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 The Sole Condition 
 
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 Permanent Peace 
 
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 E. B. COPELAND 
 
 Chico, California, 1919 
 
The Sole Condition 
 of Permanent Peace 
 
 E. B. Copeland 
 
 Chico, Califoruia, 1919 
 
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MAtAy 
 The Sole Condition 
 
 of Permanent Peace 
 
 Rousseau thought it a great joke that, after the King of France 
 failed in an attempt to insure general peace, the Abbe de St. Pierre 
 tried to do the same thing by writing a book. The times have 
 changed, and we can do many things beyond the power, and beyond 
 the dreams, of any King of France. The publication of the per- 
 sonal ideas of St. Pierre, Penn, Kant and others was indeed rather 
 futile; but the formulation by many men of the common ambition 
 of most men must help our common aims grow into facts. The 
 peoples of the larger part of the World now control their own 
 political destinies. Very nearly all of the people of the World now 
 want peace. The difference in the times is that the peace-wanters 
 now rule. What the people of the World almost unanimously 
 want, they can have, if they will. And the charge which the 
 pacifists indignantly denied a couple of years ago, that they wanted 
 peace at any price, lies against almost all of us by this time. 
 
 England and France have already invested a third of their 
 national wealth in the struggle for peace, and after their good 
 money and better blood, we are sending ours. So far as wealth 
 is concerned, and life too, we are indeed for peace at any price; 
 it is a carte blanche order. As is fitting in a carte blanche order, 
 the specifications are fairly stringent. The peace for which we are 
 paying whatever the price may turn out to be must be real, rea- 
 sonable, and in prospect durable. A truce, or the mere form of 
 peace, such "peace" as Europe had before it began to war openly, 
 need not be tried again. 
 
 Because Germany, with her spies, her intrigue and mischief- 
 making, her armament, and all the paraphernalia, accessories and 
 consequences of her selfish and ambitious Weltpolitik, was chiefly 
 responsible for the unreality of recent peace, because she con- 
 stantly opposed efforts to approach real peace, because she pre- 
 cipitated the World war, regardless of treaties and of the whole 
 
 3 
 
 572072 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 body of international law to which she pretended to subscribe, be- 
 cause we are at war with her and could not, after the experience of 
 Russia, have any sufficient way of recognizing an offer of peace 
 with the Imperial German government, even when what might 
 seem to be one was presented, and because parts of Europe are 
 today without government which can be trusted to be responsible, 
 for all of these reasons, we are agreed, among ourselves and with 
 the rest of the extra-germanic World, in recognizing Germany, and 
 the chaotic conditions of Germany and Russia, as the immediate 
 obstacles to peace. Our immediate task, then, beside which all 
 others are insignificent for the present, is to get rid of these 
 obstacles. There is only one apparent way to do this, and that is 
 by the maintenance of force so great and so persistent that it may 
 not be resisted. This is the only pacifist policy there is, unless we 
 are really ready to turn the other cheek; and even that alternative 
 was never elaborated far enough to include directions after the head 
 is cut off. 
 
 Sooner or later, the obstacles will be disposed of. In the 
 meantime, not letting consideration of more remote aims distract 
 efforts from the cremation of German and Bolshevik ambition, we 
 may well take steps to establish a system of World politics which 
 will make another great war unlikely or impossible. 
 
 In the first place, we need to formulate our agreement on the 
 nature, terms and conditions of peace. The peace we and our allies 
 aspire to must be satisfactory to as large a part of humanity as 
 any one set of terms can satisfy. It must be founded on terms 
 likely to become more satisfactory as time passes. It must be on 
 terms adjusted in advance to such economic, political and social 
 progress as reasonably may be foreseen, and permitting further 
 peaceful adjustment of the same kind. It must be as just as 
 possible and as permanent as possible. These basic, general con- 
 siderations must underly and take precedence of any efforts to 
 guard the interests and aspirations of single groups of people, 
 even groups of considerable size. If we make the conservation of 
 the interests, aspirations or several supposed rights of many races 
 and nations the chief consideration in arranging conditions of peace, 
 we will thereby conserve the sole probable cause of war. Recog- 
 nition of this fact does not impair the justice of our cause in this 
 war, any more than it does the justice of Belgium's position. But 
 it is a fact which must have its share of attention when we under- 
 take to provide real and permanent peace. 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace, 
 
 There are two historical facts of especial significance in any 
 attempt to devise conditions of lasting peace. The first is that, 
 within limits fixed primarily by the effectiveness of means of travel 
 and communication, and only secondarily by differences in race, 
 language, religion and customs, internal peace has been easier to 
 maintain than external peace. Empires have broken up under 
 attack from without, but never from internal causes independent of 
 the difficulty of communication; and difficulty of this kind hardly 
 survives at all. The stability of the British Empire proves that there 
 is no longer a limit to the size of empires internally secure. If 
 Russia had been for a decade a part of the British Empire or of 
 the United States, she would never have collapsed. The most im- 
 portant move of our allies since the war began has been unification 
 of counsel and effort. 
 
