S I write, Germany is reported to have declared war against Russia and France, and the participation of England on the one side and of Italy on the other seems imminent. Nothing like it has occurred since the great Napoleonic wars, and with modern armaments and larger populations nothing has occurred like it since the world began.

It is a cataclysm. It is a retrograde step in Christian civilization. It will be difficult to keep the various countries of the Balkans out of the war, and Greece and Turkey may take part in it. All Europe is to be a battleground. It is reported that the neutrality of Holland has already been ignored and Belgium offers such opportunities in the campaigns certain to follow that her territory, too, will be the scene of struggle.

Private property and commercial shipping under an enemy's flag are subject to capture and appropriation by prize proceedings and with the formidable navies of England, France, Germany, Russia and Italy active the great carrying trade of the world will be in large part suspended or destroyed or will be burdened with such heavy insurance as greatly to curtail it.

The commerce of the world makes much for the prosperity of the countries with whom it is conducted and its interruption means great inconvenience and economic suffering among all people whether at peace or war. The capital which the European people have invested by the billions in the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and in the Orient must perforce be withdrawn to fill the war chests of the nations engaged in a death grapple, and the enterprises which that capital made possible are likely to be greatly crippled while the hope of any further expansion must be definitely given up.

This general European war will give a feverish activity in a number of branches of our industry, but on the whole we shall suffer with the rest of the world, except that we shall not be destroying or blowing up our existing wealth or sacrificing the lives of our best young men and youth.

It is hard to prophesy the scope of a war like this, because history offers no precedent. It is impossible to foresee the limits of a war of any proportions when confined only to two countries. In our own small Spanish war we began it to free Cuba and when the war closed we found ourselves ten thousand miles away with the Philippines on our hands. The immense waste of life and treasure in a modern war makes the loss to the conqueror only less, if indeed it be less, than the loss to the conquered.

With a high patriotic spirit, people enter upon war with confidence and with the thought of martial glory and success. The sacrifices they have to make, the suffering they have to undergo are generally such that if victory does not rest upon their banners they seek a scapegoat for that which they themselves have brought on in the head of the state, and the king or emperor who begins a war or allows one to begin puts at stake not only the prestige of his nation, but also the stability and integrity of his dynasty.

In such a war as this, therefore, with the universal tendency to popular control in every country, the strain and defeat in war may lead to a state of political flux in those countries which shall suffer defeat, with all the attendant difficulties and disorder that a change of government involves.

While we can be sure that such a war as this, taking it by and large, will be a burden upon the United States

and is a great misfortune, looked at solely from the standpoint of the United States, we have every reason to be happy that we are able to preserve strict neutrality in respect to it. Within our hospitable boundaries we have living prosperous and contented emigrants in large numbers from all the countries who are to take part in the war and the sympathies of these people will of course be with their respective native lands. Were there no other reason this circumstance would tend to keep us free from any entanglement.

We may sincerely hope that Japan will not be involved. She will not be unless the war is carried on to the far Orient, to India or to China. Germany has but a small settlement in the Orient, while France and Russia and England would be allies in this war and it would seem quite unlikely that there would arise any obligation under the English-Japanese alliance for Japan to assist England. Of the great powers of the world, therefore, the only ones left out are likely to be the United States and Japan, and perhaps only the United States, by reason of the alliance between Japan and England. Japan, if she keeps out of the war, will occupy the same advantageous position. which will be ours, of complete neutrality, of an actually judicial attitude, and therefore, of having an opportunity at some time, we may hope, to mediate between the powers and to help to mitigate this disaster to mankind.

At the time when so many friends of peace have thought that we were making real progress toward the abolition of war this sudden outbreak of the greatest war in history is most discouraging. The future looks dark indeed, but we should not despair.

"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." Now that the war is a settled fact, we must hope that some good may come from this dreadful scourge. The armaments of Europe had been growing heavier and heavier, bankruptcy has stared many of the nations in the face, conflict between races had begun to develop.

War seemed likely at some stage and the question which each country had to answer for itself was at what time the situation would be most favorable for its success. The immediate participants have decided that the time has come and thru their international alliances all Europe is involved.

There has been no real test of the heavy armament on land or water as developed by modern invention and this contest is to show what has been well spent for war purposes and what has been wasted. It is by no means certain that waste will not exceed in cost that which was spent to effective purpose.

