LAGUE OF NATIONS A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT THEODORE MARBURG THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO LEAGUE OF NATIONS A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT BY THEODORE MARBURG, M.A., LL.D. Formerly United States Minister to Belgium THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1919 All rights reserve A COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published, October, 1917. Reprinted. November, 1917. ^ * \ c\ r SANTA BARBARA AUTHOR'S PREFACE. This work aims not at a compre- hensive narrative of the origin and growth of opinion on that greatest of problems adequate international or- ganization but is confined largely to developments with which the writer has been personally connected. Due largely to its endeavour to con- fine its program to the realizable in the present stage of world opinion and preju- dice, the American movement appears to have been accepted abroad more freely than that of any other group. Progress beyond the hope of its originators is al- ready recorded. But as we are still in the full tide of events in this field the au- thor hopes to follow the present publica- tion with a second volume. FOREWORD This little book is a history of the movement in the United States to secure action by the United States and other Nations, after this great world war, looking to the establishment of a League to Enforce Peace. Mr. Marburg, the author, is a student of international law, a publicist, and a diplomat of marked ability and learning. Under the last Republican Administration, he was United States Minister to Belgium. With great public spirit he has always been active in associations for the pro- motion of arbitration and judicial set- tlement of international controversies. Mr. Marburg, with Mr. Holt of the Independent, was the first to move for the formation of a League to Enforce Peace, and has been most diligent and FOREWORD effective in promoting the League ever since. The principles and project of the League to Enforce Peace, as projected by the American Section of its promo- ters, are few and simple. Shortly stated, they look to the peaceable pro- cedure for the hearing and decision of all international controversies, to be en- forced by the joint power of the nations of the world. The force is to be applied in securing the due process under the agreements of the League. It does not extend to the enforcement of the judg- ment or recommendation of compromise which shall be the result of the hearing. The essence of the plan is the delay and deliberation involved in orderly proced- ure for the hearing and decision of the controversy. It is thought that most wars can be avoided by such a procedure, and the force is to be applied against the premature hostilities of any nation which violates its plighted faith under the League by beginning war before the FOREWORD procedure of hearing and judgment has been completed. Mr. Marburg, in his first chapter, has discussed a good many details and phases of the possible operation of a League to Enforce Peace which have been considered by a group of members of the League. As Mr. Marburg has taken pains to point out, it is a private group and not a committee of the League. The group itself holds the view that it is best for the League to confine its authoritative commitments to the short program of the League, and it has never asked the Executive Com- mittee to pass upon the results of its labour. The resume which Mr. Marburg has given of the growth of the support of the general plan of the League must become more and more useful as the time ap- proaches for the consummation of the purpose of the League. This time can not come until Germany, the head and front of military autocracy in the world, FOREWORD shall have been defeated and the power of vicious militarism broken. This is a condition precedent to any useful League to Enforce Peace. Experience shows that the fundamental evil of military autocracy is the theory that there is no international morality and that no sacredness attaches to national obliga- tions when the interest of the state re- quires that the obligations shall be broken. When such a false and vicious philosophy is broken down by a defeat of the German military caste in this war, the world will be ripe for a League to Enforce Peace, because national obliga- tions will then acquire a strength and practical binding quality that will lead all the nations to rest reasonably secure in the promises of their sister nations. I hope that Mr. Marburg's little book will be widely read. WM. H. TAFT. Pointe-a-Pic, Canada, September 6, 1917. LEAGUE OF NATIONS A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 1 STRUCK with the benefits of politi- cal organization within the State, thinking men have long viewed the pos- sibility of similar organization between States; to suffer the continuance of in- ternational anarchy with its disastrous results was a reflection on the common intelligence. From time to time this consciousness has flowered in noble expression and oc- casionally in definite plans for world or- ganization. Men did not question the wisdom of the steps advocated by these thinkers. But they looked about them and saw apparently insurmountable bar- riers of national jealousies and hate and ambition. And the simple fact is that no body of men in the various nations appeared with sufficient vision and pur- 2 LEAGUE OF NATIONS pose to attempt to realize these projects. The present movement for interna- tional justice, to be attained ultimately through international organization, may be said to have had its birth at the First Hague Conference (1899). While it has suffered disappointments, the movement from that day to this has constantly grown, drawing within its ranks more and more thoughtful men in private sta- tion and an ever greater number of men in positions of power, until today it really looks as if we were on the eve of realizing at least the beginnings of a true world organization. Are the men who have the doing of this thing in the hollow of the hand to suffer the world to be again disappointed? God forbid. VISAGING THE ORGANIZATION AND WORKINGS OF A LEAGUE OF NATIONS 2 The brain centre of a League of Na- tions will probably be an executive body THE ORGANIZATION 3 (Ministry) which will be the source of much of the League's activity. Such a body would naturally entertain com- plaints and, if unable itself to compose the controversies, would pass them up to a World Court or to a Council of Concili- ation accordingly as it judged them to be justiciable questions or conflicts of political policy. As the Court would probably be em- powered, like the Supreme Court of the United States of North America, itself to pass upon the question of jurisdiction, the Ministry could well afford to lean to- ward the Court in making the choice re- ferred to, being assured that if it erred in its choice the Court would correct the mistake. That which is sometimes termed " pre- ventive justice " could likewise be intro- duced through the Ministry, by charg- ing that body with the important posi- tive function of keeping a close watch on both international developments and on internal dissensions likely to lead to 4 LEAGUE OF NATIONS international complications. In the lat- ter field its powers would, of necessity, be purely facultative, since it is not pro- posed to confer upon the League the right to interfere in the internal affairs of its members. Whether or not it would eventually find it necessary, in the interests of the World's peace, to deal more drastically with backward coun- tries is a question which we are not called upon to answer now. To its own members the League could only suggest the advisability of taking notice of, and endeavouring to allay, internal discon- tent which was likely to assume interna- tional aspects, and offer the services of its tribunals and committees to that end. In all probability it would likewise be in the Ministry that most legislation would originate, to be acted upon by an International Legislative Assembly. If any such function is expected of it, the members of the Ministry should then have seats in the Legislative Assembly. But the greatest responsibility that THE ORGANIZATION 5 would rest on a Ministry would be that of determining when a crisis had arisen calling for the use of force under the terms of the League and of so notifying the individual States of the League, leaving them to determine, each for it- self, whether or not it was prepared to live up to its obligations under the treaty. Such a situation would be par- allel to that in which the United States Congress would find itself if called upon by the President to act under the treaty by which the United States has guaran- teed the integrity of Cuba : the Congress alone, under the Constitution, may de- clare war, and when the conditions con- templated by the treaty have arisen the Executive Branch of the Government must await the pleasure of the Congress before it can make war in fulfilment of the country's treaty obligations. A decision by the Ministry of the League such as is here contemplated must necessarily be swift and immediate, for war, once begun in earnest, is hard 6 LEAGUE OF NATIONS to stay. And, as prompt decision can be expected ordinarily only from small bodies of men, the numbers composing the Ministry must not be large. It has been suggested that it should be ap- pointed by and out of the proposed Council of Conciliation, which itself would embrace only men of " wide experi- ence and of marked discretion and abil- ity," and that it should consist of five members. It would seem that five is not too small a number to insure deliberation nor too large to prevent prompt decision in an emergency. The failure of most councils that have sat in international crises in the past has been due to their inability to agree promptly on a line of action. Such disagreement has been so common that nations aggressively dis- posed have come to count upon it. As the chief aim of the rudimentary organ- ization of states which it is now pro- posed to set up as an entering wedge in the present senseless block of interna- tional anarchy is to prevent war before THE ORGANIZATION 7 there has been a hearing of the dispute, it is of foremost importance that the machinery designed to accomplish this object should be effective. It cannot be effective unless the responsibility for de- termining the moment when the League is called upon to use force rests with a small body of men, not diplomats but statesmen who have had wide experience, the very foremost men in their respective countries so far as possible, men who enjoy the confidence not only of their fellow countrymen but of the world. It would not be difficult to name such men today from each of several of the Great Powers and from some of the Secondary Powers as well. If Europe had had sitting perma- nently, say at the capital of some small country, a group of men of this kind, charged with the duty of watching closely international events, gathering knowledge of local difficulties and na- tional aims, legitimate and other, and charged too with the duty of recom- 8 LEAGUE OF NATIONS mending promptly a solution of disputes as they arose, such solution as their experience and knowledge suggested and would have given especial value to, is there any doubt that it would have wit- nessed fewer wars? COUNCIL OF CONCILIATION Co-operating with the Ministry, the source of its strength and of its author- ity, there must be a larger body, com- posed of representatives of the States of the League. This body, it has been sug- gested, should be styled " Council of Conciliation," since one of its important functions will be to compose conflicts of political policy with which a Court is not expected to deal. It should be vested with the power of injunction be- cause in matters of vital importance na- tions will not abstain from taking the case in their own hands will refuse to refer it to enquiry involving possibly a full year's delay unless they can be assured that the offending Nation will be THE ORGANIZATION 9 estopped meanwhile from proceeding with the objectionable act. The Court would naturally enjoy this same power in cases within its jurisdiction. The Council of Conciliation, like its committee, the Ministry, ought to have a permanent seat and a secretariat. It is likewise the best body to entrust with the duty of making rules for the League un- der the constitution in the sense in which a Department of the United States Gov- ernment makes rules under the law. The making of international law proper should be in the hands of a still larger body representing the whole world and not simply the members of the League, since it will be law for the world. Here too, however, the Council of Conciliation and its committee, the Ministry, may properly play an important part in recommending, and actually initiating, measures in the Legislative Assembly. The time of the Council would probably be given up largely to such matters, actual controversies referred to it being 10 LEAGUE OF NATIONS entrusted by it to subcommittees, fluctu- ating in personnel, or to a subcommittee of fixed personnel, as may be found wis- est. A matter of importance, one around which there is likely to be considerable discussion, is the composition of a body endowed with such great powers. Shall the Council be constituted on the princi- ple of the equality of States, or shall the larger and more powerful countries have larger representation? It has been sug- gested that the leading Powers may be able to supply more men of the high type called for by the important duties resting on the Council. Furthermore, if the League is called upon to use force, the burden of the operations will naturally fall on the Great Powers who have the equipment. Will they not therefore in- sist on control of the Council? It is the Great Powers who actually make war, as we know it today, though the smaller Powers, particularly the backward ones, may be instrumental in bringing it on. THE ORGANIZATION 11 This question is not simple. The con- clusion of several important groups is that the principle of equality should gov- ern in the selection of the Council, and that for a time at least it is unlikely to give rise to complications, since the League, at the start, will be confined largely to the Great Powers, with a few only of the Secondary Powers added. If the backward nations are excluded, full representation of the Secondary Powers in the Council ought not to offer obsta- cles to its successful working. An analy- sis of their aims and of the motives gov- erning their conduct in general would lead rather to the opposite conclusion: the conclusion that their presence in the Council would really make for justice and moderation. Changes in the constitution of the League may well originate by resolution of the Council, subject to approval or re- jection by a fixed proportion, more than a bare majority, of the States of the League. No constitutional change 12 LEAGUE OF NATIONS and no war measure should be voted by the Council unless such measure has the approval, say, of four-fifths of the repre- sentatives of the Great Powers. Such a provision would prevent the smaller Pow- ers from crowding into the League and from thus overwhelming the voice of the Great Powers in the Council. THE INTERNATIONAL COTJKT OF JUSTICE The suggestion that the Draft Con- vention for the Court of Arbitral Justice accepted in principle by the Second Hague Conference would serve as the basis for the proposed International Court of Justice under a league of na- tions has met with criticism from several important quarters. The Court which that Convention provided was thought to be inadequate to the needs of the League. There has followed a full discussion of the problem resulting in the elaboration of complete provisions designed to give the world a true international court of justice in connection with a league of na- THE ORGANIZATION 13 tions or independently of it, should the latter project unhappily fail of realiza- tion. 3 Be it remembered at the outset that it is not thought wise, in the present stage of world opinion, to endow an international court with power to en- force its judgments. Such power may come to the Court in the fulness of time, but it is believed that at present the Great Powers are not ready to ac- cept a proposal which would make it possible for a judicial tribunal, with power to pass upon the question of its own jurisdiction, to pronounce conclu- sively on disputes involving vital in- terests. It is proposed that the Court should consist of fifteen judges, not more than two of whom should be connected with any one country, but that they may be taken even from non-contracting States. The appointments should be for life, with optional retirement on pension at the age of seventy. Few questions connected with the set- 14 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ting up of an international court have proved in practice more difficult of solu- tion than that of the composition of the Court. The discussions at the Second Hague Conference disclosed great diver- sity of opinion on this subject, the smaller States preventing an agreement by insisting on full representation on the Court, that which would have produced an assembly of forty-five in lieu of a court. But for the difficulty of solving this problem the Court of Arbitral Jus- tice would have come into being long since. That which is now proposed is that the judges for the International Court of Justice should be chosen by an assembly of judicial electors appointed by the con- tracting Powers, each Power being en- titled to three electors. One judgeship should be filled at a time, the assembly remaining in session until the membership of the Court has been completed. It is suggested that nominations should be made not only by the judicial electors THE ORGANIZATION 15 themselves, who will no doubt represent the views of their