 The second of these historic facts, or perhaps only a corollary 
 of the first, is that the number of independent states tends to 
 diminish. Within our own times, some states, previously really in- 
 dependent, have been absorbed and assimilated, others have lost 
 nominal independence, and still others have been reduced to the 
 latter condition; while no state has acquired real independence 
 within forty years, unless Norway did so by acquiring a king in 
 severalty. The disappearance of independent states may be by con- 
 quest, as in the case of the Transvaal, or due to the obvious futil- 
 ity of resistence, as in the case of Korea, or by choice, as by the 
 request of Hawaii. What of the changes brought by this war, 
 such as the overrunning of Montenegro and the establishment of 
 Ukrainia, will survive the war, is uncertain. But there is no reason 
 to doubt at all that the tendency of small states to be merged into 
 greater ones will continue, while small states remain available. 
 
 There is likewise no evident reason to anticipate that states so 
 situated that one can war on another, with hope of advantage* in 
 either direction, will ever abstain through great periods of time 
 from doing so. A part of the causes of past wars are certainly dis- 
 appearing; but the interests of nations will be able to conflict as 
 long as the nations survive, and it is hard to imagine any complete 
 scheme by which conflicting interests of independent and coordinate 
 states can be kept from occasionally being settled by the test 
 of war. 
 
 Still another practical certainly, to which we may not close our 
 eyes, is the fact that if wars recur they cannot always be restricted 
 in violence or savagery. Rules may govern the back-yard rows of 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace, 
 
 little poweis, afraid to offend the sentiment of a neutral world 
 which might suppress them; but in a world-war, liice the present 
 one, the only limits to be trusted are the temporary limitations 
 of the destructive power of science. While war goes on, the science 
 of destruction speeds up, at the same time that the decent senti- 
 ments which tend to hold control in peace are gradually crushed 
 out. The World was horrified beyond its worst dream in 1914; 
 and that was before poisonous gases were used, before neutral 
 women and children were deliberately drowned at sea, before 
 nurses were murdered and before hospitals began to be sought out 
 for bombing. We have no substantial basis for hope that, if con- 
 ditions for another World war are permitted to mature, the horrors 
 will not be far worse. Methods of far more wholesale slaughter are 
 already almost within reach. How can we sanely doubt that on 
 occasion those who can will use them? Extermination has been 
 practiced in the past, even by those from whom we derive our re- 
 ligion. It has been attempted in the present war, and not in Ser- 
 bia and Armenia alone; "bleeding France white" means as nearly 
 that as it can. 
 
 The recent unbridled tumult in Petrograd and Odessa was 
 graphically described by Thucidides, who staged it at Corcyra. The 
 next presentation may be in Constantinople, or Vienna, or Essen. 
 Human nature is exceedingly slow to change. It simply can not be 
 relied upon, independently of restraint, to guard real or lasting 
 peace, or even to prevent future wars far more terrible than the 
 present one. The only hope lies in authority. And this authority, 
 while it might conceivably rest on a religious basis, or on human 
 reason, striving to escape from the evil of war, must in practice, — 
 if past and present lessons have any practical value at all, — be 
 established and for some time be maintained by adequate power. 
 
 There have been many attempts to outline, and a number to 
 secure, the political machinery necessary for the thorough establish- 
 ment of peace. In the ancient World, the spread of Roman domin- 
 ion well ovSr the whole area of contact and communication reduced 
 foreign relations to such relative unimportance that for a long time 
 the Roman World enjoyed practical peace. Universality was an 
 early and lasting hope of the Christian church, which was fused with 
 the Roman tradition of temporal power to preserve the Holy Roman 
 Empire through the middle ages. 
 
 The first comprehensive plan to insure the peace of modern 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace, 
 
 iiurope was the Grand Design of Henry IV of France, said to have 
 been suggested to him by Elizabeth. By the execution of this plan, 
 Europe would have formed a sort of federation, governed by a 
 president and a council or senate, to be composed of four repre- 
 sentatives from each major power and two from each minor state. 
 While Henry's plan would have made the Hapsburg emperor the 
 first head of the new over-state, it would have destroyed all claim 
 10 permanent imperial sovereignty, which fact, according to an inti- 
 mation of Penn, was responsible for his murder. 
 