One thing I think we can reasonably count on is that with the prostration of industry, with the blows to prosperity, with the state of flux that is likely to follow this titanic struggle, there will be every opportunity for common sense to resume its sway; and after the horrible expenditure of the blood of the best and the savings of the rich and the poor, the opportunity and the motive for a reduction of armament and the taking away of a temptation to further war will be greatly enhanced.

It is an awful remedy, but in the end it may be worth what it costs, if it makes this the last great war. The influence of America can be thrown most effectively for peace when peace is possible and for minimum armaments when disaster and exhaustion shall make the contending peoples and their rulers see things as they are.

I'

N his famous essay, Perpetual Peace, published in 1795, Emmanuel Kant, perhaps the greatest intellect the world has ever produced, declared that we never can have universal peace until the world is politically organized and it will never be possible to organize the world politically until the people, not the kings, rule. And he added that the peoples of the earth must cultivate and attain the spirit of hospitality and good will toward all races and nations.

If this be the true philosophy of peace, then when the Great War is over, and the stricken sobered people set about to rear a new civilization on the ashes of the old, they cannot hope to abolish war unless they are prepared to extend democracy everywhere, to banish hatred from their hearts, and to organize the international realm on a basis of law rather than force. The questions of the extension of democracy and the cultivation of benevolence are

BY HAMILTON HOLT

war.

LIKE THE AMERICAN CONFEDERATION

or

domestic ones. They can hardly be brought the same stage of development that the

about by joint action of the nations. World organization and disarmament, however, can be provided for in the terms of peace or by international agreement thereafter. As the United States seems destined to play an important part in the great reconstruction at the end of the war, this is perhaps the most important question now before American statesmanship.

LAW OR WAR

The only two powers that ever have governed or ever can govern human beings are reason and force-law and war. If we do not have the one we must have the other.

The peace movement is the process of substituting law for war. Peace follows justice, justice follows law, law follows political organization. The world has already achieved peace, through justice, law and

political organization in hamlets, towns, cities, states and even in the fortysix sovereign civilized nations of the world. But in that international realm over and above each nation, in which each nation. is equally sovereign, the only final way for a nation to secure its rights is by the use of force. Force, therefore or war as it is called when exerted by a nation against another nation-is at present the enly final method of settling international differences. In other words, the nations are in that state of civilization today where, without a qualm, they claim the right to settle their disputes in a manner which they would actually put their own subjects to death for imitating. The peace problem, then, is nothing but the problem of finding ways and means of doing between the nations what has already been done within the nations. International law follows private law. The "United Nations" follow the United States.

At present international law has reached the same state of development that private law reached in the tenth century. Professor T. J. Lawrence (in his essay The Evolution of Peace) distinguishes four stages in the evolution of private law:

1. Kinship is the sole bond; revenge

American colonies were about the time of their first confederation. As the United States came into existence by the establishment of the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress, SO the "United Nations" came into existence by the establishment of The Hague Court and the recurring Hague Conferences; The Hague Court being the promise of the Supreme Court of the world and The Hague Conferences being the prophecy of the parliament of man. We may look with confidence, therefore, to a future in which the world will have an established court with jurisdiction over all questions, self-governing conferences with power to legislate on all affairs of common concern, and an executive power of some form to carry on the decrees of both. To deny this is to ignore all the analogies of private law and the whole trend of the world's political history since the Declaration of Independence. As Secretary of State Knox said not long ago:

"We have reached a point when it is evident that the future holds in store a time when war shall cease, when the nations of the world shall realize a federation as real and vital as that now subsisting between the component parts of a single state."

It would be difficult to recall a more far-visioned statement than this emanating from the chancellery of a great state. It means nothing less than that the agelong dreams of the poets, the prophets and the philosophers have at last entered the realms of practical statesmanship.

But now the Great War has come upon us. "When the storm is spent and the desolation is complete; when the flower of the manhood of Europe has past into eternal night; when famine and pestilence have taken their tithe of childhood and age." will then the exhausted and beggared that live on be able to undertake the task of establishing that World Government which the historian Freeman has called "the most finished and the most artificial production of political ingenuity"?

THE HAGUE OR THE LEAGUE OF PEACE

If it can be done at all it can only be done in one of two ways.

First. By building on the foundations already laid at The Hague, the Federation of the World.

Second. By establishing a great Confederation or League of Peace, composed evolution or the suffering of war have at of those few nations who thru political last seen the light and are ready here and now to disarm.