respective Govern- ments, but also by national and interna- tional societies of jurists, the persons nominated in the latter manner to be deemed candidates when their nomination has been communicated by any high offi- cial of one of the contracting Powers. It should be possible for the Assembly of Judicial Electors to adopt a preferential system of voting; but in the absence of such a provision no candidate should be declared elected unless he receives an ab- solute majority of the votes cast. To fill vacancies in the Court by call- ing together again this Assembly of Ju- dicial Electors from all parts of the earth, mayhap at short intervals, would be too cumbersome; so it is believed best to leave to the judicial electors them- selves, who are to be a continuing body of changing personnel, the determination of this question. But in cases of im- peachment the electors should meet and no judge be removable except by an abso- 16 LEAGUE OF NATIONS lute majority of those present and vot- ing. As to the competence and procedure of the Court, it is felt that the contracting Powers should agree to submit to it all controversies of a justiciable nature not made the subject of other peaceful dis- position. Even non-contracting Powers should be encouraged to bring their cases to the Court and its jurisdiction should extend not only to these but likewise to disputes between a corporation and a State, or solely between corporations provided the dispute be of international consequence. It is realized that an international court will be called upon to deal with various systems of law ; but it is thought possible to cover this point by specifying that the Court shall apply the doctrines of law which " the contracting Powers may pro- vide or the litigants agree upon," failing which it shall be free to follow its own theory of justice subject to the doctrines already established by international law THE ORGANIZATION 17 as found in the various recognized sources. Growth of law would be promoted by following the practice of accompanying the decree, itself in writing, with a written opinion, bearing the name of the judge by whom it was prepared, and giving the reasoning on which the decision is based. It is believed that when their names ap- pear in connection with decisions judges attach greater importance to their la- bours. There is then added to the natu- rally conscientious discharge of their du- ties the personal element of regard for their own future reputations. The pub- lication of a dissenting opinion is ob- jected to on the ground that even though the judgment of the majority judges, which is the authoritative judgment, " were also a true and righteous judg- ment," nevertheless, owing possibly to the cleverness of the minority judges who would naturally do their best to present their views forcibly, " the reasonableness and persuasiveness of the dissenting opin- 18 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ion " might be such as to throw discredit on the majority opinion. The judges should reside permanently at the seat of the Court. They would constitute a learned group whose interests would be similar and great benefit would result from their constant intercourse. In order to promote resort to the Court non-contracting Powers should not be chargeable with any of the costs. A sense of right will lead them in due time to adhere to the Convention and assume their share of the burden of main- taining the Court if impelled to use it. INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Exclusion of backward countries from a league of nations will naturally be re- sented by them, as few countries will be ready to admit that they belong in that category. This difficulty might be met to a certain extent, though not overcome, by inviting them to send representatives at stated intervals to sit with the Council THE ORGANIZATION 19 of Conciliation, with the right to be heard by it but without a vote. Such a pro- vision would supply the means of their getting their grievances before the League of Nations and of facilitating, at the same time, the discharge of the duty imposed on the Ministry to watch and forestall unfavourable international de- velopments whether within or without the League. The principal means of reconciling the backward countries, however, to their ex- clusion from membership in the League would be to admit them to the Interna- tional Legislative Assembly. They ought to be there all nations ought to be there because the enactments of that body, in the absence of a veto within a given period of time, are supposed to bind not only the States of the League but to be true international law which the whole world is bound to respect. It is suggested that the basis of repre- sentation in the Legislative Assembly 20 LEAGUE OF NATIONS should be units of population supple- mented by additional representation on the basis of units of commerce. Numerous plans have been presented to the world from time to time, some ex- ceedingly elaborate, aiming to give to each nation such representation in an in- ternational assembly as its importance entitles it to. The facts on which these plans are based are difficult of exact as- certainment and the many elements en- tering into the calculation make it very complex. They satisfy no one. On the other hand, it is manifestly unfair to em- ploy population as the sole basis of representation among nations varying greatly in political power and in activity in international intercourse. By including the single additional ele- ment of commerce, which usually runs parallel with progress in other directions, we correct this injustice in large measure and at the same time offer a compara- tively simple basis of calculation. It is desirable that the Legislative As- THE ORGANIZATION 21 sembly, while thus composed of repre- sentatives of all nations we might des- ignate them specifically as the nations which were invited to participate in the Second Hague Conference should be under the guidance of the League, and to that end should be called and dissolved by the League, the latter's Ministry, as above indicated, having seats in the As- sembly and being made largely responsi- ble for initiating measures. As provided in the platform of the American League to Enforce Peace, the acts of the Legislative Assembly should be binding on each participant unless re- jected by it within a stated period. One year is probably sufficient time to allow for a nation to make up its mind on any subject likely to be brought before it in this way. The need of some such provi- sion is shown by the failure of signatories to various Hague and other international conventions to ratify them, leaving na- tions which have ratified them in the posi- tion of having signed a contract, which, it 22 LEAGUE OF NATIONS is true, is not binding as against the par- ties who have failed to ratify, but which may become binding against such parties at any moment that they choose to rat- ify. Again, the difficulty of keeping track of such ratifications is very great for the public and not inconsiderable for Governments. In time of war the vary- ing obligations of belligerents to each other, owing to this same fact, lead to actual confusion. Much of this will be avoided by the provision recommended. In course of time the Legislative As- sembly, perpetuating the work both of the Interparliamentary Union, which has originated so many useful measures, and of the Hague Peace Conference, which turned them and many more of its own devising into law, should prove to be one of the most useful of the institutions which the plans for a league of nations contemplate. In the beginning it will probably lack power and even authority, and its activities may for a time be con- fined to the kind of work the Hague Con- A BIT OF BACKGROUND 23 ference has been doing. Ultimately, if its work inspires sufficient confidence to lead the Powers to institute annual ses- sions, it will not only develop and formu- late international law, but should grow into a true regulating, if not an actual governing, body, to the marked promo- tion of justice in the conduct of nations toward one another. II A BIT OF BACKGROUND On Jan. 31, 1910, William Howard Taft, then President of the United States, addressed the following letter to the author of this volume: " I have learned with interest of the plans to found an ' American Societv for Judicial Settlement of International Dis- putes.' " The leaflets which you propose to pub- lish, together with the meetings of national scope which you are planning to hold from time to time, may have a very great influ- 24 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ence on the development of public opinion on this important subject. If the proposed Court of Arbitral Justice at The Hague becomes an accomplished fact there will still remain the task of securing the adhe- sion of a number of Powers to the Court, and the very important task of so cultivat- ing opinion in various countries as to in- cline Governments to resort to the Court when occasion calls for it. There is no other single way in which the cause of peace and disarmament can be so effect- ively promoted as by the firm establishment of a permanent international Court of Jus- tice." Armed with this endorsement and sup- ported further by the active sympa- thy of men like Elihu Root, the former Secretary of State, and Philander C. Knox, the then Secretary of State, a group of men formed the above-named Society in February, 1910. Mr. Taft accepted the honourary presidency of it and his active interest in the cause of a better world organization has grown A BIT OF BACKGROUND 25 steadily ever since. The great arbitra- tion treaties negotiated under him be- tween Great Britain and the United States, and between France and the United States, but which, unhappily, failed of confirmation by the United States Senate, were the direct outcome of this movement. At a dinner of the Society at Wash- ington on Dec. 17, 1910, Mr. Taft said: "If now we can negotiate and put through a positive agreement with some great nation to abide the adjudication of an international arbitral court in every issue which cannot be settled by nego- tiation, no matter what it involves, whether honour, territory, or money, we shall have made a long step forward by demonstrating that it is possible for two nations at least to establish as be- tween them the same system of due proc- ess of law that exists between individu- als under a government." At his side happened to be the French Ambassador. When Mr. Taft sat down 26 LEAGUE OF NATIONS M. Jusserand turned to him and said, " Do you mean what you say ? " And on receiving an affirmative reply he pro- ceeded : " I will take you at your word and we will negotiate such a treaty be- tween your country and my own." A campaign of education conducted throughout the country in the interest of these treaties awakened the minds of many people to the importance of put- ting an end to the intolerable lack of organization in international affairs. There was but little dissent in the coun- try at large to the principles embodied in these treaties. It is safe to say that if a referendum had been instituted the treaties would have been overwhelmingly endorsed by the American people. Un- fortunately, as repeated incidents in its history show, the United States Senate is not responsive to public sentiment. It was intended by the founders of our Government to be the conservative branch of the Legislature, designed to withstand the emotional will of the peo- A BIT OF BACKGROUND 27 pie and to register the informed will of the people. In course of time it has come to ignore both. Its actions have repeatedly illustrated the truth of this statement but never more plainly than in connection with the arbitration treat- ies in question. The vote of the Sen- ate on these treaties shows only three Senators of the opposition party favour- ing them, while the vote of the Adminis- tration party was almost solidly in fa- vour of them. As there is nothing what- ever in the tenets of what was then the opposition party the Democratic against which these treaties militated, the motive for the vote of the Senate cannot be interpreted as any other than parti- san : a refusal, on the eve of an elec- tion, to confer upon the Administration the prestige that would have attached to the consummation of these great treaties. But truth is a root with long fibres. Cut away the stalk and, unless hostile powers are constantly on the watch, new shoots are apt to appear. Turning the 28 LEAGUE OF NATIONS attention of the country in this direction made possible the adoption of the useful Bryan Treaties for obligatory inquiry, of which more than thirty have been negotiated between the United States and foreign countries. It greatly in- creased the influence of the Judicial Set- tlement Society. It gave new stimulus to the endeavour to erect a World Court. It rendered numbers of men more in- formed and more ready for this new movement which sprang up spontane- ously in the first months succeeding the outbreak of the Great War, namely, the movement for a league of nations to dis- courage future wars. Ill THE BACKWARD NATION In 1912 the author was privileged to print a magazine article 4 which pointed to the insecurity of life and property in backward countries as " an ever-present menace to the peace of the world " and THE BACKWARD NATION 29 dealt with the problem of finding " some means of sowing the seed of progress and civilization throughout the world without the sacrifice of life and the injustice which war involves." It suggested that the solution might be found " in the joint action of all the enlightened Powers of the world, big and little, to secure equal rights and political liberty . . . for the European races in backward lands." The instrumentality suggested was " a commission appointed jointly by the chancelleries of such Powers." Security against the triumph of selfish interests would be found " in the extent of the con- certed action now proposed in contrast to the limited number of Powers that have participated in similar leagues here- tofore." To accomplish this the League must embrace " not only the eight lead- ing Powers, but ... all the Powers where there are just laws administered with a fair approximation to justice. . . . One cannot but feel that substan- tial justice would be done by it, just as 30 LEAGUE OF NATIONS substantial justice is done by the Federal Government of the United States to the individual communities embraced within the scope of its activities. " If we agree to that statement if we agree that the united will of all the enlightened Powers, acting through the commission, would result in substantial justice, then the main criticism of the project falls." The view was expressed that " the po- tential force latent in such a concert of Powers need seldom translate itself into war. . . . *' At present one country alone or a small group of countries intervenes and actually administers the government of a backward country for a shorter or a longer period. The United States ad- ministered Cuba until the Cubans showed signs of being able to maintain an or- derly government. When, under the in- dependent government then set up, an- archical conditions returned, the United States entered the island a second time THE BACKWARD NATION 31 and administered it until there was assur- ance that the voice of the Cuban people would be respected at the polls. It then again withdrew. Such fortitude and re- sistance to temptation are unusual in history. Neither the European nations nor we ourselves can be counted upon generally to exercise them. If, now, in- tervention on the part of a single coun- try or of a small group of countries should come at the mandate of all the enlightened Powers, is there not a much greater likelihood that the temptation to remain will be resisted, and that there- fore the national life of the small Pow- ers will in the end be more secure than at present? " In commenting upon the suggestion, Prof. H. F. Guggenheim of Cambridge said: "No international war is likely to be carried on without either real or imaginary anticipation of some gain And the backward nation today presents the only possibility for a profitable war." He expressed the view that the sugges- 32 LEAGUE OF NATIONS tion " cannot be too seriously consid- ered." Count Albert Apponyi said of the plan : " It will probably secure peace in most cases because no backward na- tion would dare resist the joint applica- tions of so many Powers and because the particularly interested ones among the latter would be prevented from quarrel- ling about their claims, the whole ques- tion being lifted up into the higher do- main of principle." The comment of Prince di Cassano of Rome contains the following passage: " What we want is a committee of ab- solutely free men free of mind, free of interest who shall act as an in- ternational jury d'honneur first of all to enlighten public opinion and after- wards to obtain justice and fair treat- ment." Charles Francis Adams' observations on the plan pictured the actual working of it as follows : " The issue presented would, of course, first be formulated by THE BACKWARD NATION 33 one or more of the Powers in question. It would then be submitted to a tribu- nal in the nature of that at The Hague. The backward nation in question would then be invited to appear before this tribunal. The tribunal would in due process make its report ; and it would be communicated to all the parties it represented, together with the recom- mendations of the tribunal as to how its report and recommendations should be made effective. It seems to me the world has now advanced to that point when such a mandate, properly expressed, in a firm but kindly way, would work its own results. Should it fail to do so, the question of its enforcement through the joint action of the Powers from which the complaint had emanated would pre- sent itself. It would then become a