggested deliberately the kind of settlement which would not be likely to lead to war, the kind of settlement which each party would really be likely to accept, a settlement so moderate and reasonable that in the last resort it might be enforced, where would be the loss? That is better than abstract justice.

Is there no alternative sanction to direct coercion? Though the League must undoubtedly be prepared to coerce, there is a grave risk that if it thinks continually in terms of force,

it will drift itself into tyranny, and fail to win the loyalty of nations. The alternative (not an exclusive alternative) is that it should aim at winning and keeping adherents by the advantages it conveys-that nations. should join it for the positive good it offers. There must clearly be certain elementary economic privileges

e. g., a most favored nation clause in home markets, free trade (or tariffs for revenue only) in non-self-governing colonies, some organic regulated development of the cooperation of exported capital in such areas as China, and some guarantee (through an international commission) against oppressive monopolies of raw materials. No honest friend of peace

for no

will oppose this program, mind which thinks at all can suppose that we can combine "the war after peace" with a League of Nations. But if we go so far, why not use these advantages-immense, concrete, tangible advantages-to hold the League together? Let the Executive (subject to due safeguards and rights of appeal) have the power to expel a disloyal Member-State, and let expulsion involve the loss of these privileges. With such a sanction the League would rarely, if ever, require to use force. No civilized nation could afford to stay outside it, and to step outside or to challenge expulsion would mean economic suicide.

The significance of this small and informal conference resides in the fact that here was gathered for the first time a group of young and forward-looking college professors, representing the most advanced thought in the field of International Politics, who had assembled for the purpose of discussing the dissemination of the new Science of International Affairs.

The conference was turned into a sort of experience meeting; each member made an informal report of his own experiences and made specific suggestions for the future with re

gard to the work in the International Polity Clubs.

The conference was attended by the following men:

C. D. Allin, University of Wisconsin; L. L. Bernard, University of Missouri; George H. Blakeslee, Clark University; C. A. Dykstra, University of Kansas; John D. FitzGerald, University of Illinois; Alexander C. Flick, Syracuse University; A. L. Guérard, Rice Institute; Arnold B. Hall, University of Wisconsin; J. G. de R. Hamilton, University of North Carolina; Max Sylvius Handman, University of Chicago; Carlton J. H. Hayes, Columbia University; Manley O. Hudson, Harvard University; F. P. Keppel, Columbia University; Edward Krehbiel, Stanford University; Chester Lloyd Jones, University of Wisconsin; James G. McDonald, University of Indiana; John Mez, New York, N. Y.; St. George Leakin Sioussat, Vanderbilt University; Thomas Reed Powell, Editor of the Political Science Quarterly, Columbia University; Roland G. Usher, Washington University, St. Louis; George Ray Wicker, Dartmouth College; H. Van der Zee, University of Iowa.

It was the general opinion of these teachers that the International Polity Clubs have been very useful institutions which have reacted upon the colleges, and not only upon the students but also upon the faculties in a decided way. The stimulus

given to the promotion of international thinking among university men was considered to be one of the most important influences of the present day.

It was generally agreed that it would be highly desirable if this work could be continued and made permanent in character as far as possible; a great deal of enthusiasm has been worked up through these Clubs. The courses in Spanish and on South America given in the Summer Sessions also received favorable comment.

There exists a great deal of justification for the hope expressed at the meeting that the Study of International Relations may yet develop into a permanent educational service in our universities, in the same manner as the study of International Law-ridiculed at first-has become an indispensable part of the curriculum of any institution of recognized high standing.