to Enforce Peace, the league would not ask who was to blame for the war, but who began the war, a very much simpler question. German publicists will doubtless continue to be occupied for a long time to come in. proving from documents found in Brussels after the Germans got there, and from other sources, that Germany was justified in invading Belgium, but it has not yet happened that any German author, however learned, has denied that Germany did invade Belgium. In like manner, although Germany and France at the beginning of the war made various charges and countercharges of border incidents, France removed all real doubt as to which government really opened hostilities by holding back her troops ten kilometers from the boundary line and announcing her action. France was probably influenced in this course to a considerable extent by a desire to secure thereby the physical support of England and the moral support of the world in general, motives which would have been immeasurably strengthened if the league had been in existence. The question to be decided would of course not depend on a stray shot on the frontier, but on the deliberate and avowed or at least not disavowed action of a government. It is submitted, with all deference, that the collective intelligence of the leading nations of the earth, acting through their accredited delegates and in telegraphic communication with the foreign offices of every country, is sufficient to determine which of two nations is willing to submit its case to arbitration or conciliation before fighting and which is not.

Finally, a wholly different objection has been tersely epitomized by a distinguished United States Senator when, in speaking with reference to the league of nations as outlined in the President's address to the Senate, he said, "it contemplates complete crystallization, eternal fixity." If this objection be sound it is serious. The most extreme pacifist, the most hidebound conservative, would hesitate to buy peace at the price of "eternal fixity." It is better, as Hosea Bigelow would say, to "git for❜ard" even if it sometimes has to be "upon a powder cart." But is the objection sound?

First, the league would certainly not interfere with any progress which is now compatible with peaceful means, in fact through the council of conciliation, which is a feature of practically all the present-day plans, it would clearly facilitate peaceful progress as regards matters which have heretofore ordinarily resulted in war.

Second, although Penn may have contemplated forcing recalcitrant states to enter the League, modern plans which are so detailed as to amount at all to programs, such as that of the League to Enforce Peace, look forward only to a league set up by the free consent of its constituent members.

Third, in no modern plans of which the writer is aware is there any suggestion of aping the Holy Alliance of unhappy memory and attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of any member state. The sacred and inherent right of revolution is to remain sacred and inherent so far as the proposed league is concerned.

Fourth, while the various plans differ with respect to qualifications for membership in the league, the plan of the League to Enforce Peace on this point, which to the writer would seem sound, is generally understood to contemplate the admission of only those states which have shown a reasonable ability to maintain peace and justice within their own borders, and in view of recent happenings we may now gladly join the great German of an elder day, Kant, and add the qualification that only those states which have a reasonably democratic form of government and, therefore, where there can be no excuse for assassination or revolution as political methods, may be admitted to the league. For, as the President said in his address to Congress on April 2d last, "a steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations." It is of course understood that nations not at present qualified for membership should be admitted as soon as they demonstrate their capacity for ordered self-government.

Fifth, although the various plans differ with respect to the question whether force shall be used only to compel the submission of disputes to the court, or the council of conciliation, or whether the league is to go further and enforce obedience to the decrees of the court, it is submitted that the less ambitious plan of the League to Enforce Peace of merely compelling submission and leaving a nation free so far as the threat of force is concerned to disregard an award of the International Court, while less logical, is far safer in the beginning. If this plan be adopted, the objection of fixity loses all substance, and there is nothing left of it but this: that the proposal contemplates "A League of Nations," which, as the President said in his semi-centennial address at Omaha on October 6, 1916, "shall see to it that nobody [or, as the League to Enforce Peace would say, no signatory] disturbs the peace of the world without submitting his case first to the opinion of mankind." If this be fixity, it is submitted the world can well afford to make it eternal.

The CHAIRMAN. The second address will be by Mr. James Brown Scott. The simple title which comes after his name is only one of many - Director of the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION: EXECUTIVE AND

ADMINISTRATIVE

ADDRESS BY JAMES BROWN SCOTT,

Director of the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: My purpose is not to quarrel with the "League to Enforce Peace" or its partisans. My idea is something very different. It is a consideration of the question, which is very fundamental, of the relation which exists between force, on the one hand, and justice, on the other, and to examine how far we can say that force can ever be trusted to find out justice, and finding out justice, to secure its realization. That is a point about which we do not need to quote Penn, nor do I need to refer to the distinguished authorities who have been cited in behalf of a league to enforce peace, a league of peace or a league of honor, as, by successive gradations, the presidential plan has, little by little, developed into "a league of honor," a term used in his epoch-making address of April 2d, before the Congress. The question simply is, What has been the experience of the world since the first time that man went upright on two legs down to the present day? We have a right to invoke the history of mankind down to the present day in this matter of force in the settlement of disputes, because, until and including the present day, force has been invariably and inevitably used.