It is obvious that the time is scarcely ripe for voluntary and universal disarmament by joint agreement. There are too many medieval-minded nations still in existence. The Federation of the World must still be a dream for many years to come. The immediate establishment of a League of Peace, however, would in fact constitute a first step toward world federation and does not offer insuperable difficulties. All federal governments and confederations The idea of a League of Peace is not novel. of governments, both ancient and modern, are essentially leagues of peace, even tho they may have functions to perform which often lead directly to war.

The ancient Achaian League of Greece, the Confederation of Swiss Cantons, the United Provinces of The Netherlands, the United States of America, and the Commonwealth of Australia are the most nearly perfect systems of federated governments known to history. Less significant, but none the less interesting to students of government, are the Latin League of thirty cities, the Hanseatic League, the Holy Alliance, and in modern times, the German Confederation. Even the recent Concert of Europe was a more or less inchoate League of Peace. The ancient leagues, as well as the modern confederations, have generally been unions of offense and defense. They stood ready, if they did not actually propose, to use their common forces to compel outside states to obey their will. Thus they were as frequently leagues of oppression as leagues of peace.

THE PROBLEM OF FORCE

The problem of the League of Peace is therefore the problem of the use of force. Force internationally exprest is measured in armaments. The chief discussion which has been waged for the past decade between the pacifists and militarists has been over the question of armaments. The militarists claim that armaments insure national safety. The pacifists declare they inevitably lead to war. Both disputants insist that the present war furnishes irrefutable proof of their contentions.

As is usual in cases of this kind the shield has two sides. The confusion has arisen from a failure to recognize the threefold function of force:

1. Force used for the maintenance of crder--police force.

2. Force used for attack-aggression. 3. Force used to neutralize aggressiondefense.

Police force is almost wholly good.

Offense is almost wholly bad.

Defense is a necessary evil, and exists simply to neutralize force employed for aggression.

The problem of the peace movement is how to abolish the use of force for aggression, and yet to maintain it for police purposes. Force for defense will of course automatically cease when force for aggression is abolished.

The chief problem then of a League of Peace is this: Shall the members of the League "not only keep the peace themselves, but prevent by force if necessary its being broken by others," as ex-President Roosevelt suggested in his Nobel Peace Address delivered at Christiania, May 5, 1910? Or shall its force be exercized only within its membership and thus be on the side of law and order and never on the side of arbitrary will or tyranny? Or shall it never be used at all? Whichever one of these conceptions finally prevails the Great War has conclusively demonstrated that as long as War Lords exist defensive force must be maintained. Hence the League must be prepared to use force against any nations which will not forswear force. Nevertheless a formula must be devised for disarmament. For unless it is a law of nature that war is to consume all the fruits of progress, disarmament some how and some way must take place. How then can the maintenance of a force for defense and police power be reconciled with the theory of disarmament?

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE

In this way: Let the League of Peace be formed on the following five principles: First. The nations of the League shall mutually agree to respect and guarantee the territory and sovereignty of each other.

Second. All questions that cannot be settled by diplomacy shall be arbitrated.

Third. The nations of the League shall provide a periodical assembly to make all rules to become law unless vetoed by a nation within a stated period.

Fourth. The nations shall disarm to the point where the combined forces of the League shall be a certain per cent higher than those of the most heavily armed nation or alliance outside of the League. Detailed rules for this pro rata disarmament shall be formulated by the Assembly.

Fifth. Any member of the League shall have the right to withdraw on due notice, or may be expelled by the unanimous vote of the others.

The advantages that a nation would gain in becoming a member of such a league are manifest. The risk of war would be eliminated within the League. Obviously the only things that are vital to a nation are its land and its independence. Since each nation in the League will have pledged itself to respect and guarantee the territory and the sovereignty of every other, a refusal to do so will logically lead to compulsion by the other members of the League or expulsion from the League. Thus every vital question will be automatically reserved from both war and arbitration while good faith lasts. All other questions are of secondary importance and can readily be arbitrated.

By the establishment of a periodical assembly a method would be devised whereby the members of the League could develop their common intercourse and interests as far and as fast as they could

unanimously agree upon ways and means. As any law could be vetoed by a single nation, no nation could have any fear that it would be coerced against its will by a majority vote of the other nations. By such an assembly the League might in time agree to reduce tariffs and postal rates and in a thousand other ways promote commerce and comity among its members.