practical question which would call into operation the diplomatic agencies and the capacity, so to speak, of ' getting there ' on the part of the tribunal. On this head no general rules could be laid down ; 34 LEAGUE OF NATIONS but the problem must be worked out in an effective manner through the good judgment and the capacity for accom- plishing results of those in charge. In this, as in other things, something must be left to time and the process of natural development." IV VEERING OF OPINION All the existing institutions at The Hague are voluntary : that is to say, na- tions may or may not resort to them, as they see fit. The advocates of the new World Court provided for by The Hague Convention under the name of the Court of Arbitral Justice almost to a man be- lieved that this new institution should likewise be purely voluntary in charac- ter. They discouraged the idea of the use of force to hale nations into Court, or to execute the judgment of the Court, as not only unnecessary but harmful. Men pointed to a whole series of arbi- VEERING OF OPINION 35 trations through the greater part of a century, none of which had been thrown down by the refusal of one party alone to abide by the award, and asserted that the sense of honourable obligation, backed by the pressure of public opinion, was sufficient not only to insure the ac- ceptance of the awards of international tribunals but to lead the progressive na- tions habitually to resort to this method of settling disputes in lieu of war. True, in the past few years, several of the backward countries of Latin America had thrown down arbitrations, thus breaking the splendid record of a cen- tury. But it was felt that this illus- trated less a failure of principle than the actual condition of the peoples in question, peoples who ought never to have been expected to apply successfully such advanced methods. With the beginning of the present war this reliance on voluntary institu- tions suffered a fatal shock. It was plain that the efforts of the Entente to 36 LEAGUE OF NATIONS refer the Austro-Serbian dispute to a conference, efforts initiated by Viscount (then Sir Edward) Grey and supple- mented by France, Italy and Russia, were brought to nought by Germany simply because Germany had decided that the time was ripe once again to set in motion its great military machine, and that it had selected a moment to precipitate war when it was Austria's quarrel so that Austria could be counted upon with certainty as an ally. An important line of progress in the history of war has been the tendency to spare the non-combatant and confine the conflict to the armed forces of the bel- ligerents. These helpful rules of war, so painfully bought by experience and laboriously worked out through genera- tions of endeavour, Germany threw to the winds. And she did not stop there. Deeds which men, relying upon the com- mon dictates of humanity, thought it wholly unnecessary specifically to forbid, VEERING OF OPINION 3? were done, not in the heat of battle, but deliberately as part of a conscious pol- icy. To many men the crimes committed in this war, the very assault itself, were, be- fore the event, simply unthinkable. The whole philanthropic movement of the twentieth century and the advanced out- look of men seemed to belie their possi- bility. This made the shock only the greater when the scales fell from men's eyes. Many men who had hitherto op- posed the use of force in the relations of States were at once convinced that it must, after all, be injected into interna- tional institutions. The League to Enforce Peace owes its existence to that change of attitude. The men working with the Judicial Set- tlement Society and men outside of its ranks who had shown an active interest in a better international organization joined hands in the endeavour to make a repetition of such an assault on the 38 LEAGUE OF NATIONS world's peace more difficult in future. Prominent in the latter group was Mr. Hamilton Holt. In May, 1911, Mr. Holt had read a paper at Baltimore on the subject of a league of peace. 5 As originally drafted, the paper embraced the sanction of force. That feature was omitted after consultation by its author with the leading proponents of a World Court who, it will be remembered, put their faith in the development of volun- tary institutions in the belief that na- tions would use them without other in- ducement than a clear-eyed perception of their own interests. The main recommendations then left in Mr. Holt's paper related to an obli- gation on the part of the League to ar- bitrate " all disputes of whatsoever character," to use the Hague Court or such other similar tribunals as may be constituted, and to institute " a period- ical convention or assembly to make all rules for the League, such rules to be- come law unless vetoed by a nation within VEERING OF OPINION 39 a stated period." There was to be no attempt to limit armaments. The paper excited only academic in- terest. There was no endeavour on the part of individuals or groups to realize the plan. The Secretary of State, Mr. Knox, had already suggested, in the pre- vious year, that the time would come " when the nations of the world shall realize a federation as real and vital as that now subsisting between the compo- nent parts of a single State." 6 As early as 1899 William T. Stead, borrowing a title previously used by Vic- tor Hugo, had published his " United States of Europe," embodying the views of leading statesmen and sovereigns on the subject of improved international or- ganization. Theodore Roosevelt had likewise sug- gested in 1910 that the Great Powers should form a League of Peace " not only to keep the peace among themselves but to prevent, by force, if necessary, its be- ing broken by others," and to that end 40 LEAGUE OF NATIONS should institute an international police. 7 At the time of their presentation few men believed that agitation in favour of any of these plans would lead to practi- cal results in our day. But immediately after the beginning of the present war the subject was again put forward by Mr. Holt who had taken it up anew in association with the direc- tors of the New York Peace Society. 8 The philosophy of this new plea of his was that " Peace follows justice, jus- tice follows law, and law follows political organization." This time the sugges- tion, which spoke the thoughts of many men i.e., was really in the air ex- cited a great deal of attention. It of- fered something around which men could centre a positive effort. Important com- ment was at once forthcoming. 9 John Bassett Moore declared the principle to be sound. While pointing, as a precau- tion against over-confidence in the unin- terrupted workings of such a plan, to the VEERING OF OPINION 41 impatience which men often display of legal restraint and to organized revolt within the State against such restraint, he said : " No doubt one of the best assurances against indulgence of this propensity is a regulated governmental control, and for this reason I applaud your advocacy of a practical step to- ward international federation for attain- ment of that end, without intending, how- ever, to countenance the supposition that we may slumber upon any contrivance, parliamentary, judicial or otherwise, municipal or international, as an all- sufficient safeguard against outbreaks of violence." Richard Olney said: "The merit of your proposal is affirmed by the expe- rience of the people of the United States under their national Constitution not as being a certain preventative of war but as clearly tending in that direction." Arthur T. Hadley : " I am consoling myself for the evils of the present war 42 LEAGUE OF NATIONS by the thought that at the end of it we may see something of the kind put into effect." The present writer ventured the state- ment that we were at a turning point in history, that the war would re- sult in good or in accentuated evil, oc- cordingly as the right-minded nations saw their duty, and that if we could se- cure a promise from the Entente to join such a league " as a condition precedent to our doing what we ought to do any- way, namely, vent our righteous indig- nation at the way in which Germany has outraged Belgium and has trampled un- der foot the law of nations and the moral law alike, we should be accomplishing the double object of helping to crush militarism and of setting up an institu- tion which might bring about a marked decline of war." EXAMINING THE PROBLEM 43 EXAMINING THE PROBLEM Instead of launching the project at a public meeting, as was first suggested, the conclusion was reached that better results would follow if there should be a careful study of the subject beforehand, first by a group of purely scientific men and later on by men of larger practical experience. That plan was carried out. At the invitation of four individuals, a group of about twenty scientific men met at dinner at the Century Club in New York on three separate occasions. 10 The group embraced professors of politi- cal science, of international law, of his- tory, and of economics. The subject was thrown into the arena and torn to pieces at meetings lasting well into the night. In this way was worked out what was regarded as a " desirable " plan. The discussions arc reflected in a paper, " World Court and League of 44 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Peace," published by the Judicial Set- tlement Society in February, 1915. n The difficulties to be overcome in order to secure such a League, its advantages and dangers, the forces which would tend to hold it together and those which would incline to disrupt it, are there considered. Only nations whose aim is justice and whose practices make for justice should be admitted to the League. Backward countries should not be included for the reason that a nation which cannot main- tain law and order within its own bor- ders and is either unable or unwilling to carry out its international obligations cannot lend strength to a League. It would actually be a source of weakness to it. On the other hand, the League should if possible embrace all the pro- gressive Powers, namely, the eight Great Powers, the Secondary Powers of Eu- rope (except the Balkan States and Turkey), and the "ABC" countries of South America. In several of the countries in this EXAMINING THE PROBLEM 45 group democracy is no longer regarded as a passing phase of political develop- ment but as a permanent fact in politics. These common ideals would tend to hold that group together. Two of the pro- posed members, Great Britain and the United States, may be said to be satis- fied territorially. While the smaller progressive countries in the group, such as Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, have no disturbing ambitions. The play of interests in such a large group would make for justice. The League would not be instituted unless it embraced an overwhelming preponder- ance of military power, and, if it was both strong and just, its potential strength need seldom translate itself into war. Such a comprehensive circle of Powers is all the more necessary when it is proposed, as in this original plan, to enforce the judgment of the Court or award of the arbitral tribunal, because of the danger of oppression con- nected with such purpose. 46 LEAGUE OF NATIONS To prevent all appearance of aggres- sion, the League was intended to operate only on its own members. That of course left them open to attack from outside and precluded any demand for a reduction of armaments. But the lat- ter problem is hedged about with so many difficulties anyway that the bal- ance of gain is in favour of this position. No headway can be made against the ar- mament evil until time demonstrates the fact that the League is able not only to defend its members in emergencies but is itself able to hold together in stress and storm. Until such time, for example, Great Britain could not well be asked to impair the strength of her great fleet. The Great War and its accompaniments have resulted in a shock to confidence confidence in the binding force of treaty obligations, confidence in international law, and confidence in the upright inten- tions of the neighbour. No matter what the issue of the war, we are therefore apt, for a time, to witness armaments g^ing EXAMINING THE PROBLEM 47 on at an accelerated pace. But once the German menace is definitely removed by a change of spirit on the part of the German people, the world may not only work back to its normal condition, but the existence of a league of nations after it shall have established general confidence in its ability to do what it is designed to do must eventually bring about an actual amelioration of the con- dition of armed peace existing before the war. It is believed that, under the League, abatement of armaments will come about naturally through disuse just as, in frontier communities, when men find that the law and the Courts are able to protect them, they lay aside the practice of going about armed. The adoption of something in the na- ture of a Bill of Rights by the League was considered desirable. It would set forth great areas of principle, if we may use this term, respect for life and prop- erty, rights and duties in times of peace, and respect for new and higher rules set 48 LEAGUE OF NATIONS up to govern the acts of nations in time of war. VI RACE AND ALIEN GOVERNMENT Among interests to be so safeguarded in a Bill of Rights would be the question of equality before the law and political rights. The puzzling question of alien government would then be simplified be- cause oppression due to difference of na- tionality would cease. In this connec- tion it is important to examine a pro- posal put forward prominently by the Netherlands Anti-Oorlog Raad and by other groups. It is the demand for a plebiscite of the inhabitants before a transfer of territory is permitted. The- oretically this would seem to fit in with the demands of justice. Practically, se- rious difficulties present themselves in connection with the proposal. In the first place, to admit this right of approval by the population of the ter- ritory about to be transferred involves RACE AND GOVERNMENT 49 logically the right of secession. Sup- pose, for example, that at the end of this war the people of Alsace are consulted about restitution of the province to France, that they should approve of it and that the transfer is thereupon made. If, then, at a future time, these same peo- ple of Alsace should reach the conclusion that they had made a mistake and should demand release from their allegiance to France, could this demand logically be denied? And are we prepared to admit the right of secession whenever a local community exhibits discontent under a government? To have set up such a principle would have conceded the right of the New England States to secede from the American Union when the sev- eral waves of discontent swept over them at the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth century. It would have admitted the right of the Southern States to secede when the slavery issue became acute. It would admit the right of Ireland today 50 LEAGUE OF NATIONS to secede from Great Britain and to es- tablish, close to the border of the home country, a separate sovereignty which might afford a foothold for an enemy at- tack. Peace is secured by union, not by dis- ruption. For generations the border of England and Scotland was the scene of bloody strife, all stilled by the union of these two countries in 1707. For four- teen hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire of the West, Italy was torn by ceaseless wars between her city- states and between her principalities, leaving her an easy prey to the invader all stilled by union. The mind of Cavour grasped this truth firmly and laid broad the foundations for a single Italian State which has spelled rebirth, security and progress. For centuries men witnessed similar wars between the principalities and petty kingdoms of France. It was the very establishment of strong central govern- ment in France at an early day which RACE AND GOVERNMENT 51 enabled her to shine as a leader in Europe in all the walks of civilization. In Germany for long years the hand of every baron and petty noble was turned against his neighbour. There too it was consolidation which brought law and or- dered progress. In the second place the plebiscite is often a meaningless form. Certainly it has been such in France, where it has been used to confirm a fait accompli. For the people to endeavour to undo the thing already done would have meant anarchy. Therefore the result has usually been mil- lions of affirmative votes against a few thousand negative votes. Napoleon Bo- naparte made himself first Consul in December, 1799, organized his govern- ment and six weeks thereafter instituted a plebiscite to confirm his act. Is there any need to say what the result of that plebiscite was? When in May, 1804, he had gotten the title of Emperor con- ferred on him by the Senate he again in- vited a plebiscite with like result. Louis 52 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Napoleon was not slow to see the advan- tages of this method. A plebiscite, De- cember 20, 1851, endorsed his high- handed methods of dealing with the National Assembly and of perpetuating himself as President of the Republic in violation of the provisions of the Con- stitution. Next, having gathered into his hands all executive power with the right to nominate the members of the Senate and of the Council of State, through which alone legislation could be initiated, he proceeded once more to in- stitute a plebiscite which conferred on him the title of Emperor. Now, is not the question of a transfer of territory in much the same category? Such transfer at the end of a war has to be agreed upon in framing the treaty of peace. For the people of the territory in question to negative the decision of the Congress might mean reopening the vital issues of the war and so renewing the war. Under such circumstances, is there any doubt that the votes of the in- RACE AND GOVERNMENT 53 habitants will simply register what the Congress has decreed? At such times, too, the men " in possession " generally get their will done. Dicey refers to the way in which, during the French Revolu- tion, " the Terrorist faction, when all but crushed by general odium, extorted from the country by means of a plebiscite a sham assent to the prolongation of revolutionary despotism." The real solution of the problem of race conflict lies in equal political rights. Why are the American emigrant to Canada and the Canadian emigrant to the United States so content? Mani- festly because they find in the new home justice and order, security and freedom. On the other hand, why do men of pro- gressive races who settle in backward countries agitate for the annexation of such countries to their own and so bring on extension of empire? Is it not princi- pally in order to secure the freedom and justice to which they have been accus- tomed at home? 54 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Would the South African War have occurred if the Johannesburger had en- joyed full political rights under the Boer government? When men everywhere come to enjoy equal political rights enabling them to help themselves to full civil rights and religious liberty they will in course of time cease to care whether they live under this or that gov- ernment. Discontent will further tend to disap- pear if we add to this the system of local self-government such as obtains in the United States, where the people of the separate States govern themselves in re- spect of the majority of matters that touch their interests. VII OTHER NEEDS The abandonment of exclusive rights of exploitation and the suppression of discrimination in the treatment of for- eign nations seeking to trade with a OTHER NEEDS 55 given State would likewise be helpful. This latter does not imply abolition of protective tariffs but simply the equal treatment of all comers, the " favoured nation " clause made universal. It is important likewise to recognize the right on the part of a State to de- mand neutralization of its territory. We may expect this valuable means of extending the geographical area of peace to be revived despite the blow it has received in the present war, and to be extended to wider and wider areas under stronger guarantees than heretofore. 