 Penn's scheme, designed to give Europe a chance to heal her- 
 self from the v/ars of the end of the seventeenth century, proposed 
 a "European Sovereign, or Imperial diet, Parliament, or Estates," 
 representation in which was to be in proportion to ability to sup- 
 port its financial burdens. "But for example's sake," Penn sug- 
 gested that of the delegates, 'The Empire of Germany send twelve; 
 France, ten; Spain, ten; Italy, which comes to France, eight; Eng- 
 land, six;" etc., ninety in all. The advantages expected to result 
 were: The saving of blood, which "recommends our expedient 
 beyond all objections;" the enhanced reputation of Christianity; the 
 saving of money; the preservation of towns; cities and countries; 
 peace and security of travel and traffic; protection against the 
 Turk (.who was to be invited in, with ten delegates) ; the enhance- 
 ment of personal friendship between princes and states; and a 
 chance for princes to "choose wives for themselves such as they 
 love, and not by proxy merely to gratify interest." 
 
 The Abbe de St. Pierre published a few years later the 'Pro- 
 ject of a treaty to make peace perpetual,' a less comprehensive 
 scheme than Penn's, but more widely known, and of importance 
 particularly because its suggestions reappeared in the organization 
 of the Holy Alliance. 
 
 The condition of Europe just over a century ago is reproduced 
 in essentials with singular fidelity today. The outstanding feature 
 of the time was exhaustion, of men and resources, until the am- 
 bition for glory, and even the hope of gain or power, were giving 
 way to sickness of war and hope of peace, France then, like Ger- 
 many in 1918, was holding at bay a world exasperated by her ag- 
 gression, determined to reduce her at least to equality with other 
 states, and too strong, in right and in might, permanently to be 
 resisted. The parallel goes much farther; for example, to the 
 similarity of position of Russia then and America now, with re- 
 sources almost intact, and to Alexander's insistence that he was 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 warring on Napoleon, but not on the French people; but it is suf- 
 ficient to note that the conditions cogently moving men to seek the 
 means of lasting peace were the same then as now. 
 
 A compact league of the European nations, having as its chief 
 function the preservation of peace, was a life-long dream of the 
 Emperor Alexander. As early as 1804, he made a definite propo- 
 sition of this kind to England. The first treaty between a number 
 of powers, giving definite expression to this idea, was that of 
 Chaumont, dated in March, 1814, between Russia, Prussia, Aus- 
 tria and England, providing for war against Napoleon, and peace 
 after his overthrow. By this treaty, each nation bound itself to be 
 ready at any time during the anticipated peace to contribute a 
 quota of sixty thousand men, to form a European army. The 
 treaty of Paris, shortly afterward, was signed also by France, Spain, 
 Portugal and Sweden, but these powers were never admitted to the 
 inner circle. of leaders. 
 
 The Congress of Vienna, anathematized of late as history's 
 choicest demonstration of unprincipled national selfishness, was 
 called in the name of peace and justice, and as honestly, on the 
 part of many of the participants or attendants, as any congress of 
 many peoples can be expected to be called, to provide and ensure 
 these ends. Far as it came from providing justice to all of Europe, 
 it and the succeeding meetings and treaties at Paris, Aix-la-Chapelle, 
 etc.. did still, in the Holy Alliance and the more comprehensive 
 leagues of the same years, provide for permanence of peace, as 
 earnestly and in as proper form as could be hoped for in any first 
 attempt on a large scale. The act of the Holy Alliance provided 
 that: "The sole principle of force, whether between the said Gov- 
 ernments or between their subjects, shall be that of doing each 
 other reciprocal service, and of testifying by unalterable good will 
 the mutual affection with which they ought to be animated, to 
 consider themselves all as members of one and the same Christian 
 nation" (Quoted From Phillips: The Confederation of Europe, 
 p. 302). 
 
 From the final breaking down of this group of leagues, their 
 failure to provide permanent peace, and the flagrant injustice 
 which characterized their temporary effectiveness, it has been us- 
 ual to conclude that such attempts are foredoomed to failure. It 
 is undoubtedly true that the allrances of a century ago could not 
 have accomplished their full professed aims. It may be granted 
 too that no political device could then have realized Alexander's 
 
 8 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 dream of peace. But the failures, both of realization and of pos- 
 sibility, were for perfectly definite reasons. None of the causes of 
 failure pass our power of definite understanding, and none of them 
 pass our present power of remedy, if only we will agree to use our 
 present power. 
 
 The efforts to realize general and lasting peace and justice, a 
 century ago, failed because: 
 
 1. The spirit of nationalism and of pride in national sov- 
 ereignty stood in the way. 
 
 2. The political and social differences between the several 
 nations were too great to admit of their uniform control. 
 
 3. All of the attempted leagues were between rulers, the peo- 
 ple being recognized as beneficiaries but never as 
 participants. 
 
