Peace through Economic Pressure

A WORLD COURT DEMANDED BY A NEW WORLD LIFE

RURAL COÖPERATION IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

In the Annual Reports for 1914 of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, there are some interesting data upon the social effects of Coöperation in Europe. This report was prepared by the Rev. Chas. O. Gill, Field Investigator for the Commission on the Church and Social Service. In making his investigations he visited no less than twelve countries and gained information as to two others from members of the Commission who visited them.

In a previous volume entitled, “The Country Church,” Mr. Gill had pointed out that there is no satisfactory solution of the problem of rural life apart from the reorganization of rural business. For this reason it was determined to make a study of European countries that had given serious attention to the organization of farmers for business purposes. One object of the study was to learn what part the rural churches should take in a movement necessary for the preservation of a high standard of country life and for insuring the possibility of a successful rural church.

It was found that in most of the area covered the coöperative movement had passed beyond the experimental stage. Rural coöperation in Europe is more than half a century old.

Probably the best known example of the success of rural coöperation is found in Denmark. Much has been written about the wonderful transformation wrought in that country by union of effort among her farmers. Coöperation has been one of the most essential factors by which the people of Denmark have rescued themselves from a condition of extreme economic distress and attained a prosperity which, considering Denmark’s limited natural resources, is most remarkable, it is due chiefly to this that Denmark has more wealth per capita than any other country in Europe.

In Italy, the business of the Federation of Coöperative Agricultural Associations has grown since 1895 not less than 43 per cent. in any five year period, while the number of its agricultural societies grew from 1892 to 1910 no less than ten-fold. The business of its coöperative credit institutions more than doubled in the four-year period from 1908 to 1912.

The movement has also been successful in Hungary. In 1912 there were 8,000 parishes into which the activities of coöperative societies extended. Up to the outbreak of the war coöperation had also made great progress in Belgium, while in Holland the coöperative idea has been making leaps and bounds during the past ten years. Here, as in other countries, including Austria, Russia, France, and Switzerland, it has been demonstrated that coöperation is a necessary condition of general agricultural prosperity.

But Germany affords the best example of agricultural coöperation on a large scale. In the twenty-year period from 1890 to 1910 the number of German coöperative agricultural societies grew from 3,000 to 25,000. From 1892 to 1908 the membership of coöperative societies for collective purposes grew from 12,000 to 213,000, and the membership of coöperative dairy societies from 51,500 to more than 1,250,000. Mr. Gill remarks: “It is due to coöperation more than to any other one thing that Germany has been able to increase her agricultural productivity fifty per cent. in fifty years, until now, though smaller in area than our state of Texas, it produces 95 per cent. of the food of 66,000,000 people.”22

Thus it will be seen that agricultural coöperation has worked well both in small countries and in great. The good results have been incalculably great especially among the poor farmers. It has emancipated them from the usurer. In many places the small farmers had never known freedom from oppressive creditors until the founding of rural coöperative institutions. By capitalizing the common honesty of the poor, coöperation has secured for the small farmer, at the lowest rates of interest, money to be used by him in his necessary operations. Agricultural coöperation in distribution has enabled the farmer to work for his own support instead of for the support of a large number of superfluous distributors. Before the introduction of coöperation the small farmer had been forced to buy inferior goods at high prices and to sell his products at prices unreasonably low. But coöperation changed all this. It enabled the small farmer to place himself on the level with the large farmer in producing articles of good quality, as well as in the matter of prices received for them; also to obtain goods of guaranteed quality at moderate prices. Thus while coöperation has promoted efficiency on the farm, it has also secured the farmer freedom in the market, and has contributed to the higher life of the home.

So it is not alone in material betterment that coöperation has blessed the farmers. It has done a great work in promoting education; in launching benevolent enterprises for members; in enriching the rural social life. The coöperative societies have made grants to village libraries, organized circles for reading and acting, and established evening clubs. They have also appointed local cattle shows and regular meetings in which instructive lectures on coöperation, agriculture and other topics are delivered. They have formed gymnastic societies and bathing establishments, cattle and poultry breeding societies, local nursing centres, infant aid associations, anti-consumption leagues, and engaged in a great variety of other good works.

The recreational and educational buildings are paid for and managed by the people. Consequently the people get what they want and make use of what they get. The coöperative buildings become the most complete social-centre houses in existence. Each building is a kind of club for men, women and children where they spend their leisure hours and become acquainted and neighborly.