As a final safeguard against coercion by the other members of the League, each member will have the right of secession on due notice. This would prevent civil war within the League. The right of expulsion by the majority will prevent one nation by its veto power indefinitely blocking all progress of the League.

THE SCRAP OF PAPER

a

But it will be said that all these agreements will have no binding effect in crisis. A covenant is a mere "scrap of paper" whose provisions will be violated by the first nation which fancies it is its interest to do so. In order to show that their faith is backed up by deeds, however, the nations on entering the League agree to disarm to a little above the danger point. This is the real proof of their conversion to the peace idea.

It will be noticed that no attempt is made to define how the force of the League shall be exerted. This is left for the decision of the Assembly of the League. The suggestion that "the nation shall disarm to the point where the combined forces of the League shall be a certain per cent higher than those of the most heavily armed nation or alliance outside the League," implies that the forces of the League shall be used for the neutralization of the aggressive force of nations outside the League that is, for defense. But shall not the force of the League be also used as police power, that is, aggressively to maintain international law and order? A League with power to exert its will without any constitutional limitations might easily become a League of Oppression. It would have the right to be judge and sheriff in its own cause, a violation of the first principles of justice.

It would not be over-sanguine to expect that the Assembly of the League would vote that the armaments of the League should be brought into regular and concerted action for compelling obedience to the judicial decisions of the Court of the League both among members of the League and those outside who have agreed to this method of settling their disputes. It may even be anticipated that the force of the League will be used to assist one of the members of the League in a controversy with a nation outside the League that has not previously agreed to resort to arbitration and that refuses so to agree upon request. Such an agreement would tend to enthrone law and suppress arbitrary action. Entering a League with such a policy would not subject the United States to the necessity of waging war thru the erroneous action of its allies in an "entangling alliance," but only to extend the reign of law. This is the fundamental purpose of our Government and perhaps the United States is now ready to go thus far.

Thus the nations which join the League will enjoy all the economic and political advantages which come from mutual cooperation and the extension of international friendship and at the same time will be protected by an adequate force against

the aggressive force of the greatest nation or alliance outside the League. The League therefore reconciles the demand of the pacifists for the limitation of armaments and eventual disarmament and the demand of the militarists for the protection that armament affords. Above all the establishment of such a league will give the liberal parties in the nations outside the League an issue on which they can attack their governments so as sooner or later to force them to apply to the League for membership. As each one enters there will be another pro rata reduction of the military forces of the League down to the armament of the next most powerful nation or alliance outside it; until finally the whole world is federated in a brotherhood of universal peace and armies and navies are reduced to an international police force.

This is the plan for a League of Peace. Is the hour about to strike when it can be realized? If only the United States, France and England would lead in its formation, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and others might perhaps join. Even if Russia and Germany and Japan and Italy stayed out, the League would still be powerful and large enough to begin with every auspicious hope of success.

THE DESTINY OF THE UNITED STATES

It would seem to be the manifest destiny of the United States to lead in the establishment of such a league. The United States is the world in miniature. The United States is the greatest league of peace known to history. The United States is a demonstration to the world that all the races and peoples of the earth can live in peace under one form of government, and its chief value to civilization is a demonstration of what this form of government is.

Prior to the formation "of a more perfect union" our original thirteen states were united in a confederacy strikingly similar to that now proposed on an international scale. They were obliged by the articles of this confederacy to respect each other's territory and sovereignty, to arbitrate all questions among themselves, to assist each other against any foreign foe, not to engage in war unless called upon by the confederation to do so or actually invaded by a foreign foe, and not to maintain armed forces in excess of the strength fixed for each state by all the states in Congress assembled.

It is notable that security against aggression from states inside or outside the American Union accompanied the agreement to limit armaments. Thus danger of war and size of armaments were decreased contemporaneously.

It is also notable that from the birth of the Republic to this hour every President of the United States has advocated peace thru justice. From the first great Virginian to the last great Virginian, all have abhorred what Thomas Jefferson called "the greatest scourge of mankind."

When the Great War is over and the United States is called upon to lead the nations in reconstructing a new order of civilization, why might not Woodrow Wilson do on a world scale something similar to what George Washington did on a continental scale?

Stranger things than this have happened in history. Let us add to the Declaration of Independence a Declaration of Interdependence.