 4. No attempted league went far enough in its practical aims 
 to make permanence possible, even if desirable. 
 
 1. Pride in one's political organization, and the enjoyment of 
 this pride, are pure products of education; any form of hostility 
 to the members of other political entities, as such, is bad fruit of 
 the same tree. Patriotism has served human progress, sometimes 
 with great effect, and will never lose its value, but it is not in 
 itself more than a means to an end. It is good, in that it con- 
 tributes to personal and social welfare, and not otherwise. It is 
 one spirit, whatever its object of devotion, — town, city, state or 
 nation. Devotion to one of these does not exclude devotion to the 
 others; the best citizen of the state is the best citizen of his town 
 also. Devotion to all of these is good, and the more active it is 
 the better. Every political entity furnishes a point of application, 
 inviting social effort. We derive happiness from our particular 
 political associations, and they are responsible for much of our 
 welfare; but it is only reasonable to remember that other political 
 institutions might promote our welfare as effectively, and that the 
 happiness which spurs and rewards our devotion is absolutely de- 
 pendent on our individual circumstances. My brother loves 
 Colorado, in a way quite strange to me, but is oddly unable to 
 appreciate the glory of California. 
 
 The point of this is that any material change in the World's 
 political organization must in its inception be somewhat uncom- 
 fortable to many people, simply because it is an innovation 
 something they are not used to, because it will take, or seem to 
 take, something away from the political organizations they are used 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 to cherishing. We would outgrow this discomfort with time, and 
 our children would accept the new order, as that of nature, just 
 as we do that to which we were brought up. And the provision of 
 the most satisfactory conditions for our children is the real end of 
 all our efforts. 
 
 Race feelings, in distinction to national feelings, are to some 
 extent innate, not the fruit of education alone. But they can be 
 developed, or practically suppressed, by education. During the 
 greater part of the history of the United States, England was the 
 bete noir of most Americans, in spite of the racial identity of the 
 two peoples. Most racial likes and antipathies which attract atten- 
 tion, far from being innate, are of quite quick growth, and are 
 easily outgrown. Acquaintance usually does away with the most 
 instinctive racial antipathies. Race pride is valuable when it is a 
 spur to good work. It is a nuisance when it leads to refusal to 
 accept good things from other races. The most rapid development 
 of racial welfare results from the freest assimilation of whatever is 
 good. If at the same time it is possible to effectually regulate bor- 
 rowing, by such education in mutual ideas and institutions as will 
 promote the general understanding of their effects, so much the 
 better. The World Over-state should accomplish both of these 
 general services. 
 
 Nothing of value in racial or national characteristics, present or 
 future, needs to be sacrificed to the creation of the over-state. 
 Cases will undoubtedly arise in time, in which locally cherished 
 customs will be suppressed, in favor of others much more generally 
 adhered to; slavery and polygamy have been handled in this way 
 in the United States. Such interference is always cautious, never 
 occurring except in consequence of very general conviction that 
 the custom condemned is essentially bad. A mere majority of 
 senfiment can never get a majority vote for interference. In its 
 early years, a new over-state would presumably be especially care- 
 ful not to interfere with matters of domestic concern to the 
 constituent states; and after the period of its newness, such caution 
 surely would not be abandoned any faster than confidence in the 
 propriety of the state's actions can replace it, in avoiding danger 
 of dissatisfaction. 
 
 National sovereignty would have to be sacrificed to the estab- 
 lishment of an over-state, if it really existed. But the fact is that 
 no such thing is now recognized, except in forms of speech, and 
 that hardly anybody believes it to exist. The last great states to 
 
 10 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 claim it, except in verbal form, were China and Japan, both of 
 which long since abandoned the claim. Imperial Germany has acted 
 like a sovereign state, but still dared not claim real sovereignty; 
 and not even Germany's own people, while they fought for her, 
 relished or approved her disregard of treaties. Every item of 
 recognized international law is a limitation on the sovereignty of 
 the several nations, and every treaty further clouds the title of the 
 participants. If the sacrifice of sovereignty is in itself bad, the 
 evil must inhere also in treaties, particularly in treaties of alliance 
 and treaties involving concessions, as practically all treaties do; 
 while international law is worse, because it imposes an ill-defined 
 cloud on every state's title to sovereignty. Every patriot who 
 believes in treaties and in their observance should welcome an 
 over-state, able to standardize treaties by incorporating them in 
 general laws, to construe them with authority, and to guarantee 
 their observance, and to substitute definite laws, with explicit sanc- 
 tions, for the present body of unsanctioned and disputed interna- 
 tional law. 
 