Nor is this the whole benefit. It has been observed that coöperation has had a marked effect in the promotion of thrift and morals and temperance. The coöperator as a rule gets out of debt and begins to save. This increases his independence and self-respect. The closer association with his neighbors puts him more upon his good behavior. Many a hard drinking laborer has, under such influences, quit his evil habits and rescued his family from wretchedness. All this naturally leads to an increase of honesty and business integrity. Where there is a small rural coöperative credit society a person cannot borrow from it unless he has acquired a reputation for reliability. As a consequence a loan comes as a certificate of character, while the refusal of a loan may well lead the would-be borrower to serious reflection. As a result people come to care more for their reputation in their dealings with one another. Honesty comes to be an essential quality in business efficiency.

Another all-powerful influence of coöperation is found in the promotion of democracy. The coöperative movement is essentially democratic in origin. Success can be attained only by equality of opportunity, mutual consideration and fair treatment. This naturally promotes political efficiency also, because the education and the closer association found in coöperation lead each individual to realize his responsibility and to endeavor to use his voting power intelligently and wisely.

The effect in the promotion of Peace, Brotherhood, and Religion, is thus indicated in the report: “It was observed by members of the American Commission that in nearly all the European countries the great body of the coöperators, especially among the leaders, think of agricultural coöperation as a sort of23 social reform and in some cases almost as a religion. The admirable moral and social results are recognized everywhere. Not only has it taught illiterate men to read, made dissipated men sober, careless men thrifty, and dishonest men square, but it has made friends of neighbors who had been enemies, while estrangement among men on account of religious antipathies and the inheritance of ancient feuds have yielded to its influence and disappeared. It could scarcely be expected that a movement with such beneficial results could have been inaugurated and successfully furthered apart from close association with the Christian churches. In many of the coöperative enterprises the clergymen have played an important part. The sympathetic participation in and promotion of the coöperative movement on the part of the church is a logical and almost necessary result of the existence of a movement of such a character, since many of the ends for which the church is striving are effectually accomplished by coöperative institutions while these institutions, in their purposes and endeavors, necessarily command the sympathy and allegiance of every sincere and disinterested churchman.”

It would be well if an exhaustive report of this kind could be made upon the social effects of rural coöperation in the United States. We know that the coöperative movement has made some progress in this country, but in comparatively few localities has it assumed the comprehensiveness and thoroughness which has characterized it in Denmark and Germany. Coöperative movements are not unknown to the cities, but in a business way there is far more need for them in the rural districts, for the population of those districts is more scattered and the farmer, when working alone, is more helpless in the face of combinations that may be formed against him. A great many instances have come to public knowledge where the farmer has received very inadequate prices for his products while the consumer in the cities has at the same time been compelled to pay prices which appear extortionate. Who has not heard of the farmers’ apples rotting on the ground because he could not afford to market them at the price offered, while the consumer has at the same time complained that his apples were costing him too much? This is at times true of a great many products. Farmers usually sell in competition with each other, at the wholesale price, and buy what they need at the retail price. Before the days of coöperation the Denmark farmer was as a rule wretchedly poor; but when he joined with his neighbors and they appointed a selling agent in London, who guaranteed quality of product, he began to obtain the best London prices, to secure cheaper transportation rates and also saved the commissions formerly paid to a number of middle men. His agents in London and other cities also bought goods for distribution among the coöperative farmers at wholesale prices.

In our middle western states the coöperative movement started first with coöperative creameries, many of which proved very successful. In some rural districts the farmers are organized and have provided warehouse facilities for storing their surplus products until a satisfactory market can be obtained, and have learned to sell and buy through their own agents. In such communities the farmers are thrifty and prosperous, and their social life and activities makes the country as desirable a place of residence, so far as that is concerned, as the neighboring cities—and in some respects much more so. There is no reason why the American farmers and rural dwellers cannot profit as largely by coöperation as the people of any part of Europe. The chief economic problem of any country is proper distribution of products and labor. With a proper distribution of labor there would not be the congestion that often makes the unemployment problem so serious in some districts, and there would not be the inequality of reward for industry that makes some too rich and the large masses too poor. The rural communities are the backbone of the nation’s prosperity. All the wealth comes primarily from the land.