12 It might be possible, too, to lay down the principle for which the United States has long contended, the exemp- tion from seizure of private property at sea, the experiences of the present war causing all nations to see the advan- tages of it. The inclusion of principles such as these in the fundamental law of the League would act as a loadstone to draw the liberal minded everywhere to the 56 LEAGUE OF NATIONS League and so induce governments to adhere to it. It would probably be necessary to ac- cept the status quo geographical be- cause of the difficulty of setting a limit to any attempt to correct historic in- justices. It was, however, supposed that certain burning questions of this nature would be disposed of at the end of the present war and would therefore not be left to trouble the League. Furthermore, institutions in the na- ture of preventive justice, previously re- ferred to, should be set up purely fac- ultative institutions with no element of obligation appertaining. Peoples might voluntarily use these in the endeavour to correct local conditions calculated to ripen into real international conflicts. " The suggestion rests on the idea that publicity alone tends to correct abuses." For the reason that the plan contem- plated enforcing the judgment of the Court, etc., and that when the Court had won the confidence of men a larger and OTHER NEEDS 57 larger number of cases would be brought before it, it was deemed advisable that the " sheriff " the police force should be internationally organized: a federal force, controlled and supported by the League and always ready. We shall see how this and other fea- tures of the program were modified later on. As conflicts of political policy could not be dealt with by a Court some other body was needed to entertain them, and a name for this was supplied Council of Conciliation by the printed mem- orandum embodying the conclusions reached by the English group, headed by Lord Bryce, which was read and con- sidered at our third meeting. The studies of the Bryce group were helpful to us in other ways, serving not only to clarify our ideas but above all to encourage us to proceed with a plan which had so many points of resemblance to the plan of our kinsmen over the seas. An Executive Council and Deliberat- 58 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ive Assembly the latter already found in embryo in the Hague Conference and Interparliamentary Union would be necessary. VIII SOVEREIGNTY As true liberty in the society of na- tions, like true liberty within the State, can be secured only by a surrender of license, we did not hesitate to recommend a plan involving a modification of sover- eignty. Just as the old idea of natural rights has given way to the conception that the State has a right to do whatever it is in the interest of society in the long re- sult that it should do, so it is becoming plain that the doctrine of absolute sov- ereignty set up to guard the State itself against interference by other States must ultimately give way before the con- ception of a society of nations. As is well known, the theory of natural rights, SOVEREIGNTY 59 which set boundaries to the activities of the State operating on its own people, was designed to protect men against the power of the autocrat. When govern- ments came to reflect the will of the peo- ple the need for this device disappeared. The doctrine of absolute sovereignty had its origin in a similar motive. The theory was designed to safeguard the right of the individual State in a world where the powerful State was governed by few rules or precepts and was moved principally by the desire for aggrandize- ment. As democracy spreads, the domi- nating motive of aggrandizement is di- minished and the desire to do justice to the sister State begins to emerge. When this happens the same ultimate test may be applied to the doctrine of sovereignty as was applied to the doc- trine of natural rights. If it is in the interests of men that na- tions should enjoy sovereignty full and unimpaired, well and good. If, on the contrary, sovereignty unimpaired leads 60 LEAGUE OF NATIONS to disaster in the shape, for example, of unjust and destructive wars it should not be suffered to continue. The State should retain only so much sov- ereignty as makes for the welfare of men organized in States. The experience of the forty-eight States now comprising the United States of America is really an application of this conception. The Union was consti- tuted of sovereign and independent States. They surrendered sovereignty but not self-government. The separate States of the Union still govern them- selves with respect to three quarters of the things that touch the public inter- est. Absolute sovereignty was surren- dered by them in the common interest. Now, world opinion is not ripe for a union of nations so complete as the union of the American States under a federal government. But even a rudi- mentary organization must be based upon this same conception, namely, the right of the society of nations to demand SOVEREIGNTY 61 of the individual States whatever it is in the interest of the race that it should demand. Within the State the individual with- out wealth or influence who, in former times, was preyed upon by the powerful, now enjoys, under modern institutions, the same rights and privileges before the law as the wealthy and powerful. Just so, under a properly organized society of nations, the small State will come to en- joy security equal to that of its more powerful neighbour, a security far more ample than any doctrine of absolute sov- ereignty can give it under present condi- tions. Society implies restraint. And a so- ciety of nations is not exempt from the rule. The one license which it has be- come perfectly clear the nations must surrender is the license to make war at will. Begin with that demand, make it difficult for nations to settle disputes by force, and they will seek and find other ways to settle them. That truth is at 62 LEAGUE OF NATIONS the very bottom of the whole movement for world organization. If we take our stand upon that demand the machinery for settling disputes will come. IX ORIGINAL PLAN In the desirable project planned by the original group we find four pro- gressive stages: First stage: Institutions such as we now have, supplemented by a true inter- national Court of Justice, all of which institutions are purely voluntary or fac- ultative. Second stage: The element of obli- gation added in so far as the nations shall bind themselves to resort to these institutions. Third stage: The further addition of an agreement to have the League act as an international grand jury to hale the would-be law-breaker before a commission of inquiry and to use MODIFIED PLAN 63 force to bring it there if recalcitrant. Fourth stage: The final addition of an agreement to use force, if need be, to execute the award of the tribunal. X MODIFIED PLAN Following our original purpose, the results of the three meetings of scientific men embodied in the desirable plan were now laid before a body of men of wider practical experience, the date of the meeting being fixed to suit the con- venience of William Howard Taft. 13 All present at this meeting accepted without demur the first and second ele- ments of the plan outlined above. Two men withheld their support of the third element on " entangling alliance " grounds. In the light of the discussions had, they all abstained from supporting the fourth element, which thereupon dis- appeared from the program of the League. It must be remembered that 64 LEAGUE OF NATIONS the object of this meeting was to decide how much of the desirable plan previ- ously mapped out was realizable in the present stage of world opinion. With the disappearance of the provi- sion for the enforcement of the judg- ment or award there likewise disappears the need of a central military force. And for this reason: the only demand which the League will now attempt to enforce is the demand for an inquiry be- fore the signatories are allowed to fight. The value of inquiry has been amply illustrated in municipal affairs in con- nection with labour disputes. The oper- ations of the Hague Tribunal and the Dogger Bank Affair, brought before the International Commission of Inquiry, de- monstrate its value in disputes between nations. It has been found in progress- ive countries like the United States that mere inquiry tends to correct not only illegal practices but unjust practices as well, often rendering unnecessary a re- sort to a court of justice or even to an MODIFIED PLAN 65 arbitration. In international disputes the facts brought out by an inquiry, operating not only on the opinion of the world but on the people of the offending country, would often serve to correct the injustice complained of. What the League to Enforce Peace proposes is to take the present Bryan Treaties of obligatory inquiry, made in pairs, and make them common to all members of the League. It proposes further to add to the obligation which alone attaches to them now the element of compulsion in order to force a re- sort to inquiry before a nation is al- lowed to precipitate war. It is on the fairness and usefulness of this principle that the League program is mainly based. Having conformed to this demand for an inquiry the signatories are free to go to war as under present conditions. No nation, however powerful, is apt to refuse such a reasonable demand if faced with the painful alternative of having to 66 LEAGUE OF NATIONS wage war practically against the civil- ized world. Nations bent on aggression may go through the form of an inquiry and proceed with their aggressive plans later. But the League as such will probably never be called upon to make war. Certainly the instances in which it will be compelled to do so will be so rare that it will be sufficient to call on the members to supply their proper quotas to an international military force when the emergency arises. The League would not try to change human nature. Altruism is a factor in its operations, but the plan still recog- nizes self-interest as the governing mo- tive of States as of individuals. Only, under the League, with its pains and penalties, the self-interest of the State would now be unmistakably in the direc- tion of keeping the peace, at least until an inquiry of the dispute had been had. The fact that some of the Great Pow- ers were still under autocratic govern- ment offered certain difficulties to the MODIFIED PLAN 67 successful operation of the League. In Russia, for example, the Council of the Empire carried out only so much of the Duma program as it saw fit. The mem- bers of the Council of the Empire were the personal appointees of the Czar and the Czar was reputed to be the individ- ual who, in the last resort, decided all important questions of internal and ex- ternal policy. However good his inten- tions might be, it was realized that the Czar's own freedom of action was greatly curtailed by malign influences having their seat in a powerful and corrupt bu- reaucracy. This condition has now hap- pily been corrected by the inauguration of liberal government in Russia. Turning to Germany, the dominant influence of its ruler was felt to be a menace to the success of the League should that country become a member. But out of this war may come great changes in Germany, too. If not, the spirit of aggression on the part of its rulers can probably be kept down by a 68 LEAGUE OF NATIONS league so powerful that Germany will not venture to oppose its will. XI CRITICS The plan to use the combined military power of the League to compel an in- quiry estranged several eminent Ameri- can publicists who adhered to their old belief that public opinion would in time prove all-sufficient in securing justice among the nations without resort to force. They pointed to the fact that no law is effective unless it has public opin- ion back of it, neglecting the equally im- portant fact that it is public opinion plus law and the sheriff which keeps the State in order. Prominent among these was James Brown Scott, 14 who has been one of the most devoted and effective workers, both at the Second Hague Conference and since, for a true international Court of Justice. CRITICS 69 On the other hand, there were men who claimed that our program did not go far enough. For example, the refusal on the part of the League to stand for en- forcing the judgment of the Court cost us the co-operation of one American whose services to the cause of interna- tional organization must yet be noticed. I refer to Charles W. Eliot who enjoys great authority by reason of exceptional soundness of judgment, combined with unusual penetration and high purpose. In a series of addresses beginning some ten years ago Eliot turned his attention to the question of how to advance in- ternational good will. Pointing to the self-denying ordinance by which two countries of unequal strength, Canada and the United States, had agreed to maintain equal though insignificant na- val forces on the Great Lakes, he said: " Now, that is exactly what we want all over the world a self-denying ordi- nance and a police force furnished by 70 all the civilized nations, combined to maintain a common force." He coupled with this observation the remark that in " publicity lies the great hope of the world. ... It is the way we are to find not only industrial peace, but peace be- tween the civilized nations of the world." Motives of aggression aside, the in- centives to armament are fear of actual invasion and fear lest food supplies be cut off. Only international guarantees can allay these fears. Eliot's motto is : " Peace on earth to men of good will." Force is to be ap- plied only to " men who lack good will." Free governments tend to develop this good will. He regards it as absolutely necessary to invent and apply " a sanction for in- ternational law, if Europe is to have international peace and any national liberty." The only way for the nations of Europe to obtain security is " by the creation of an international legislative and executive council, or other political CRITICS 71 body, backed by an international police force." A firm supporter of the proposed Court of Arbitral Justice, he co-operated actively with the Judicial Settlement So- ciety, serving for a time as its president. But unlike the other leading advocates of the Court project, he believes that the in- terests of durable peace require the main- tenance of an international force to ex- ecute the orders of the Court. It was because the program of the League to Enforce Peace omitted this feature that he declined to associate himself actively with the League when invited to do so. But Eliot accepts wholly the conception of " a strong union of nations leagued together to maintain peace." It will be seen that what he believes in the organizers of the League to En- force Peace also believe in and look for- ward to. They differ simply in their respective estimates of the " realizable " in the present state of world opinion. 