 We may conclude, then, that there is no national sovereignty, 
 to be given up when an over-state is formed. There will be a loss 
 of some of the authority now exercised by the several nations, but 
 this loss, being mutual, and always in favor of the other states 
 enduring the same sacrifice at the same time, must as an average 
 be exactly compensated, even while the loss occurs. It depends 
 only on care in organization, to see that the average is not reached 
 by balancing big sacrifices against big gains by other powers. 
 This should be almost automatic. The real sovereignty of the 
 present states is in proportion to their might, and the great states 
 would enter the World-state with more or less correspondingly 
 great voting power. The kings and emperors, big and little, of 
 Napoleon's time treated their sovereignty as something real. This 
 compelled the great ones to treat many of the little ones as their 
 equals, in form; but in practice the great ones refused to admit 
 the minor ones to their more important meetings. With the great 
 kings granting to the little kings the claim of equality, but refusing 
 to make the claim effective, the attempt to create a real or durable 
 confederation of Europe had to fail. Today the situation is very 
 essentially different. The Englishman and Belgian recognize each 
 other as equals, and will be satisfied if they are equally potent in 
 shaping their joint and several political destinies. The representa- 
 tion of England and Belgium in the World-state's government can 
 
 11 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 and must adjust itself mechanically. The executive personnel could 
 just now be chosen with little friction. America is glad to have 
 her soldiers commanded by an able French general, without wait- 
 ing for the organization of an over-state. 
 
 There was, a century ago, no well developed national feeling 
 in the great states of Eastern and Central Europe, and the rise of 
 such a feeling in England and France was a chief obstacle to 
 Alexander's federation. England chose deliberately to "revolve in 
 her own orbit." The spirit of nationalism has grown in strength, 
 but the whole World knows now that the orbits overlap and are 
 entangled. The freest revolution of each people in its own orbit 
 can be hoped for only by regulation competent to distribute and 
 minimize the friction. Treaties adjust the integration of single 
 wheels, and that only while they are observed. Only an over-state, 
 with really sovereign authority, can regulate the whole World's 
 political organization. Well handled, it can promote, instead of 
 hamper, each people's freedom of revolution, and evolution. 
 
 2. The parties to the peace efforts of a century ago clearly 
 understood that some measure of political uniformity was essential 
 in the states uniting in any cohesive league. The Emperor Alex- 
 ander even gave clear expression to his appreciation of the fact 
 that his league might for this reason be made an instrument of 
 tyranny, — as actually happened in its later days. Any state must 
 guarantee some measure of stability to its constituents, against 
 internal as well as against external enemies; and if the several 
 constituent states be organized on too different principles, there 
 will be too great difference of opinion, as to what constitutes an 
 internal enemy, to make cohesion possible. The other great con- 
 tinental powers insisted on the reestablishment of a monarchy in 
 France, before they would consider admitting her to their concert; 
 and the first crises of their league arose over revolutions in Spain, 
 Naples and Greece. The difference in the practice of government 
 between England and her allies was largely responsible for Eng- 
 land's refusal to join the Holy Alliance, although it was not until 
 years later that the British ministry became legally responsible to 
 the people or to their chosen representatives. 
 
 The present war is a conclusive demonstration of the incom- 
 patability of too different government. Whether or not we are 
 at war with the German people, we certainly would never have 
 had to go to war if they had had our kind of government. The 
 nations of the World cannot live together, half monarchical-aristo- 
 
 12 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 cratic and half free. The monarchs of Russia, Austria and Prussia 
 knew this, when they reestablished kings in Spain, France and 
 Naples, and recently insisted on one for Norway. The proposition 
 that Germany's form of government is none of our business is 
 directly contrary to fact. Germany's form of government, not 
 merely the personality of her rulers, has made her a World men- 
 ace, and we will be well within our evident rights in insisting that 
 she adopt a form of government that will make her a safe neigh- 
 bor. The necessary measure of uniformity is realized by making 
 government responsible to the people, subject to their sanction 
 without appeal to violence, and, at least in effect, by their chosen 
 agents. These demands are practically met already by every 
 important power in the World, except Germany, Austria and Tur- 
 key. In this respect, then, the condiitons working against the con- 
 federation of Europe a century ago have been very generally out- 
 grown, and the change should be complete when this war is for- 
 mally ended. 
 
 Too great compulsory uniformity is undesirable. It would be 
 sure to stand in the way of progress; and, however well our various 
 forms and degrees of popular government may satisfy us, we have 
 no reason to suppose that our descendents in another century will 
 not have outgrown them. The over-state should be plastic enough 
 to permit progress, regulating it only so far as to make it orderly, 
 without occasion for the destructive revolutions which have some- 
 times been among its features. 
 