THE MOBILIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

At present the question that is most prominent before the world is that of peace. Almost everybody whom we meet has some opinion regarding this question which he is ready to express. How has this opinion been formed? It is certainly true that very, very few have thought carefully over this question, or have studied it in a fair unbiased manner. There are wide differences of opinion, and without the slightest doubt there are very good and legitimate reasons for these wide differences. They arise chiefly, perhaps, because of different local circumstances affecting educational conditions, or the conditions of influential classes of society, and a thousand and one other reasons, which may carry more or less weight.

Practically every family has members who were more than once directly affected by the absence of peace—war, and have wished for peace, or without knowing it, had the pacifist spirit. Almost every person is likely to feel a sense of deep injury under the pressure of an unpleasant burden, and naturally thinks the issue or whatever it is must be fought out with iron and blood. An opinion of some kind is there, which is made up mostly of sentiment, based upon a somewhat erroneous knowledge of some few facts in the situation. No matter which side of the fence individuals are on, they have gained their ideas mostly from newspapers, or from chance talks here and there, with men whom they believe, in most instances to be much better informed than themselves, consequently they are using the same source of information in most instances, and conviction is simply deepened by a constant repetition of the thought.

Again, most people form their opinions and judgments without due examination; they have a leaning toward one side of the question from other considerations than those belonging to it; and many have an unreasonable predilection toward the militaristic idea thinking that the pacifist stands for weakness and possesses cowardly spirit. The minds of many are biased on account of the vigorous propaganda carried out by the militarists in the form of large armaments, and international tangles, war scares and many other things which make international peace appear as an utter impossibility.

It has been said that the first and most practical step in obtaining what one wants in this world, is wanting it. Naturally a person would think that the next step would be expressing what one wants, but usually consists in wanting it still more and more until one can well express it. This is particularly true when the thing a person wants is something which concerns the whole world, for here all these other individuals who must be asked perhaps have but a very slight interest in what one wants. Until a large number desire a thing strong enough, and wish for it hard enough to say it, and get it outside of themselves, and perhaps make it contagious so that the thought will be catching to every person exposed to it, nothing happens at all.

Every man who, in some public place, like a book, paints the picture of his heart’s desire, and who throws forth as upon a screen where all men may see them his most immediate and pressing ideals, performs a very important service to humanity. If a man’s sole interest were to find out what all men living in the world to-day, need and want most, and25 what is necessary for their welfare, the best and only way for him to do it, would be for him to write clearly, and quite definitely so that we could all compare notes, on exactly what he wanted himself.

The thing that the populations of the earth want and need as a whole in this darkness and din of the world is safety and security in the pursuits of life, liberty, and happiness. Too many persons, with a pugnacious tenacity, cling to the idea that world peace is an idle and futile dream. Even so, nothing is more visionary, than trying to run a world without dreams, especially an economic world such as the one we live on. It is because even bad dreams are better on this foot stool than having no dreams at all, that so called bad people are in a wholesale measure allowed to run it. The one factor in economics to be reckoned with in the final and practical sense, is the desire to do right. An ideal to be sure, but at some time or other, it was an ideal that aroused the wrong passions, and now it is only another corrective ideal that will arouse the right passion. The next step by our political economists is the statement of a shrewd, dogged, realizable ideal, and that is universal peace between nations.

The great upheavals which precede changes of civilization, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the foundation of the Arabian Empire, seem at first sight determined more especially by political transformations, foreign invasions, or the annihilation and overthrow of dynasties. A more attentive study of these events shows that behind their apparent causes, the real cause, as a rule, is seen to be, a modification in the opinions of the populations. The true historical upheavals are not those which compel astonishment by their spectacularity, and impetuous violence, and vehemence. The only important changes whence the renewal of civilization is a resultant, affects ideas, opinions and beliefs.

The landmarks of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human opinion, and the reason these great memorable events are so rare, is, because there is nothing so stable in a race, as the inherited groundwork, and fundamental foundation of its opinions. The present epoch, without a doubt, is one of these critical times, in which the opinion of mankind, is undergoing a great transformation.

There are two fundamental factors at the bottom of this transformation. The first, caused by the wholesale destruction of life and property, which shakes to pieces the political and social beliefs in which all the elements of our civilization are rooted. The second is the creation of entirely new conditions of existence of thought as the result of multitudinous scientific, modern, and industrial discoveries. The opinions of the past, although half destroyed, being still very powerful, as the present state of militarism proves, and the opinions which are to replace them, being still in a process of transformation, the present age represents a period of transition and political confusion.