In this way, going back to primitive man, up to the present day we find that force has not brought forth the fruits of perfect justice, and it seems to me we are perhaps justified in hesitating to accept a reorganization of the world based upon a principle which has always been tried and which hitherto has apparently not proved successful. Instead of force between two nations, we are now to have force between many nations; instead of the force of nations A, B, and C, which may happen to be in alliance, we are to have a force of the nations, beginning with A, B, and C, and going down to X, Y, and Z, if they can qualify as progressive nations, because all nations are not to be admitted to this league to enforce peace. We are going to have only those that stand the examination, those that are forward, and not those that are backward; and I venture to prophesy that it will be a very difficult task to line up the sheep and the goats, separating one from the other, to the satisfaction of the sheep, if they do not wish to be goats, and to the satisfaction of the goats, if they do not wish to be sheep. You must have something definite. You

must have something that will produce peace and not plunge the nations into war, because, by this plan, if one nation breaks the agreement, all nations, apparently, are to break it, because there has to be a union of minds and spirits, or else they would not come into this circle for the administration of justice. They must be nations of a certain standing, and then having this certain standing, they must pledge themselves to go to war in order to accomplish the particular purpose, if some commission or international council shall decide that some nation should have submitted either this matter to a council of conciliation or should have submitted the matter in question to a judicial decision.

I am merely speaking of these matters, by way of introduction. I am willing, for the purpose of the present phase of the discussion, to admit that there is a league to enforce peace in being; that the difficulties of separating the sheep from the goats, of designating the progressive nations and the unprogressive nations, and forming a league of nations, who, by a resort to arms have shown their interest in justice I am willing to admit that there is such a league in being, and that it uses the strongest of terms that can possibly be found to unite the nations in a single force, to use the thought of William Penn, and to use this force in order to make war against a nation considered not to have a case, because, upon the bidding of the nations of the league, it has not submitted its case to a council of conciliation or to a court of justice. But, what I ask myself is this: If, in times past there have been agreements which nations have not lived up to, how are we to imagine, how are we to be justified in our belief, after the experience of mankind in the breaking of treaties, that because this bears the charmed name of “A League to Enforce Peace" these nations will live up to this agreement when they have refused to live up to many of their other agreements? For, if you examine any collection of treaties, you will find that not merely one nation, or a second nation, or a third nation, has failed in its international agreements, but that all nations are tarred with the same stick. Whenever a treaty has been entered into which has borne rather hardly or harshly against a nation, that nation has either interpreted the obligation out of existence, or it is declared not to be binding, or it has flatly refused to honor its obligations, alleging, if you please, a change of circumstances.

But, I would ask, suppose this league is to be composed of twelve members; and that one of the members commit an act of hostility. The question is not, according to the statement, whether the nation was or was not justified in committing the act of hostility; whether it was right or

whether it was wrong; whether it was the assailant or not; the simple condition is that one nation used force without, in the first instance, submitting its claim to a council of conciliation, or to a court if it be a justiciable question. Now, if this one nation, number twelve, we will call it, does, in a dispute with number eleven, refuse to submit the matter in dispute to the council of conciliation or to the court of justice, and, taking the law into its own hands, invades the territory of number eleven, declaring war without first having submitted the matter to conciliatory advice or to judgment, then the other Powers are to unite their land or naval forces or to use economic pressure, in order to punish the recalcitrant nation, number twelve, which agreed to this league, to which it is a contracting party, but which is not living up to its agreement.

It is indeed a very attractive plan, although a rather specious one, because Mr. Dennis very honestly and very properly said there would be no compulsion to bring the nations into this league - differing from Penn's plan, by which they should be forced into it- but the nations voluntarily are to join this group. And where, it may be asked, is the wrong, is the crime in forcing a nation to live up to the agreement which it freely enters into, not by the use of force, not by duress? Seductive it is, but the fact is that in times past nations have insisted on living up to agreements when in harmony with their interests, and they have not lived up to them when they have not been to their interest. I bemoan this fact. I wish it were not so, but you do not cure this tendency in nations merely by duplicating evils.

The resort to force is to be the result of an agreement. What possible ground can you have for the belief that the ten nations uniting themselves to the eleventh, which was attacked, would, as a matter of fact, fall upon the twelfth nation hip and thigh, unless it were to their interest to fall upon this recalcitrant? If it were to their interest to fall upon it, they would do so without a treaty. Therefore, the treaty is unnecessary. If it is not to their interest to fall upon this nation, they will not do so, and if they are honest nations, they will say so frankly. That was the case with Sir Edward Grey, to whom reference was made. When the French Ambassador and the Russian Ambassador requested Sir Edward Grey to state that Great Britain would unite its forces with those of Russia and France, Sir Edward Grey frankly remarked that public opinion in England would not allow Great Britain to go to war on a question involving Serbia; but when Belgium was threatened, although there was no treaty between Great Britain and the other countries to go to war if Belgium was invaded, the Belgian treaty being simply a promise on the