 3. A league of sovereign rulers, guaranteeing internal stability 
 to the constituent states, had in the nature of the case to oppose 
 progress toward political liberality. This was exactly the operation 
 of the Holy Alliance, the last work of which was Russian inter- 
 ference to crush a liberal movement in Hungary. The tendency 
 of government in Europe a century ago, as in all the World now, 
 was toward popular government, and a league standing against 
 this movement had eventually to fail. The future over-state will 
 be a union of peoples, not of ruling individuals or classes. The 
 heads of states, even where there are hereditary limited monarchies, 
 will necessarily reflect and assist in popular progress. This obstacle 
 to the success of a World state has been outgrown, very completely. 
 
 4. As has just been indicated, the aims of the old European 
 leagues, in that they undertook to conserve institutions in defiance 
 of progress, made the endurance of the leagues impossible. Beyond 
 not standing in the way of progress, and beyond being itself a step 
 
 13 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 in progress, a general league capable of enduring must constitu- 
 tionally favor progress. The recognized aim of government is now 
 the welfare of the people; the only differences of opinion are as to 
 what constitutes welfare and how it may best be promoted. While 
 old attempts at confederation professed to seek the welfare of the 
 people, these professions were too largely verbal; there were no 
 specific attempts to promote it (aside from abstaining or planning 
 to abstain from war), no provision of political machinery for its 
 promotion, no single joint efforts or agencies of any kind to favor 
 it. The keeping of peace was certainly in the interest of the people, 
 as well as of their rulers, but a single benefit, however great, is not 
 sufficient service to make any general political establishment per- 
 manent. The new over-state will in practice as well as in profes- 
 sion aim at human improvement in any and every practicable way. 
 Jt must be expected to escape the fate of previous leagues, by 
 earning permanence. Social improvement must be one of its out- 
 standing activities. 
 
 From the study of the causes of failure of the peace efforts at 
 the close of the Napoleonic era, we conclude, then, that an im- 
 portant part of these causes no longer exist; and that so far as 
 conditions which might make a permanent league or union difficult 
 have not been outgrown, they can be made inoperative, or con- 
 verted into factors contributing to the success of an over-state, by 
 the exercise of judgment in the formation and operation of the 
 union. The same, and only these, general reasons are advanced 
 in discouragement of similar efforts to-day. 
 
 Prior to the war, the most notable recent attempts to insure 
 World peace were those associated with and growing out of the 
 Hague conferences and tribunal. These resulted in real progress 
 toward a recognized code of international law, but failed essen- 
 tially when the control of policy was attempted. The basic diffi- 
 culty of the entire Hague undertaking was lack of authority, with 
 the necessary backing of power or force. This fact is not less 
 clear and significant because the state which led in refusal to limit 
 armaments and to require arbitration was the one which eventually 
 wrecked the whole effort to preserve peace. A court without the 
 power to enforce its decisions must always fail when it is most 
 needed. In time of peace, before it was generally suspected that 
 our whole civilization was in danger from lack of control of World 
 politics, there seemed to be a fair chance that the Hague confer- 
 ences and tribunal would serve as a nucleus, around which addi- 
 
 14 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 tional political structures would grow up as their need might be 
 felt. We know better now. 
 
 A firm league for the suppression of German violence already 
 exists. As it has advanced from a mere alliance to a league, with 
 centralized military authority, it has gained conspicuously in effec- 
 tiveness. Under the stress of war, the necessity of close concert 
 makes such a league effective, but in the safety of peace it pre- 
 sently disintegrates. The Grand Alliance suppressed Napoleon, 
 but fell apart when it had no common enemy. ;A very much more 
 complete union is wanted now. The words, alliance, league, con- 
 federation or confederacy and union, denote degrees of fusion in 
 purpose and political form. The distinction between a confedera- 
 tion and a union, and the positive advantages of the union, were 
 elaborated in theory and on the basis of experience with a confed- 
 eration, by Hamilton and Madison, in the series of papers known 
 collectively as the Federalist. Their arguments have lost nothing 
 with time, and should be widely read and studied now. American 
 experience with both confederation and union leaves no room for 
 doubt, where it is understood, that for every function of a state, 
 union is preferable to mere confederation. For the same reasons, 
 either of these is more effective than such informal and transient 
 associations as the alliance and league. 
 
 If stable peace were the only object of forming 'an over-state, 
 it would have to have a well organized government, complete and 
 powerful enough to command resources, test its own fairness, man- 
 age the World's armaments, and properly use them or hold them 
 ready for use. These functions alone would require a real union. 
 But the provision of stable peace will be far easier, surer and 
 more economical, if the over-state is constituted with much broader 
 powers and functions. It should obviously be able to regulate the 
 conditions which without control may lead to dangerous rivalry, 
 discord and enmity, and through these tend toward war. 
 
