possible enemy; while the economic motive pushes to the same violations in order that the possession of a given territory may secure freedom of economic movements to the sea, or access to raw materials or markets.

The danger of these violations is not confined to the Central Powers. The same considerations have stood for generations, and stand to-day, in the way not only of an independent Ireland, but of an Ireland having the same autonomy as a British self-governing colony. Mr. Brailsford notes some of the other Allied cases:

Italy, in order that she may have unchallenged naval control of the Adriatic and certain ports for commercial purposes, is claiming the larger part of Dalmatia, where the Italians are outnumbered more than ten to one. Thus, not only would Slovenes, Croats and Serbs be placed under the government of a tiny minority of aliens, but the retention of this country by an alien clique might shut out from free access to the sea more than fifty millions of Germans, Maygars and Slavs.

Take the case of an independent Bohemia. One-third of its population would be Maygar or German-a far more important minority than that of Ulster which has so long helped to make the settlement of Ireland impossible; and in the case of Bohemia it would be complicated by the language question, which does not exist in Ireland. And whereas Ireland is at least open to the world by her ports, Bohemia is wedged in territorially between her enemies, whose access to the sea her allies would be blocking.

Rumania in entering the war laid claims to Austrian territory which as a whole would contain as many Maygars and Germans as Rumanians. In the case of one district the Rumanians would be a tiny minority.

The Allies, in order to weaken Bulgaria, proposed to reconquer Macedonia for the Serbs, although the greater part of the country is emphatically and even fanatically Bulgarian by allegiance and choice, and although the Powers previously allotted the country to Bulgaria, and although the second Balkan war was due to Serbia's refusal to give effect to the European decision.

And these are but samples on the Allied side of the fence. If the Allies, who proclaim themselves to be fighting for nationality and the rights of all people to their own government, feel themselves justified on behalf of security in violating their own principles to that extent, what may we not expect from Germans and Austrians who do not emphasize that purpose? If the need for security justifies it, the Germans, who will be the weaker and more unpopular group, will be able to invoke it with very much greater force.

We are still as nations a very long way from the conception that our national independence must be limited by our international obligations. The old nationalist notion that there is something derogatory and unpatriotic in ceding any part of our national sovereignty or independence has still an almost fanatical strength. And we have no clear idea of just how far that sovereignty and independence must be ceded for the purpose of international organization for security. It is these two things mainly-the force of the old conceptions and the lack of any definiteness of a newer principle-which stand mainly, and will stand at the peace, in the way of settlement.

The disturbing fact in connection therewith is that these changes in conception and principle cannot be made by the public opinion of a great country from one day to another. Coming to the settlement dominated by the old notions of international law, independence, sovereignty, it would tend to compel the rejection of new and strange principles.

The only way to break down the strangeness which at the crucial moment may cause new principles to be misunderstood and misinterpreted is to ensure their thorough discussion beforehand. But upon that discussion there has been placed an almost official ban. By some sort of miracle the democracies are to be fitted to face entirely new conditions and apply new policies, with no preparation whatever, without that discussion which is the chief means of political education. Even certain peace organizations, whose purpose is to prepare the world for the difficult problems of internationalism, have laid down the strange doctrine that these matters should not be studied by the mass at all just now. They may be studied when the damage is done, when, hurried at some juncture into a rapid settlement, mankind may find itself committed to decisions which, as Mr. Lloyd

George says the other day, may bind them for generations, but which may well defeat the objects for which the war is being fought.

A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 1

It should be clearly understood that any such plan of international coöperation as this league of nations, would involve the giving up by each nation included in the league of the absolute right of its government to deal finally and without appeal except to war, with questions arising out of treaties or relations between itself and some other government. Little serious progress can be made in getting rid of war and in better organizing the world until the free peoples are ready to have their several governments take this long step forward.

It is important that this league of nations should begin by not attempting too much. The line of least resistance, and therefore of greatest possible progress, is to lay stress upon the power and authority of a single international judicial authority, and to accustom the public opinion of the world to seek and to defer to the findings of such authority. All international agreements between members of the league would in effect be acts of international legislation, and in due time some formal international legislative body might be brought into existence. It would be much better, however, to give this body a chance to grow up naturally, rather than to attempt to bring it into existence as part of a logical and systematically worked-out plan.