72 LEAGUE OF NATIONS XII LAUNCHING THE PROJECT But to return to our narrative. It was Mr. Taft who took the agreement reached by the meeting, and himself drafted the four articles constituting the platform of the League. The pro- gram was limited to these few simple de- mands in the belief that they constituted the essential elements of a rudimentary world organization to discourage war, that it would be much easier to get na- tions to adhere to such a program than to a larger or more detailed one ; and that, having once committed themselves to it, all further problems of organiza- tion or of scope could be worked out successfully by the envoys charged with the duty of framing the actual conven- tion. We were now ready to launch the pro- ject at a public meeting. Independence Hall at Philadelphia was chosen as the LAUNCHING THE PROJECT 73 place of the meeting. It was at this his- toric hall that the Declaration of Inde- pendence was signed and that the Con- stitution of the United States was drafted. Therefore to hold the meeting there a meeting called to frame a Declaration of / ^dependence of the Nations was calculated to appeal to the imagination of the country. And it had that effect. It was there that the name of the association was changed from that of League of Peace to League to Enforce Peace. The League planned was fundamentally a league to compel inquiry before nations are al- lowed to fight. Any such title, however, would have been too long and as the tem- per of the times called for the use of force to prevent a nation from wantonly precipitating war as the present war had been precipitated, it was decided to em- phasize this idea in the title of the League. There were one or two minor changes in the program, but on the whole it stands as Mr. Taft originally drafted 74 LEAGUE OF NATIONS it. 15 Mr. Taft generously accepted the presidency of the association and has been untiring in his analysis and exposi- tion of its aims and possible workings. Following the Philadelphia meeting, the attention of the League was turned to the side of propaganda. State branches were formed and even minor groups until the work was organized over the greater part of the United States much in the manner of a political campaign. The object of this move- ment was to cultivate opinion which would make itself felt in the United States Senate. We realized that the danger to the success of the project lay there. It thus became a duty to develop in the country not merely passive opinion favourable to the League but opinion so positive as to impress itself on the Sen- ate. Like measures have a way in this world of not bringing like results when they act on that complex creature, the human being, instead of on things. Although PUBLIC DISCUSSION 75 the popular campaign to support the Taft treaties failed, it does not follow that a similar campaign to have the Sen- ate see the light in respect of the League of Nations project will be equally void of result. We have hope. 16 XIII PUBLIC DISCUSSION It is impossible here to go fully into the discussion revolving around the League's program in America. But a brief reference to it may serve to bring out the possible workings of the project. The two main lines of attack were on the ground that membership in the League would weaken the United States in respect of the Monroe Doctrine and would bring about an entangling alliance. Under the former head the critics ad- vanced a hypothetical case involving a dispute between the United States and Mexico over the lease of Magdalena Bay by the latter to Japan 17 all sup- 76 LEAGUE OF NATIONS posedly members of the League, and asked: "Would the United States sub- mit that question to a tribunal where it has but one vote or one voice, and permit its entire future to be disposed of by a Court where it has but a single repre- sentative? " The manifest answer was that in this case the United States would run no risk whatever of having its entire future " disposed of by a Court " for the sim- ple reason that, under the League agree- ment, neither the judgment of a Court nor award of the Council of Concilia- tion is binding. True, in numerous in- stances nations would previously enter, voluntarily, into a preliminary agree- ment to respect the decision of the inter- national tribunal, but in the absence of such special agreement they are not bound by it. With Japan and the United States both members of the League, the case supposed, being a conflict of political policies, would go to the Council of Con- PUBLIC DISCUSSION 77 ciliation. Naturally the United States would abstain from any preliminary agreement to respect the decision in so vital a matter. The chances are that the tribunal would not even proceed to a finding, but would content itself with bringing out the facts permitting the United States to show that the acquisi- tion by Japan of Magdalena Bay would be a menace to its own safety and in vio- lation of a policy which, although not a part of international law, was yet a cherished ideal of the United States of long standing. Pending the inquiry Japan would be estopped by injunction from proceeding with the objectionable act of taking pos- session of, and possibly fortifying, Mag- dalena Bay. This injunction would be supported by the full power of the League and during the period of the inquiry the Monroe Doctrine would be safer than under present conditions. If, when the inquiry was at an end, both Mexico and Japan persisted in their ob- 78 LEAGUE OF NATIONS j actionable course, the United States would then be free to go to war without violating its agreement with the League. Moreover, the obligation to resort to inquiry before fighting, which would rest on the United States under the League, already rests on it under the Bryan Treaties of obligatory inquiry. It would not be estopped, under the League agreement, from doing anything what- ever which it is not already estopped from doing by its plighted word given in the Bryan Treaties. In respect of entangling alliances the case was imagined of the United States, under the proposed League, being com- pelled to join in an attack on Argentina because the latter had refused to submit a dispute with a European Power to " an international tribunal or to a coun- cil of conciliation." The answer here was that no such obligation would rest on the United States in the premises. There is only one act which calls for the use of force by the League, namely, mak-t PUBLIC DISCUSSION 79 ing war upon a fellow signatory without previous resort to inquiry or honest ef- fort to secure such. To compel the United States to move against Argen- tina, the latter must be the aggressor, must begin the fighting, without having previously conformed to the requirement regarding an inquiry, the two-fold object of which is to bring out the facts so that the world and the people of the contend- ing countries may know what the quar- rel is about, and to afford time for sober second thought. It must indeed be a poor case which a country cannot af- ford to submit to mere inquiry. And if any country, our own included, persists in precipitating war without having con- formed to so reasonable a demand be- ing free to go to war afterwards it deserves to be disciplined. The answer to the group who think a World Court all-sufficient was that men who see the question whole realize that, as a deterrent of war, the Court will have very little immediate effect. 18 When, 80 LEAGUE OF NATIONS through its decisions, it shall have helped build up international law, and when, through its very existence, the codifica- tion of certain spheres of international law shall have been invited, it will make for peace. But that is a slow process, and even then the number of wars which it is likely to prevent will be small, be- cause wars arise not out of justifiable disputes, but out of conflicts of political policy which the Court is not constituted to entertain. Moreover, the proposed Court, like all existing institutions at The Hague, will be a voluntary institution. Men who, previously to this war, held the view that public opinion, so highly commended by this group, might in the end be ef- fective in compelling resort to interna- tional tribunals, have reached the con- clusion that the world cannot wait for that ideal state of mind to come, that such a thing as the present war is intol- erable to civilized men, and that the ele- ment of force must be added in order to PUBLIC DISCUSSION 81 discourage men from attempting it again. This is what the League to En- force Peace plans to do by its demand for an inquiry before nations are allowed to fight. That is a reasonable demand the demand for an inquiry. It does not mean that nations will be prevented from going to war for a righteous cause or even an unrighteous cause. It means only that they must give us a chance to make up our minds beforehand whether or not it is a righteous cause. Trouble for the League was foreseen in determining who begins a war ; the danger of interpreting, as the critics put it, as an act of aggression that which a nation may itself consider an act of self-defence. That problem, it was pointed out, is not so difficult of solution. It will be remembered that, at the beginning of the present war, France retired her forces a certain number of kilometres within her own borders. If some such practice as this were set up, there would be a simple 82 LEAGUE OF NATIONS geographical fact to determine, namely, the locus of the first battle. This would determine the action of the League, be- cause the program of the League at pres- ent does not extend to an attempt to in- sure justice, though it will make for jus- tice. All it does is to compel inquiry be- fore fighting. And it proposes to penal- ize the signatory which makes war upon a fellow-signatory without going through the form of such inquiry. It is the act of making war, and no other, which will call for war by the League. True, the beginning of hostilities at sea would be more difficult of determination ; but in times of tension it would clearly be the duty of the fleets to keep out of the op- ponent's waters. There could be no great naval battle unless there was an actual entry into the waters of one Power by another, or unless the fleets came out into the open sea purposely to meet each other. Any minor incidents could be composed by inquiry and indem- nity, and need not necessvr'dy 1-ead to PUBLIC DISCUSSION 83 war. That difficulty is, therefore, not insurmountable. Again it was asked whether, had the League agreement been in operation during the Vera Cruz affair of Apr. 12, 1914, the world's interest would have been served by the military forces of the Great Powers moving against the United States on account of this inci- dent. The answer to this question was twofold : (a) The obligations of the League will extend only to its signatories and it is not proposed that backward coun- tries like Mexico shall be admitted to it. 19 (b) If the dispute had been with a progressive Power, instead of with Mex- ico, the United States would have gone through the form of an inquiry, being protected against repetitions of the in- jury during the inquiry, as already sug- gested, by the power of injunction lodged in the League. If the inquiry failed to serve its purpose, that is to say, if after the inquiry the offending 84 LEAGUE OF NATIONS country should again commit the acts objected to, the United States would be free to make war on it without being visited with any penalties at the hands of the League. Under either of these alternatives, it will be seen, the situation pictured, call- ing for the employment of the armies and navies of the Great Powers against the United States, would not arise under the League. 20 It is urged that it might be necessary to admit certain backward peoples, such as the Balkan States, because their geo- graphical position would make their mili- tary power count in the ranks of the League's possible enemies. This is a se- rious argument, to be pondered against the fact that the presence of poorly gov- erned States in the League would be an element of weakness to it. To admit a few States from which a strong purpose of justice was absent might not do much harm, since they would be wholly outweighed in the INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 85 League's councils. But to receive a number of States of this character would doom the League to failure. - The argu- ment that the leading Allies are bound to advocate the admission of Serbia and Montenegro because they are at present brothers in arms is not conclusive. If Germany, under a changed dynasty and regime, becomes a member of the League, as we hope she will, the omission of Tur- key from the list may well be claimed to offset the omission of Serbia and Monte- negro. XIV INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT The first indication of President Wil- son's sympathy with the idea of a league of nations came in a speech at Des Moines, Feb. 1, 1916, where he used these earnest words : " I pray God that if this contest have no other result, it will at least have the result of creating an international tribunal and producing 86 LEAGUE OF NATIONS some sort of joint guarantee of peace on the part of the great nations of the world." In his address to the League to En- force Peace at Washington, May 27, 1916, Mr. Wilson expressed the confi- dent belief that the United States would be ready, at the proper time, to j oin " an universal association of the nations . . . to prevent any war begun either con- trary to treaty covenants or without warning and full submission of the causes to the opinion of the world a virtual guarantee of territorial integ- rity and political independence." His position, thus proclaimed to the world, attracted widespread attention abroad and caused the movement to be taken much more seriously by foreign govern- ments and peoples. The platform of the Democratic Party, of which party Mr. Wilson was the candidate for re-election to the Presi- dency, contained the following : " The world has a right to be free from every INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 87 disturbance of its peace that has its ori- gin in aggression or disregard of the rights of peoples and nations : and we be- lieve that the time has come when it is the duty of the United States to jom with other nations of the world in any feasi- ble association that will effectively serve these principles, etc." In August the President was author- ized by act of Congress to invite the Great Powers to a conference after the war with the object of promoting "an organization, a court of arbitration, or other body, to which disputed questions between nations shall be referred for ad- judication and peaceful settlement and to consider the question of disarmament and submit their recommendations to their respective governments for ap- proval." Several State Legislatures had pre- viously endorsed the program of the League to Enforce Peace. In the course of the presidential cam- paign Mr. Wilson made frequent refer- 88 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ence to the subject of a League, never more eloquently than at Cincinnati, Oct. 27, 1916, when he said: "The nations of the world must get together and say, ' Nobody can hereafter be neutral as respects the disturbance of the world's peace for an object which the world's opinion cannot sanction.' The world's peace ought to be disturbed if the fun- damental rights of humanity are in- vaded, but it ought not to be disturbed for any other thing that I can think of, and America was established in order to vindicate, at any rate in one Government, the fundamental rights of man. Amer- ica must hereafter be ready as a member of the family of nations to exert her whole force, moral and physical, to the assertion of those rights throughout the round globe." To what extent an election gives the successful party a mandate on this or that particular issue in a long series of issues must always remain uncertain. But significance attaches to the very in- INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 89 sertion of the League plank in the Demo- cratic platform as reflecting the opinion of politicians that it would advantage the party, and to the further fact that the principle so endorsed was not com- bated by the opposition party in the course of the campaign. In fact, the opposing candidate, Charles E. Hughes, expressed most hearty approval of it. In his address at Baltimore, Oct. 10, he pointed to the need of organizing peace through provision for the adjustment of international disputes by judicial meth- ods and by conciliation, backed by ap- propriate means to secure resort to such methods, and by frequent conferences called to correct trouble-brewing condi- tions. He expressed the desire to sec the United States give these measures its full support and, moreover, aid them in a practical way by manning its State De- partment and diplomatic posts with the best talent. Mr. Taft, former President of the United States under a Republican ad- 90 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ministration and a most convincing speaker, took an active part in the presi- dential campaign, and embraced every opportunity to advance the cause of a league of nations. One of Mr. Taft's- important contri- butions consisted in showing that for the United States to assume the responsi- bility that would devolve on it under the League would not be extra-legal, that the Government already has full power under the Constitution to do this thing and is in fact doing it now under the treaties by which it guarantees the in- tegrity of Cuba and Panama. In other words, to enter the League agreement would not be delegating the power to make war, which power resides in the Congress alone. As previously stated, when the conditions calling for war arise under the proposed League compact, as under the treaties with Cuba and Panama, it is still the Congress of the United States which, in discharge of treaty obligations previously assumed, INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 91 will actually be called upon to declare war before the United States can go to war. Of course minor military opera- tions are not dignified by the name of war and may be undertaken at the instance of the Executive Department of the Govern- ment alone. Such was the participation of the United States in the expedition to Peking in the Boxer uprising, its second entry into Cuba to re-establish orderly government in 