 While there remain no too serious general diificulties in the 
 way of World confederation or union, — and this fact is evidenced 
 by recent expressions of favorable attitude toward it in various 
 lands, — conflicting interests of the various nations do remain, and 
 these will arise as so many difficulties in detail, which will have 
 to be overcome in order to secure the necessary hearty cooperation 
 of the individual nations. The natural first positive step toward 
 a union is the assembling of a preliminary congress, which will 
 
 15 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace, 
 
 presumably deliberate for a considerable time, and in which the 
 problems to be settled in the interest of the most general satisfac- 
 tion will all be presented, and adjusted as well as possible. The 
 most difficult problems will concern the scope of power of the 
 central government, and the basis of representation. The latter 
 question may arise even in the summoning or actions of the pre- 
 liminary congress. 
 
 In some way, representation in the World government must of 
 course be made a matter of mathematical determination. Even if 
 it could be settled arbitrarily, by agreement, in the first place, no 
 such agreement could be permanently satisfactory; and it is likely 
 that whatever formula is adopted to determine representation will 
 need to be modified in time. Alexander expected the existing 
 states to enter his confederation as coordinate units; the great ma- 
 jority of the delegates to the Vienna Congress went with that idea, 
 but the business there was all done by an inner circle of the great 
 powers. Penn would apparently have made the basis of representa- 
 tion financial. It may safely be assumed that no single basis 
 of representation, — present sovereignty, population, wealth or 
 power, — will be satisfactory. Professor Laughlin, in the Scientific 
 Magazine for December, 1916, suggests representation on the basis 
 of population, literacy (share in the World's work), area in use, 
 potentially useful area and international trade, to be weighted : 
 potentially valuable area, 6%; area in use, 10%; total population, 
 10%; literate population, 25%; and foreign commerce, 50%. He 
 also touches on the especially difficult problem of representation of 
 or because of dependencies. It would seem better to base repre- 
 sentation in part directly on national wealth, and to cut down 
 materially the allotment to foreign commerce. While any discus- 
 sion of these details is needless here, two observations will suggest 
 the relation between the functions of the over-state and the com- 
 position of the governing body. 
 
 If a chief service of a confederacy is the protection of its 
 constituents in their external commerce, and if its revenues are 
 largely derived, directly or indirectly, from taxation of this com- 
 merce, these may be reasons for weighting it fairly heavily in 
 making the formula by which representation is decided. Also, 
 some weighing of international trade, independent of the extent to 
 which the over-state may assume its control, is expedient, to en- 
 courage it for the mere sake of international intercourse. 
 
 For a similar reason, the proposition to weight trained popula- 
 
 16 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 lation, rather than total population, is a good one; a settled formula 
 with this feature will tend powerfully to make every state train its 
 citizens. Beyond such encouragement, the over-state should make 
 the training of the people one of its direct functions. The time is 
 probably not far off when education will be the most important 
 single function of every state. Germany's demonstration of what 
 can be accomplished by misdirected education is far more than 
 sufficient proof that once an over-state is established, and given 
 a chance to use education properly on a World scale, the difficulties 
 which may attend its foundation will be safely and very definitely 
 passed. 
 
 The general idea of World union is so sound, the advantages of 
 union so overwhelmingly exceed the difficulties, and appreciation 
 of these facts is already so general, that some kind of World union 
 is almost sure to result from the present conflict. It may come 
 before or after a treaty of peace. It might well have come even 
 before an armistice. In fixing the time which would be best, the 
 determining consideration is the probable effect of union in perma- 
 nent form on the consummation of immediate peace. If the difficul- 
 ties in detail, which are likely to arise when formal union is under- 
 taken, are serious enough to be likely to lead to serious discord, the 
 attempt may be allowed to await the signing of treaties; peace has 
 to be won before it is made permanent. But if the free nations 
 of the World are agreed that the most perfect harmony of effort 
 is needed to make complete victory certain, then objections that 
 might seem serious to individual states at another time may be 
 allowed to sleep, for the sake of the more urgent advantages of 
 union; and if objections sleep, they are likely not to awaken. 
 
 There is no doubt at all that, once in operation, a union can 
 wage war or make peace more effectively than can a group of 
 allies. This is not alone because of the value of general martial 
 unity, and unity of financial effort. The provision of food and 
 other supplies to our allied armies and the people behind them has 
 improved in efficiency as control has been centralized, and could 
 surely be made more perfect under permanent supreme authority. 
 But the greatest value to be realized from union, since we already 
 have a measure of some of its advantages in centralized general- 
 ship and financial policy, would be psychological. Union in definite 
 form would remove any suspicion anywhere that the armies of 
 freedom may be inadequate, any lurking fear that, with the collapse 
 of the German Empire, an end may come to their support; it would 
 
 17 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 end all danger of a peace by compromise, leaving intrigue, faith- 
 lessness and the ambition of single men free to prepare again; it 
 would fuse and enthuse our armies, in a way beyond the reach 
 of mere unity of plan and command. 
 