Such a league of nations as is here outlined will rest upon a moral foundation. Its aim will be to advance the good order, the satisfaction and the happiness of the world. It will not be, and should not be, merely a league to enforce peace. A league of that name might well rest solely upon force and entirely overlook both law and equity. Doubtless Germany and AustriaHungary now feel that they are joint and several members of a highly meritorious league to enforce peace-peace upon their own terms and as they conceive it. A league of nations that aims to declare and to enforce principles of international law and justice, will of necessity be a league to establish peace, be

1 By Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University. In the London Daily Chronicle, July 27, 1918.

cause it will be a league to establish those foundations upon which alone permanent peace can rest.

WHY PEACE MUST BE ENFORCED 1

Three main sanctions have been suggested for the international law which a League of Peace will formulate and maintain. I leave out of account diplomatic pressure, because diplomatic pressure has never been accounted sufficient when a real crisis arises. The three are:

First, Public opinion. Of course, no sanction can have the effect desired unless it is strong enough to deter those who are tempted to disregard it. Can public opinion do this? Can it of itself compel obedience to international law? While it is an axiom of political science that no law can be enforced contrary to public opinion, the converse is, of course, not true. Public opinion can no more prevent a great nation violating the canons of international law, as has amply been demonstrated in the present war, than can the public opinion within a nation apprehend a criminal or put down a riot. Public opinion must sustain international law and approve its enforcement, but public opinion as a substitute for force is a pure chimera.

Second, Economic pressure. Will non-intercourse or economic pressure be sufficient to enforce the rules of the league? This phase of the question has been little discussed until very recently.

The argument runs that if a nation were absolutely cut off from all intercourse with the rest of the world it would suffer so severely that it would have to give in. If all credit, all loans, all trade were stopped, if even letters and telegrams were prohibited, no nation could endure such a strangling isolation and would come to terms.

Mr. Herbert S. Houston, in his address before the Interna

1 By Hamilton Holt. Independent. p. 212.

February 5, 1917.

tional Peace Conference at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco last October, expresses this view most succinctly when he says:

The most effective factors in world-wide economic pressure, such as would be required to compel nations to take justiciable issues to a World Court for decision are a group of international forces. Today money is international because in all civilized countries it has gold as the common basis. Credit based on gold is international. Commerce based on money and on credit is international. Then the amazing network of agencies by which money and credit and commerce are employed in the world are also international. Take the stock exchanges, the cables, the wireless, the international postal service and the wonderful modern facilities for communication and intercommunication, all these are international forces. They are common to all nations. In the truest sense they are independent of race, of language, of religion, of culture, of government, and of every other human limitation. That is one of their chief merits in making them the most effective possible power used in the form of economic pressure to put behind a World Court.

Now while economic embargoes would undoubtedly exert a very great pressure in international affairs, and would doubtless, in many instances, be sufficient to bring about a recourse to courts and councils of conciliation, there are several reasons to think it would not always avail. Two of the most important are as follows:

Economic pressure can never be as great as physical pressure, both by the very nature of the case, and because, as President Lowell of Harvard University has recently pointed out, "the resistance of the interests effected will be at least as great against an economic boycott as against war, and they will be constantly striving to break it down, whereas, war once declared silences opposition—a fact which any nation that thought of defying a League of Peace would not fail to note."

The proposal to resort to non-intercourse will have to meet this practical difficulty. When such a measure is to be employed how can the coercing powers equitably apportion the pressure among themselves? this may not be quite so difficult, but when economic pressure is to be employed, it is conceivable that a single nation may have to bear practically the entire cost of the undertaking. In fact every nation which is party to the league, as has been said by the minority report of the "Committee of the American Chambers of Commerce" would have to be prepared to risk, or sacrifice for the time its entire trade with an offending nation, even tho other members of the league suffered no corresponding loss.

In undertaking to employ military force