1906; and such is the ex- pedition in which it is engaging to help suppress insurrection in Cuba at the very moment this treatise is being writ- ten. The conviction on the part of Mr. Wilson that the United States was ready to join a league of nations in the interests of peace discloses itself espe- cially in his remarkable message to the Senate, Jan. 22, 1917. After stating that it is taken for granted that peace at the end of the present war " must be fol- lowed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible 92 LEAGUE OF NATIONS that any such catastrophe should over- whelm us again," he says : " It is incon- ceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise." ..." That service is noth- ing less than this to add their au- thority and their power to the author- ity and force of other nations to guar- antee peace and justice throughout the world." This organized force must be so preponderant that no nation or prob- able combination of nations can with- stand it. It will be observed that President Wil- s.on refers to guaranteeing peace and justice. To undertake either of these things would be going much further than is proposed by the League to Enforce Peace. The first would mean that no signa- tory to the League agreement would be allowed to go to war with a fellow- signatory even after it had conformed to the demand of the League for an in- INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 93 quiry into the dispute, and, furthermore, that the operations of the League would extend even to non-signatories. That is to say, that it would forbid war every- where under all conditions. To realize the second of President Wilson's aims, i.e., to guarantee justice, would mean that the judgments and awards of the Court and Council of Con- ciliation must be enforced. This is something to which the League, it is true, looks forward as a certain out- come of the movement in the fulness of time but for the immediate inauguration of which it had not hoped. The position of the American group is that it will cer- tainly not combat the President in these lofty aims. It wishes him godspeed. If the larger purpose can be achieved now, so much the better. At the same time it will abstain from enlarging its own program, in the belief that when the test comes it will be found that the more modest program is the one which is 94 LEAGUE OF NATIONS alone capable of realization in the pres- ent stage of world relations and opin- ion. In his epoch-making war message to the Senate, Apr. 2, 1917, President Wil- son said that his aim was still " concert of purpose and of action " among the nations to make peace and justice se- cure, and added these significant words : " A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a part- nership of democratic nations. No au- tocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its cove- nants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the inter- ests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own." INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 95 The danger to the peace of the world residing in autocracy, a danger pointed out long ago by Kant, has been revealed anew and in awful guise by the present war. But autocracy will not disappear unless democracy shall prove itself its equal in war. That is an issue which the Great War has thrust upon the stage as never before. Democracy, with all its priceless, proven advantages to men, is always practised at the cost of efficiency in gov- ernment. It is at the cost of efficiency in time of peace and more so in time of war. Of course autocracy, by becoming tyranny, may result in misrule, immeas- urable inefficiency, corruption and injus- tice. But given equal ability in the peo- ple and honesty in administration, an au- tocratic government can go more directly to its goal, can go farther and save time and waste. The recognized weakness in it as a permanent system is the difficulty of making sure that the autocrat will prove to be a benevolent autocrat. No 96 LEAGUE OF NATIONS system that men have devised has suc- ceeded in solving that problem. The principle of heredity certainly does not solve it, and in the absence of heredity the death of the ruler may be the signal for civil war if not anarchy. Justice is the growing purpose of the world and it has become clear that, by and large, justice is best secured under free institutions. Liberty, hallowed and inspiring though the term may be, is, after all, only a means to an end. That end is justice. Political liberty alone does not insure justice. A powerful class, either an hereditary aristocracy or conspirators in commerce and industry, as we know to our cost, may oppress the people independently of the State. If vigilance is the price of freedom from op- pression by the Government it is no less the price of freedom from oppression by groups outside the Government. Sound institutions are meaningless unless prac- tised by a people bent on making use of INFLUENTIAL SUPPORT 97 them. Witness the many States, partic- ularly in the Western Hemisphere, with ideal constitutions and admirable laws, in which there exists anything but liberty. In fact, in some of them, where the people are too ignorant or lack purpose, the only time we find " law and order " and security of person and property is when the constitution is tossed into the sea and an efficient dictator establishes himself in power, frequently perpetuating his own rule. Form of government is, then, not a test of democracy. If we are seeking democracies to constitute a league of peace we must look beneath the form to the substance. Leaders of thought in Germany regard even true democracy as still an ex- periment. They assert that while we in the United States, for example, met the political test in the Civil War we have yet to meet the social test which can come only when the land shall be overcrowded and we face numbers of the disinherited 98 LEAGUE OF NATIONS with the franchise in their hands. They believe their form of government to be superior and therefore do not hesitate to endeavour to impose it, as part of their " kultur," on the rest of the world. It remains for the democratic peoples to demonstrate their capacity to think true in a time of world-crisis, to choose right leaders, to have the courage actually to surrender for the time being their cus- tomary privileges and even their consti- tutional liberties in order that these lead- ers may meet the centralized organization of autocratic Powers with equal organ- ization. Whatever may be said of the need of a democratized world as a condi- tion precedent to the successful function- ing of a league of peace, this much is true : the league will not even come into existence if the autocratic Powers win the present war. ABROAD 99 XV ABROAD The duty of securing foreign co- operation in the movement rested on a special committee. 21 The writer, who was rashly entrusted with the chairman- ship of this committee, was in England for two months in the winter of 1916. He prepared an article for The Nation, 22 conferred with many individuals on the subject, and addressed several groups. Lord Bryce was most generous of his time and most helpful in this connection. Through his instrumentality the writer was given an interview at the Foreign Office on Mar. 17 with Viscount (then Sir Edward) Grey, who declared his hearty sympathy with the project of the League and expressed the view that if some such plan had been in operation when the present war threatened, Ger- many would have been forced to accept the offer of a conference and the war 100 LEAGUE OF NATIONS would not have been. He added that he would even go further than our pro- gram: he would enforce the judgment or award if the people would stand for it. Like Mr. Taft he felt that, in the gen- eral interest, nations should face the possibility of an occasional adverse de- cision and be willing to submit all ques- tions to arbitration or judicial decision. But several attempts to draw from him an expression of opinion as to whether the Great Powers would in fact accept this additional feature of a com- mon agreement brought no result. It was evident that he himself entertained doubts on this score. And here let it be said that, while enforcement of the judg- ment of the Court or award of the tri- bunal of inquiry and conciliation would undoubtedly make for justice and put a much more effective check on war, great practical difficulties stand in the way of getting such a program accepted. For example, the United States might have up the question of the Monroe Doctrine, ABROAD 101 Japan the question of Korea or Man- churia or of her influence in China, Great Britain the question of Gibraltar or Egypt or India. Would the govern- ments of these countries consent to en- ter into a league which compelled them not only to submit such questions for a hearing but also to abide by the award? There is a general feeling among the advocates of the League, both in Eng- land and in the United States, that, in contradistinction to the awards of the Council of Conciliation, the judgments of the Court, supposed to deal with purely justiciable matters, should be enforceable. As already indicated, the difficulty is that some tribunal, prefera- bly the Court itself, must pass upon the question of jurisdiction. So the query again immediately presents itself: Will the Great Powers consent to enter into an agreement which involves the risk of having questions which may not be purely justiciable, questions which may really arise out of conflicts of political policy, JJT?T> 102 LEAGUE OF NATIONS interpreted as justiciable questions and so brought within the area of compulsory settlement? In a letter addressed to the writer on Jan. 11, 1916, Lord Bryce said : " To me your plan of compelling recourse to arbitration, rather than using compulsion at a later stage, seems the better plan." At this time Lord Bryce's group was still at work on its enlightening exam- ination of the project. The Fabian So- ciety, the League of Nations Society, and several individuals had published most helpful studies of the problem. G. Lowes Dickinson, who was a leading member of several English groups and who had presented some of the results of their studies in an American magazine, was on a special pilgrimage to the United States to confer with the leaders there. From the beginning there has been a desire on the part of both the American and English groups to have their programs harmonize, and in all essentials they really do harmonize. ABROAD 103 Following the interview with Sir Ed- ward Grey the writer made to him by letter (Mar. 25) the suggestion that "just as Lincoln, in the middle of our Civil War, won the sympathy of the world for the Northern cause by his Proclamation of Emancipation, so Great Britain and her allies would greatly ad- vance their cause, already strong, in the neutral world, and would at the same time stiffen the purpose of their own peoples and armies, by declaring for * some sort of joint guarantee of peace on the part of the great nations ' Pres- ident Wilson's phrase to be set up after the war." In his reply, dated Apr. 7, Sir Edward stated that he was entirely in sympathy with what had been urged, that the difficulty was in making public announcements at a time and in language which prevented them from being misunderstood, but that the mat- ter would be kept in mind. While Sir Edward's general attitude on European affairs pointed to him as a 104 LEAGUE OF NATIONS man likely to sympathize with the move- ment for improved international organ- ization, he had said nothing in public recently to indicate approval of the project. Going back, however, to 1911, we find him asserting in the House of Commons (Mar. 13) that the disastrous effects of modern wars on the neutral as well as on the belligerent would tend to bring nations together in an agreement to keep the peace of the world. He predicted that we would not get limita- tion of armaments until nations, like in- dividuals, came to regard an appeal to law, not force, as the natural course for them to take. But he did not consider it impossible that some day they may discover that " law is a better remedy than force, and that, in all the time they have been in bondage to this tremendous expenditure, the prison door has been locked on the inside." ..." Some ar- mies and navies would remain, no doubt, but they would remain then not in ri- ABROAD 105 valry with each other but as the police of the world." His proposals to Germany on the eve of the war of course involved the idea of joint guarantees as did his letter to the press Aug. 26, 1915, in which he said : " If there are to be guarantees against future war, let them be equal, comprehensive and effective guarantees that bind Germany as well as other na- tions, including ourselves." Sir Ed- ward had also said in the House of Com- mons, Jan. 26, 1916: "But the great object to be attained and, until it is attained, the War must proceed is that there shall not again be this sort of militarism in Europe, which in time of peace causes the whole of the Continent discomfort by its continual menace, and then, when it thinks the moment has come that suits itself, plunges the Conti- nent into war." On his return home the writer felt at liberty to announce Sir Edward's ac- 106 LEAGUE OF NATIONS ceptance of the plan of the League to Enforce Peace and made mention of it at a dinner in New York, May 12, 1916. This, the first public announcement since 1911 that he supported the idea of a league of nations, appeared in the Amer- ican press and was transmitted as a Central News dispatch to the English press. On May 13 there likewise ap- peared in the Chicago Daily News Ed- ward Price Bell's important interview with Sir Edward. It is there said: " Long before the war Sir Edward hoped for a league of nations that would be united, quick and instant to prevent, and, if need be, punish violations of interna- tional treaties, of public right, and of national independence, and would say to the nations that came forward with grievances and claims : ' Put them be- fore an impartial tribunal; subject your claims to the test of law or the judgment of impartial men. If you can win at this bar you will get what you want; if you cannot you shall not have what you want ; ABROAD 107 and if you start war we shall all adjudge you the common enemy of humanity and treat you accordingly. As footpads, burglars, and incendiaries are suppressed in a community, so those who would com- mit these crimes and incalculably more than these crimes, will be suppressed among the nations.' ' This article was followed by a second public declaration in the form of an open letter addressed to Mr. Herman Bernstein, New York, dated June 5, 1916, in which he ex- pressed the belief that the best work neu- trals could do was to cultivate opinion in favour of an agreement between na- tions which would prevent a return of such a catastrophe as the present war. Then came Sir Edward's address to the representatives of the foreign press in London, Oct. 23, 1916, embodying a most positive and direct approval of the League to Enforce Peace in these words : " In the United States a league has al- ready sprung up, supported by various distinguished people, with the object, 108 LEAGUE OF NATIONS not of interfering with belligerents in this war, but of getting ready for some international association, after this war is over, which shall do its part in mak- ing peace secure in future. I would like to say that if we seem to have little time to give to such ideas ourselves while we are engaged in this struggle, such a work in neutral countries is one to which we should all look with favour and with hope. . . . We say to neutrals who are occupying themselves with this question that we are in favour of it. . . . The object of this league is to in- sist upon treaties being kept and some other settlement being tried before re- sort to war. In July, 1914, there was no such league in existence. Supposing a generation hence such a condition of things as in July, 1914, recurs and there is such a league in existence, it may, and it ought to keep the peace. Every- thing will depend upon whether the na- tional sentiment behind it is so pene- trated by the lessons of this war as to ABROAD 109 feel that in the future each nation, al- though not immediately concerned in this dispute, is doing something, even if it be by force, to keep the peace." Finally the distinguished Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, now become Viscount Grey, sent to the League the following cable, read at their New York dinner Nov. 24 : "I think public utter- ances must have already made it clear that I sincerely desire to see a league of nations formed and made effective to se- cure future peace of the world after this war is over. I regard this as the best, if not the only, prospect of preserving treaties and of saving the world from aggressive wars in years to come. If there is any doubt about my sentiments in the matter, I hope this telegram in re- ply to your own will remove it." In this history of the American move- ment Viscount Grey's attitude is dealt with in detail because he has been its best and earliest friend among the states- men in power in Europe, because his open 110 LEAGUE OF NATIONS support influenced the attitude of other European statesmen, and because the en- dorsement of the project by these men, added to the acceptance of it by Presi- dent Wilson, made it plain that the ques- tion was no longer merely academic but had entered the realm of practical poli- tics. Among the various references by Mr. Asquith, while Prime Minister, to con- certed action to prevent war, the follow- ing statement of the conditions on which the triumph of public right must ulti- mately depend probably stands out as the most direct and satisfactory : " safeguards resting upon the common will of Europe, and I hope, not of Eu- rope alone, against aggression, against international covetousness and bad faith, against the wanton recourse in case of dispute to the use of force and the dis- turbance of peace ; finally, as the result of it all, a great partnership of nations federated together in the joint pursuit of a freer and fuller life, etc." 23 ABROAD 111 A similar hearty approval of the move- ment is disclosed by Arthur J. Balfour in the interview with Edward Marshall which appeared in the London Times, May 18, 1916. In it we find the asser- tion that international law must remain weak " so long as it is unsupported by international authority." ..." Law is not enough. Behind law there must be power." While favouring arbitration and the discussion of differences by would-be belligerents before peace is broken, including special care for the security of small States, he held that " all the precautions are mere scraps of paper unless they can be enforced. We delude ourselves if we think we are doing God service merely by passing good reso- lutions. What is needed now, and will be needed so long as militarism is uncon- quered, is the machinery for enforcing them ; and the contrivance of such a ma- chinery will tax to its utmost the states- manship of the world." It should be noted in passing that Mr. 112 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Balfour, like Mr. Wilson, sees the need of a league which shall also have power to enforce the judgment of a central tribunal. Is it his belief that such a league can be instituted in our day ? 24 XVI FRENCH AND GERMAN VIEWS Approval of the project by such men convinced a great number of Americans that the plan was practical. An equally important result was its effect on Con- tinental opinion. About the middle of September the French Premier, M. Briand, made reference to " a solid last- ing peace, guaranteed against any re- turn of violence by appropriate interna- tional measures." This utterance was followed by a letter addressed to the au- thor on Oct. 25, 1916, indicating whole- hearted approval of the project of the League. M. Briand's generous letter, publication of which was authorized at FRENCH VIEWS 113 the time of its transmittal by the French Embassy at Washington, embodies a per- sonal touch but was intended none the less for the League. It reads in part: " In basing your effort on the funda- mental principle of respect for the rights and wishes of the various peoples of the world, you are certain of being on com- mon ground with the countries which, in the present conflict, are giving their blood and their resources, without count- ing the cost, to save the independence of the nations. " No one is better qualified than you to understand these sacrifices because, despite the neutrality of your country, you have experienced it in your closest affections in the person of a son, seriously crippled in the service of the Allies. In rendering homage to that heroism, I can only express the desire that the noble ideas which inspired him may guide equally your League in its attempt to visit, with the heaviest penalties, the 114 LEAGUE OF NATIONS States whose avowed aim is the subjuga- tion of the peoples and the destruction of liberty." The German Government likewise for- mally approved the principle of a league. Its Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, overlooking the part which Germany had played in bringing on the " monstrous catastrophe," said in the Reichstag on Nov. 9 : " When at and after the end of the war the world will become fully con- scious of its horrifying destruction of life and property, then through the whole of mankind will ring a cry for peaceful arrangements and understand- ings which, as far as lies in human power, shall avoid the return of such a monstrous catastrophe. This cry will be so powerful and so justified that it must lead to some result. Germany will honestly co-operate in the examination of every endeavour to find a practical solution of the question and will collab- orate to make its realization possible. . The first condition for evolution of FORMAL COMMITMENT 115 international relations by way of arbi- tration and peaceful compromise of con- flicting interests should be that no more aggressive coalitions are formed in fu- ture. Germany will at all times be ready to enter a league for the purpose of restraining the disturbers of peace." What an awakening! Let us hope that it will be a chastened Germany which will knock at the door of the League for admission. A Germany which had scotched the snake, Prussian- ism, a Germany in which the people ruled under constitutional government, would not knock in vain. On the contrary it would be welcomed heartily at the coun- cil table of the nations. XVII FORMAL COMMITMENT Although we realized that such utter- ances by responsible men could not have been made without consulting their col- leagues, they amounted, after all, to little 116 LEAGUE OF NATIONS more than an expression of opinion. It was as if Lincoln, instead of issuing his great proclamation, had said : " In my opinion slavery ought to be abolished after the war." How different the effect of such an utterance from the actual proclamation ! The fact will be recalled that Lincoln's proclamation was made in September to take effect the following January. Lincoln knew perfectly well that the proclamation, which was aimed alone at the States in rebellion, could not take effect until these States were brought back under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. It was plainly a commitment to a course of conduct at a future time. But, once having made the commitment, was it likely that any weari- ness of the war on the part of the North or of the President himself would induce the Administration to compromise on that great issue? There was no lack of effort to bring about such compromise, the most marked being the offer of the Confederacy to join its forces to those of FORMAL COMMITMENT 117 the North to turn the French, under Maximilian, out of Mexico. Another fact which the American members of the League to Enforce Peace carried in mind was the disappointments which the world suffered at the Congress of Vienna (1815). It will be remem- bered that Stein wanted a federated Germany ; Alexander had liberal aspira- tions to set up a new Polish Kingdom ; Great Britain wanted the immediate abolition of the slave trade; the whole of Europe desired more democratic con- trol in government everywhere and some central organization among the nations to prevent a repetition of the disasters of the Napoleonic period. What hap- pened? The Congress, after months of cross purposes, did only what it had been previously obligated to do by the preliminary treaties of Paris and Chau- mont. There was such conflict of inter- ests, real and imaginary, and such im- mense labours were imposed on the Con- gress by the need of settling the affairs 118 LEAGUE OF NATIONS of so many States and Principalities that the larger purpose if ever entertained seriously by the leaders of the Congress at all failed utterly. With this experience of the world in mind we asked the chancelleries of the Allied Powers to examine the project of the League to Enforce Peace and, if pos- sible, to commit themselves jointly and formally to it. A like request was made of the progressive neutral nations. What we asked, but hardly dared hope for, we have now got. In their joint note to Mr. Wilson of Jan. 10, 1917, the Allies formally com- mit themselves to the project of a league of nations to discourage future wars. Their words are: "They associate themselves with all their hopes with the project for the creation of a league of nations to insure peace and justice throughout the world. They are con- scious of all the advantages to the cause of humanity and civilization which would flow from the establishment of interna- tional rules designed to avoid violent con- flicts between nations, rules which must provide the sanctions necessary to insure their execution and so prevent a false security from serving simply to facilitate new aggressions." 25 Hall Caine's dispatches to the New York Times, forecasting the tenor of the Allies' note, stated that it would make the establishment of a league of nations certain. Up to that time the only intimation we had received that the suggestion of an official commitment might be acted on favourably by the Allies came from Sir Gilbert Parker, who, among others, in- terested himself actively in the project. A letter addressed by him to the author on Sept. 19, 1916, contained the follow- ing words : " I think that your idea of the Allies declaring in favour of compulsory inquiry, and a league to en- force it to be set up after the war, may be carried out, but it has not been definitely settled." 120 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Following the formal commitment by the Allies to the project came a separate friendly despatch from Viscount Motono, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, who cabled through the Japanese Em- bassy at Washington, under date of Jan. 15, the following: "I have noted with interest your unremitting efforts to se- cure the world against a repetition of the present convulsion. All proposals di- rected to effect so desirable an end must be welcomed and carefully studied by every one to whom peace and good will are not empty names and who has any regard for humanity." XVIII APPROVAL BY NEUTRALS Two of the neutral Powers have taken a similar position. In fact, the first favourable response to our suggestion came from the Republic of Switzerland. Dr. Arthur Hoffmann, head of the Politi- cal Department of Switzerland, speaking APPROVAL BY NEUTRALS 121 in the name of his Government, addressed the writer from Berne under date of Dec. 11, 1916, as follows: " The League to Enforce Peace, which counts among its members so many emi- nent personalities, aims to insure the maintenance of peace after it shall have been concluded; truly a delicate mission but the difficulties of which are not to be allowed to discourage your efforts. You regard as one of the most efficacious means to that end a treaty of arbitration conceived in the same spirit as the treaty of Feb. 3, 1914, between Switzerland and the United States, a treaty which all the countries are to sign and by which they will undertake to submit to the decision of a supreme international tribunal the conflicts which may arise between them in order to avoid, as far as possible, a return of the catastrophe which desolates the world today. Switzerland is so much the better placed to appreciate the work of which the United States has taken the initiative because, surrounded 122 LEAGUE OF NATIONS on all sides by war, peopled by the race, and inheriting the language and culture, of three among the combatant nations, she is better able than any other country to realize the fact that war is inhuman and is contrary to the superior interest of civilization which is the common patri- mony of all men. " If, then, at the conclusion of peace, the occasion should present itself for us to unite our efforts to yours, we will not fail to do so, and we will be happy to make our contribution toward rendering peace more secure when re-established." The other country referred to is Spain. Under date of Jan. 13, 1917, the For- eign Minister of Spain, Don Amalio Gi- meno, also speaking in the name of his Government, sent the following cable- gram through the Spanish Embassy at Washington : " His Majesty's Government is follow- ing with keen sympathy the idea of estab- lishing, after the end of the present war, an international league for the purpose of preventing the peace of the world being again disturbed, and when the op- portunity of doing so arrives, with a guarantee of success, will lend its con- course to the realization of such a hu- manitarian and lofty project." This closes the list of the formal com- mitments to the project up to the present time. The Ministers of several other foreign countries have shown personal in- terest in, and sympathy with, the plan, but express rather their private opinions than the views of their Governments. For example the Foreign Minister of Denmark, Erik Scavenius, in a letter ad- dressed to the writer and dated Oct. 6, 1916, says: " The object for which the ' League to Enforce Peace ' is specially working, viz. compulsory arbitration for international differences not settled by diplomatic ne- gotiations, has at all times had full sym- pathy of the Danish Government. It will be sufficient in that respect to refer to the numerous arbitration treaties con- 124 LEAGUE OF NATIONS eluded by the Danish Government with other states, and to the fact that the treaty of February 12, 1904, between Denmark and the Netherlands is the first treaty submitting to international arbi- tration all differences without exception. I may also refer to the stand-point taken by the Danish Government in respect to this question at the second Hague Peace Conference in the year 1907 (see ' Actes et Documents de la 2ieme Conference Internationale. La Haye 1907,' II. pag. 887). " I should esteem it a most valuable gain for the peace of the world, if those principles could attain general recogni- tion." It should be noted that the above dispatch commits His Excellency to, and reflects his country's interest in, simply the principle of inquiry based upon hon- ourable obligation, whereas the League plans true compulsory inquiry supported by the sanction of force. Again, treaties in pairs between countries knowing each APPROVAL BY NEUTRALS 125 other's antecedents and ambitions is quite a different matter from a common treaty embracing a large group of signatories. No doubt Denmark, which, in conjunc- tion with the Netherlands, set this fine example to the world in negotiating the all-inclusive treaty of Feb. 12, 1904, would be willing to take the next step and extend the provisions of the treaty to a group of nations, provided the group was limited to countries with a background of tradition such as would lead one rea- sonably to expect them to live up to any agreements they might enter into. But we have yet to learn that she is ready to go the length of the League program, binding her to join her military forces to those of other members of the League in order to compel inquiry before any signatory to the common treaty is al- lowed to go to war with a fellow signa- tory. 126 LEAGUE OF NATIONS XIX REMAINING TASKS While, before the Allies had sent their masterly note to Mr. Wilson, we con- sidered problematic the success of the project of a league of nations, many of us now regard it as almost certain of realization. It remains to acquaint the intellectual leaders in the belligerent countries with the program, to cultivate sentiment favourable to it in neutral lands, and that most difficult of all tasks to secure favourable action, when the time comes, by the United States Senate. Out of the bitterness of the time comes experience, which is wisdom. It seems that every generation requires to learn anew the awful lesson of war. Many na- tions learned that lesson at one and the same time in the Napoleonic wars. Was it not this fact that made possible the long era of peace which followed? The REMAINING TASKS 127 hopeful side of the present great conflict is that it may bring the most powerful nations of the earth into an attitude of mind which will make possible the aban- donment of international anarchy in favour of international organization. The hopeful thing for us here in America is that out of our own painful but illu- minating experience, now that we are drawn into the maelstrom, will come a disposition to share with others the re- sponsibility for peace and not sit in isola- tion as one whom this great tragedy of war does not concern. It is not, as has been suggested, the unhappy experiences we have had in en- deavouring to straighten out the affairs of certain Latin-American countries in order to avoid European interference in them which has led us to avoid an exclu- sive American alliance. The true reason why such an alliance has never appealed to the people of the United States is that they have far more in common with the people of Europe than with the people of 128 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Latin-America. If such a policy has any standing at all it is due to the weak geo- graphical argument and to the sounder sentiment that the United States, as the oldest, most powerful, and most progres- sive of the American republics, has excep- tional responsibilities to her sister States on this continent. But it is quite con- ceivable that the interests of the Ameri- can republics may be served better by a general league of nations to which the United States and the " ABC " countries of South America shall be parties than by a Pan-American League which would lend nothing to the cause of peace in other parts of the world. There remains also the task of elabo- rating the League's plan and of reaching a common agreement in the leading coun- tries on a tentative draft convention such as is described in an earlier chapter of this book. To be able to present to the congress which will meet to settle the multitudinous problems arising out of the Great War an actual convention that has ADDENDUM 129 received general approval would multiply the chances of success for the project. Critics who assert that a league of na- tions cannot be formed until certain burning national and international ques- tions are settled put the cart before the horse. The truth is that many of the very problems they have in mind will not be settled until the League is formed. ADDENDUM PLATFORM OF LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE WARRANT FROM HISTORY Throughout five thousand years of re- corded history, peace, here and there es- tablished, has been kept, and its area has been widened, in one way only. Individu- als have combined their efforts to suppress violence in the local community. Communi- ties have co-operated to maintain the au- thoritative State and to preserve peace within its borders. States have formed leagues or confederations, or have otherwise co-operated^ to establish peace among them- 130 LEAGUE OF NATIONS selves. Always peace has been made and kept, when made and kept at all, by the superior power of superior numbers acting in unity for the common good. Mindful of this teaching of experience, we believe and solemnly urge that the time has come to devise and to create a working union of sovereign nations to establish peace among themselves and to guarantee it by all known and available sanctions at their com- mand, to the end that civilization may be conserved, and the progress of mankind in comfort, enlightenment and happiness may continue. PLATFORM We believe it to be desirable for the United States to join a league of nations binding the signatories to the following: First: All justiciable questions arising between the signatory Powers, not settled by negotiation, shall, subject to the limita- tions of treaties, be submitted to a judicial tribunal for hearing and judgement, both upon the merits and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction of the question. Second: All other questions arising be- ADDENDUM 131 tween the signatories and not settled by negotiation, shall be submitted to a council of conciliation for hearing, consideration and recommendation. Third: The signatory Powers shall jointly use forthwith both their economic and military forces against any one of their number that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against another of the signatories before any question arising shall be sub- mitted as provided in the foregoing.