 If we had been one union, German propaganda would have 
 had a different chance in Russia. The same condition would dis- 
 pose of Bolshevik propaganda now. A union of peoples could 
 hardly have included old Russia, but Russia after the first revo- 
 lution would have been perfectly at home in it. That milk was 
 spilt, but there is more in Russia. German and Bolshevik intrigue 
 elsewhere would be nullified by prompt union. The Orient has 
 been hardly more than nominally in the war, and has had some 
 excuse if it saw a limited reason for great exertion. But China 
 would be prompt to see salvation in World union, and could become 
 a willing and potent factor in guarding peace. Japan has not 
 China's need of protection by union, but is wise enough to prefer 
 security in eventual enduring peace to safety at the cost of con- 
 stant readiness for war. Her past policies have been distinctly of 
 the German type, and have had to be, to make her safe. Remodel 
 World politics, so that her own might in war is not needed to insure 
 her survival and progress, and no people will find more relief in 
 disarmament. 
 
 One of the greatest reasons for promptness of union is its 
 effect on Germany. Her people would have nothing left to fight 
 for or to wrangle over. Even if she has hoped to conquer the 
 World piece-meal, she could have no hope of conquering, or even 
 resisting it, permanently united. To stage a series of revolutions 
 while she gropes for terms, just as to go on fighting in the hope of 
 a draw, would be to court final peaceful isolation, with no further 
 prospect than accelerated relapse into complete helplessness. Richly 
 as Germany has earned punishment, and bitter against her as the 
 allied peoples properly are, none of them will balk at a treaty with- 
 out revenge (in distinction, of course, to restitution), whenever 
 peace can be trusted. The German war-lords had abundant selfish 
 reason to oppose World union of peoples, but the German people 
 have none; and German business interests, without the support of 
 which the war party would always have been helpless, are already 
 hunting for any cover, faced by a loosely united World, The 
 German people could not refuse an opportunity to enter a union, — 
 as France entered the European concert after the Napoleonic wars. 
 To refuse Germany a chance to enter, even as a democracy, would 
 
 18 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 justify the claim of her rulers, that she had to fight for a place in 
 the sun. Offer her admittance on the same terms as other peoples, 
 so far as her own proper soil and people are concerned, and this 
 excuse vanishes. And the German people are weary enough to 
 jump at the opportunity. Relieve her of even the chance to be 
 crushed by her own armament, and the Germans will have a better 
 place than their past or present prospects let them hope for. 
 
 For the allies, victorious as they definitely are, the war is at 
 best only in its last stage; it is not finished. It is true that a succes- 
 sion of skilful extensions of an armistice originally thorough in its 
 provisions is malcing it impossible for any German government to 
 think of returning to arms. But beside more or less difficult details 
 to be settled, we have still to provide for the fulfillment of the 
 terms of whatever treaty may be imposed on Germany, and to 
 guard against both anarchy and the spread of class tyranny. Ger- 
 many can never pay for the damage she has wrought. Whatever 
 bill for damage may be drawn up, the real tasks are deciding what 
 can be collected and collecting it. A German government might 
 be made to agree to almost anything, regardless of what it can 
 deliver. We have no practical experience with national insolvency, 
 and can have no confidence in anticipating its effects. But of these 
 two facts we may be quite sure: That we will be in a better position 
 to judge Germany's ability, and the quality of her efforts to pay, 
 and much better able to assist or compel .her to pay what she rea- 
 sonably can, if she is under an over-state in which her creditors 
 have the majority vote, than if she is left the form of sovereignty, 
 so that supervision must be foreign in both form and fact; and 
 that Germany's power to pay is further decreased by every internal 
 revolution, outbreak or riot. For our own sakes, we must insure 
 government in Germany. An over-state will provide an orderly 
 method; without it, war will remain our only recourse. 
 
 Bolshevism is just as much the tyranny of a class as was Ger- 
 man imperialism, and is an even more insidious menace to our 
 democracy. It certainly does not represent any proper step in 
 human progress. An over-state could prevent it, by guarding 
 against the ignorance, misery and hopelessness which are respon- 
 sible for it, and would have orderly and proper means of suppress- 
 ing it where it already exists, in subordinate states, guaranteed the 
 support of representative government. We know that it is a most 
 dangerous neighbor, but do not know what to do with it in a foreign 
 state. Form an over-state and the threat of it will vanish. 
 
 19 
 
The Sole Condition of Permanent Peace. 
 
 The sole condition of permanent peace is World union. As 
 the nations should unite, in order to secure the blessings of perma- 
 nent peace, they should form a union promptly, in order to realize 
 the prospect of any peace. 
 
 20 
 
mm 
 
572072 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY