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after it has advanced sufficiently to govern itself, shall unwillingly be ruled by another state. A plebiscite to test the wish of the people to achieve independence shall be afforded them by the mother country every twenty-five years, open to citizens who shall have been domiciled there for at least the space of twenty-five years. Such colonists shall be permitted to review any grievance against the mother country concerning the conduct of such plebiscite by the procedure prescribed in the Arbitration Convention.

Unorganized Territory

Any territory that contains an area with radii from a center of kilometers which does not include a fixed town with a population of, at least, domiciled inhabitants, a post office, telegraph office and schools for secondary instruction, shall be open to any nation for occupation and organization as colonial territory; provided, that the nation claiming it does not cause such requirements to be fulfilled within two years after the receipt of notice from another nation that it would like to settle it.

Provision should be made to assure to inland countries outlets to the sea, under reasonable conditions, such as those now existing in regard to the use of the Rhine, the Danube and the St. Lawrence Rivers, by water; and the railroad systems of America, by land.

The convention might, for instance, provide as follows:

All natural water ways, and improvements employed in connection therewith, shall be open for the use of peoples living inland, on reasonable conditions;

and the latter shall accord reciprocal privileges to the passage and trade of the peoples of the lowland.

Transportation over artificial routes shall be accorded under reasonable requirements and through shipments permitted without the exaction of customs duties.

It might further be well to fix, by convention some principals not yet thoroughly established, such as:

The territorial integrity of all nations shall be maintained, save that nations may consolidate, or dismember, by arrangement. Questions of unrecognized boundaries, nevertheless, may form a proper subject for arbitration.

The stranger, with a clean record, shall have the right to circulate under sanitary regulations; and, under added conditions, which shall be no more onerous than those imposed on citizens, or subjects, he shall have the right to sojourn; save, however, that a state may restrict the immigration of people of a lower class of civilization, if it is menaced with an inflow such as would perceptibly lower its own standard.

Duties, taxes and regulations affecting foreign commerce and foreigners, passing or sojourning, shall be reasonable and alike for all.

At the termination of the war, it is probable that the statu quo ante rule, restoring territory about to the situation before the war, will be followed; but Germany might well make the following concession to France:

Allow France to designate a section of Alsace and Lorraine, following promontories and ridges, to be ceded to her in case a majority of the voters who inhabited the section August 1, 1914, shall vote in favor

of annexation to France, the plebiscite to be under the control of some neutral committee. Should France mark off too large a section, she might gain nothing. Should she be modest in her attempt, she might acquire some territory adjacent to her frontier where French sympathy prevails, as that naturally predominates along the present border, and shades off as remoter parts are reached.1

A Decisive Victory Unfavorable for Enduring Peace The time to intorduce this plan is the present, while the fate of Europe is in the balance and before either of the contending sides has won such a decisive victory that it will assert the right to maintain peace by predominant armed force.

It can, at least, be perceived that neither belligerent will succeed in reducing the other so as to keep it down by force for even a generation.

The assurance of a sweeping victory is not so strong on either side as to justify the one or the other in incurring, say, again the amount of indebtedness already made, in the hope of accomplishing it; and no nation, no generation, can justify the imposition of such a burden upon its posterity, for there is where it will rest, when complete relief can be had by a plan that is practically the cessation of expenditures for armed protection and the diversion of the energy saved into economic channels, not to mention the greatest consideration - the immediate termination of

(1) To this idea President Wilson aptly applied the term "selfdetermination." It was followed in fixing the German-Schleswig boundary, which is probably the only new one that will endure.

The delimitations of the new Europeon States rest on the "self determination" of the diplomats at Versailles; and consequently, instability.

the war with its further destruction and maiming of men. A peace on land secured by the military domination of Germany, or on the sea, by the naval rule of Britain, would be so humiliating and intolerable that it would only last until powers could combine to break it by a still greater war. Should the German navy be crushed, even France would not like to be told that thereafter it would be expected that her navy would remain in the Mediterranean. No nation should dominate. We have reached the state of civilization where intelligent judgment should rule.

As nations are not yet ready to depend upon the sense of right in the condemned to see that the punishments meted out to them are inflicted, any more than in the case of the individual, and cannot maintain orderly governments without enforcing obligations and inflicting penalties for the infraction of rights, a sanction by force is necessary. This force should be commensurate with the nation's economic strength, in navy and army, if the game is to remain one of war; but it is fortunate that the situation of nations to each other is such that a coercive power, free from physical force, contains even greater potency.

Would it not be better for America to utilize the great financial advantage that she still enjoys, to achieve by direct methods the result that all nations are seeking: namely, the abolition of armaments? It would cost America far less to use a portion of the means that she is now dissipating in the war did she purchase the navies of the world, using in part payment the loans recently made, and scrap them; and even, in addition, did she contribute largely to the rehabilitation of the countries devastated by the war. Instead of wasting her means in a cause in which many of her people do not sympathize, she would thereby

express the feeling of the best of her citizens, that they did not wish to amass wealth through the misfortunes of the Allies, or other people. In such a work, however, Japan, which has gained greatly by the war, should join America.

In the building up and maintenance of the present system of armed peace, America is also responsible. Without having made any serious and direct effort to achieve the end herein advocated, she has for years been laying down, keel for keel, cruisers and battleships to equal those being built by France or Germany, and even disputing the second place with France until the latter was outdistanced by Germany, with the result, which, it at least now can be seen, was inevitable. She, however, is still in a position where, if she will but take the lead in the opposite direction. all belligerents will hasten to join her.

At the present time, a bare offer to mediate between the belligerents, or to declare an armistice for the purpoes of considering terms of peace, is hardly possible, as the advantage would accrue chiefly to the one side in giving it needed time for preparations, the progress of which could not be absolutely stayed. Wherefore, the desirability of having a plan, that can be studied, quickly grasped and accepted in principle while the struggle continues, is apparent.

The great object of the war from all sides is the establishment of international relations on an orderly and permanent basis; and the rational way to achieve it is to work from the earliest moment upon a plan with that objeot directly in view, so that the minds of the people of both belligerents may be focused and kept upon it, and not overcome by agitation at the atrocities of the war, when intelligent action ceases.

It should be realized that there

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