* Fourth: Conferences between the sig- natory Powers shall be held from time to time to formulate and codify rules of in- ternational law, which, unless some signa- * The following interpretation of Article 3 has been authorized by the Executive Commit- tee: "The signatory Powers shall jointly employ diplomatic and economic pressure against any one of their number that threatens war against a fellow signatory without having first submitted its dispute for international inquiry, concilia- tion, arbitration or judicial hearing, and awaited a conclusion, or without having in good faith offered so to submit it. They shall follow this forthwith by the joint use of their military forces against that nation if it actually goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against an- other of the signatories before any question arising shall be dealt with as provided in the foregoing." 132 LEAGUE OF NATIONS tory shall signify its dissent within a stated period, shall thereafter govern in the deci- sions of the Judicial Tribunal mentioned in Article One. NOTES 1. Publication of all documents quoted in this work has been authorized. 2. This chapter represents approximately the conclusions thus far reached by a private study- group, not a committee of the League to En- force Peace, though drawn largely from its lead- ing members. The subject was examined at seven meetings extending from December 15 to June 28, 1917. The group was of varying per- sonnel, the names of all who participated from time to time being as follows: George Louis Beer, John Bigelow, Edwin M. Borchard, Elmer Ellsworth Brown, John Bates Clark, William C. Dennis, Samuel T. Dutton, John H. Finley, Harry A. Garfield, Franklin H. Giddings, Robert Goldsmith, Frank J. Goodnow, Hamilton Holt, George C. Holt, Jeremiah W. Jenks, A. Lawrence Lowell, Theodore Marburg, Leo S. Rowe, William H. Short, Edwin Smith, James T. Shotwell, Oscar S. Straus, William H. Wadhams, Eugene Wambaugh, Everett P. Wheeler, Talcott Williams, George Grafton Wilson. The labours of the group will continue. It NOTES 133 has framed a Draft Convention, still incomplete, designed to inaugurate a league of nations. The section relating to the Court was prepared by a Sub-Committee consisting of Everett P. Wheeler, Eugene Wambaugh, George Grafton Wilson, and W. C. Dennis. 3. It is with this in view that the term, " con- tracting Powers," instead of " States of the League," is used in this section. 4. The Backward Nation, The Independent, June 20, 1912. The article was reprinted by the Bern Peace Bureau in English, French, and Ger- man, and comment on it by publicists in America and abroad appeared in The Independent, Nov. 7, 1912, March 6, 1913, and Sept. 9, 1913. 5. A League of Peace, Hamilton Holt, Pro- ceedings of the Third American Peace Congress. 6. Address before the University of Pennsyl- vania, June, 1910. 7. Christiania address, May 5, 1910. 8. The Independent, Sept. 28, 1914. 9. Ibid., Oct. 26, 1914. 10. Those who took part in the three prelimi- nary meetings (Jan. 25th, Jan. 31st, and March 30th, 1915) were: John Bates Clark, Frank Crane, Irving Fisher, Franklin H. Giddings, John Hays Hammond, George C. Holt, Hamilton Holt, Harold J. Howland, William B. Howland, William I. Hull, Jeremiah W. Jenks, Frederick N. Judson, George W. Kirchwey, Frederick Lynch, Theodore Marburg, George M. Plimpton, John A. Stewart, William H. Short, James L. Tryon, Everett P. Wheeler, Westel W. Wil- loughby, Theodore S. Woolsey. 11. World Court and League of Peace, the author, Judicial Settlement Quarterly, Feb., 1914. 12. In this connection we are at once con- fronted with the question whether a neutralized State can properly incur the obligations resting on a member of the League. In addressing him- self to this problem a French writer Gaston Moch, La Ouarantie de la Societe des Nations sets up the alternate views that the position of a neutralized State would not prevent its parti- cipation in purely police measures undertaken by the League in the common interest, and that if this assertion does not hold and the neutral- ized State should in fact be debarred from com- mon military action it might still be called upon to use the purely pacific penalties against an offending signatory. Are either of these posi- tions sound? How long would the "guaranteed" neutrality of a State be respected on the out- break of war if its neighbor knew that the State in question was free, as a member of the League to attack it, the neighbor? Commercial boycott, practiced by the neutralized State, would be al- most an equally severe strain on the neutraliza- tion compact. While it has its manifest disad- vantages, there is probably no other position to take than that the neutralized State shall be left out of a league and, as under the old conditions, shall be asked to do nothing except defend its own territory when invaded. The disadvantages NOTES 135 of such a conclusion are that the League would be the poorer by the absence of such progressive little countries as Belgium and Switzerland, free from disturbing ambitions poorer by the lack of the additional balance they would give to its deliberations, and by the lack of their coopera- tion in applying economic pressure. Further light is needed on this problem. 13. Participants in the fourth meeting, April 9, 1915, were: James M. Beck, John Bates Clark, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., William C. Dennis, John Hays Hammond, Hamilton Holt, Harold J. Howland, William B. Howland, Andrew B. Humphrey, Darwin P. Kingsley, George W. Kirchwey, A. Lawrence Lowell, Frederick Lynch, Theodore Marburg, Henry S. Pritchett, Leo S. Rowe, William H. Short, Albert Shaw, John A. Stewart, William Howard Taft. 14. "Peace Through Justice," by James Brown Scott. 15. The preamble to the platform, revealing the tendency throughout history to secure peace through ever-widening group-action, was written by Franklin H. Giddings. 16. The attention which the movement has at- tracted is instanced by the fact that in the week ending Feb. 3, 1917, twenty-three hundred news- paper clippings referring to the League were received at the central office. Money contribu- tions to the propaganda up to April, 1917, amounted to one hundred and thirty-six thou- sand dollars. The successful financing of the 136 LEAGUE OF NATIONS League is due principally to Herbert S. Houston and Edward A. Filene. Both have likewise been prominent in the campaign of education. A. Lawrence Lowell, who played a leading part in finally deciding upon the actual platform of the League, has since then been most active in spreading a knowledge of its principles in the press and from the rostrum, and, as Chairman of the Executive Committee, in directing the League's activities. Another source of strength to the League, not only in connection with the work of propaganda and general administration, but from the side of the development of its principles and plans, has been its Secretary, William H. Short. It is cer- tain that the League would not be so far along unless this particular man had occupied this par- ticular office. Still another of the " fathers " is John Bates Clark. His extraordinary powers of clear think- ing which have caused him for a generation past to be ranked among the very foremost American writers on political economy have led us to lean on him throughout our examination of the proj- ect. His service to the cause from the side of analysis, and as head of one of the active com- mittees of the League, cannot be measured. Conspicuous service to the League has also been given by Talcott Williams, who has been a source of strength in council and on the ros- trum; by George Grafton Wilson, out of whose survey of possible activities the plan of fram- NOTES 137 ing an actual Draft Convention grew; by Eugene Wambaugh, who has given much time and thought to the admirable section relating to the Court; and by Everett P. Wheeler, who, as member of a committee of the New York Bar Association, examined the question some years before the present movement for a true inter- national court of justice began. 17. An eminent Maryland lawyer of a former generation, when a fellow member of the bar whom he disliked was referred to in his pres- ence as the Nestor of the Maryland bar, ex- claimed "Yes, a mare's nester." This kind of Nestor appears occasionally in the United States Senate; and it will be remembered that a mare's nest, discovered by one of them several years ago, was a supposed Japanese plot to acquire and fortify Magdalena Bay. The discussion to which reference is made in the text, is an echo of the former discussion and not a new alarm. 18. Article xiv by Cosmos, and the author's reply, N. Y. Times, Dec. 17, 1916. 19. The question of precisely what Powers are to be admitted to the League has never been passed upon by any committee of the League to Enforce Peace nor by any of the private study-groups referred to, although it has been frequently discussed. It is safe to say that there is no important body of opinion favouring the admission of all nations irrespec- tive of internal conditions; while there does exist a marked inclination in some quarters to 138 LEAGUE OF NATIONS limit membership in the League to the progres- sive nations. 20. Discussion of economic pressure is omitted from this volume because the author sees weighty objections to its use in any form or under any circumstances. Throughout the earlier delibera- tions he opposed the idea. But, as an officer of the League, he believes that loyalty to it and consideration for the larger positive side of its task alike demand that he abstain from attack- ing that which is become a feature of the League's platform. 21. The Committee on Foreign organization consists of John Grier Hibben, Talcott Wil- liams, Harry A. Garfield, John Hays Hammond, John Bates Clark, Oscar S. Straus, Edward A. Filene, Herbert S. Houston, William Dudley Foulke, Myron T. Herrick, Hamilton Holt, Theo- dore Marburg. 22. Issue of April 8, 1916. 23. Speech at Queen's Hall, London, Aug. 4, 1916. 24. A conversation with Mr. Balfour at his temporary quarters in Washington, May 17, 1917, left on the author's mind the impression that Mr. Balfour was quite as unprepared, as Viscount Grey to say that we could go so far at present as to enforce the judgments of an international tribunal. Mr. Balfour expressed sympathy with the general purposes of the League to Enforce Peace, though, for lack of time, he had been unable, he stated, to study NOTES 139 its program and was therefore not ready to en- dorse the separate items of its platform. 25. The last sentence is translated directly from the French text because of the imperfec- tions in the translation received at Washington from Paris. 'Frlmted in the United States of America. ""THE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects A League to Enforce Peace BY ROBERT GOLDSMITH Cloth, izmo, $1.50 An authoritative statement of the proposals put forth by the League formed in Independence Hall on July I7th, 1915. Propounded in America, this project for a league of nations to prevent war has found favor with those high in the councils of all the belligerent govern- ments. Mr. Goldsmith gives a clear and sympathetic out- line of the plans of the League, and shows how the in- telligence of the world may be so directed and organized as to render future war less likely. " Mr. Goldsmith has made a serious argument on world politics exhilarating and fascinating at the same time that it is informing and convincing." Philadelphia Press. " Very simply written, basing its appeal not on rhetoric but on world sense and the claims of human' kindness." New York World. " I have read Robert Goldsmith's book, A League To Enforce Peace, with the greatest interest. At this time, when the world is engulfed in war, I feel it is the duty of every citizen who has the interests not only of his own country but the whole world at heart to read this stirring and helpful volume. It is one of the best, if not the best, thing that has appeared on this subject." Judge Ben. B. Lindsey, of the Juvenile Court of Denver. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York An Inquiry Into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation BY THORSTEIN VEBLEN, Author of " The Theory of the Leisure Class," " Im- perial Germany and the Industrial Revolution," " The Instinct of Workmanship," etc. Cloth, izmo, $2.00 Professor Veblen's new book, " The Nature of Peace," is a close analysis of war and the basis of peace. It is of special interest just now on account of its insistence upon the absolute destruction of the German Imperial State as the only assurance of a permanent peace. The ideals towards which civilization is moving make the elimination of the dynastic powers absolutely necessary. " The new situation," says Professor Vebleri, " requires the putting away of the German Imperial establishment and the military caste; the reduction of the German peo- ples to a footing of unreserved democracy." A democratization of the Dynastic powers, Japan and Germany, must be followed by provisions for better meth- ods of government; by more just distribution of wealth for the world at large; and by a general neutralization of citizenship throughout the world. This, Professor Veb- len thinks, can be accomplished gradually, perhaps by neutralizing trade, colonies, etc. Readers of Professor Veblen's other books will wel- come this new volume which is written in his usual sug- gestive and convincing manner. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-06 Fifth Avenue New York The Principle of Nationalities By ISRAEL ZANGWILL Decorated Boards, i6mo, Fifty Cents " The price of nationality is war." Perhaps no one has more clearly seen the dangers of the racial tendencies of today than Israel Zangwill. He is a man who hates war and would try to remove its causes. He does not believe that wars ever establish peace. He sees that many wars are created by the spirit of racialism or by the ambition of leaders who, in the aggrandizement of their own states, see aggrandizement for themselves. Mr. Zangwill's subject is of profound interest and is illuminated by that terse epigrammatic wisdom for which he has become famous. "As the question of nationalities is bound to figure very largely, however, in the making of peace at the end of this war, all intelligent suggestions concerning it are to be welcomed; particularly those which, like Mr. Zangwill's, come from a source so detached as to be practically dis- interested. A careful reading and pondering of his weighty thoughts will conduce to a more just appreciation of the tasks which will presently confront the peacemak- ers of the world, and may inspire prudence and discretion in the advance declarations of what the terms of peace must and must not be." New York Tribune. " Invigorating and brain-clearing." San Francisco Ar- gonaut. " Despite the brevity of this work it is full of scholar- ship, philosophy and epigrams." Chicago Herald. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York Nationalism BY SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE Cloth, 12 mo, $1.25 This volume contains Sir Rabindranath's famous lec- ture, Nationalism, the lecture which of all of those de- livered by him on his recent tour of the United States provoked the most discussion and comment. It is a plea for the wiping out of nationalism, a vision of the time when men shall live not as citizens of this or that country, but as citizens of the world. With many striking illus- trations from history, the distinguished author points out the damage that has been done in the past through the spirit of nationalism and shows how mankind can reach its highest development only when we do not think as peoples of different countries but as of one great federa- tion. In addition to this lecture, the book likewise includes Nationalism in Japan, which was presented in Japan by Sir Rabindranath on his visit there, and Nationalism in India. It closes with a poem, The Sunset of the Century. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-86 Fifth Avenue New York THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Goleta, California : THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST D. STAMPED BELOW. AVAILABLE FOR IRC!L '-EH DISPLAY PEgLQI> 20w-3,'59(A552s4)47G UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 069 864 5 i