As yet, we cannot say exactly what will be evolved some day from this necessarily somewhat chaotic period. What will be the fundamental ideas on which the societies that are to succeed our own, will be built up? At present, there is no manner of knowing. It is perfectly clear, that the societies of the future will have to reckon with a new power, and that power is public opinion. On the ruins of so many ideas formerly considered beyond discussion, and now either dead or dying, of so many sources of authority that successive revolutions have destroyed, this power, which alone has arisen in their stead seems soon destined to absorb the others. While practically all of our ancient beliefs are tottering and disappearing, while the old pillars of society are giving way, one by one, the power of public opinion is the only force that is growing, and of which the prestige is steadily and continually on the increase. The age we are about to enter, will, in truth, be governed by public opinion.

Less than a century ago the traditional policy of European States and the rivalries26 of sovereigns were the principal factors that shaped events, consequently the opinion of the masses did not count, and was scarcely noticed. To-day the opposite state of affairs predominates, and it is the traditions which used to obtain in politics, and the individual tendencies and rivalries of rulers, which are counting for less and less; while, on the contrary, the voice of the people has become preponderant. It is this voice that dictates their conduct to rulers, whose endeavor it is, to take notice of its utterances.

Practically all the world’s masters, all the founders of religions or empires, the apostles of all beliefs, eminent statesmen, and in a more modest sphere, the mere chiefs of small groups of men have always been unconscious psychologists, possessed of an instinctive and often very scientific knowledge of the character of public opinion. It was mostly this accurate knowledge that enabled them so easily to establish their complete mastery as was so often done.

Napoleon had a marvellous insight into the public opinion of the country over which he reigned, but he, at times, completely misunderstood it, and overshot the mark, and as a rule completely misunderstood the public opinion of other nations. It was because he misunderstood it that he engaged in Spain, and notably in Russia, in conflicts in which his power received blows, which were destined within a brief period of time to ruin it. Neither did the most subtle advisers of Napoleon understand public opinion, as they should have done, for Talleyrand wrote him, that: “Spain would receive his soldiers as Liberators.” The real truth of the matter was, that it received them as beasts of prey. A slight acquaintance with public opinion in that case would have easily foreseen this reception.

Public opinion rules and is practically as unattackable as our religious ideas were in the Middle Ages. Imagine a modern free thinker translated into those days of the Middle Ages. Can you think that, after having ascertained the sovereign power of the religious opinion that was then in force, that he would have been tempted to attack it? Having fallen into the hands of a judge disposed to have him burned at the stake, under the imputation of having concluded a pact with the Devil, or of having participated in the Witches’ Sabbath, would it have occurred to him to dispute the existence of the Devil or of the Witches’ Sabbath? It were as wise to oppose a cyclone with discussion as public opinion, which is a slow growth and gradually comes from within, or, in other words, is the product of education.

As a consequence of the slowness of the movement of the psychological characteristics of races, great stability and fixity, which prevents the overthrow of the equilibrium of races, and their works, is the result. Only in the long run, and by slow hereditary accumulations, is it possible for the psychological and the anatomical elements of the human species to be transformed. The evolution of civilization depends wholly on these transformations.

Public opinion is often made by prominent factors, such as wants, the struggle for life, the action of certain surroundings, the progress of industry and the sciences, education facilities, wars, etc. Ideas do not become public opinion, until, as the consequence of a very slow elaboration, they have descended from the mobile regions of thought, to that stable, and unconscious region of the sentiments, in which the motives of our intentions are elaborated. They then become elements of character and begin to influence conduct. It is this line up of unconscious ideas, that give us character. The idea of international Peace, has been at work for several generations, and on account of the slowness of our mental transformations, many generations of men are needed to secure the triumph of new ideas, and many generations are necessary to cause old ideas to disappear. During the Middle Ages, there were two principal ideas: Religious and feudal. Its arts, literature and whole conception of life were derived from these ideas, until the time of the Renaissance when they began27 to change; and also the conception of life, the arts and literature underwent an entire transformation.

No matter what the nature of the ideas may be, whether scientific, artistic, philosophic, or religious, the mechanism of its propagation remains identically the same. With International Peace, it is the same, and must first be adopted, as has been done, by a small number of apostles, the intensity of whose faith and the authority of whose names give great prestige. As soon as these apostles succeed in convincing a small circle of adepts and thus form new apostles, the new idea enters into the domain of discussion, where it first arouses universal opposition, because it necessarily clashes with much that is very old and well established. The apostles who defend it are naturally greatly excited by the opposition, which causes them to defend the new idea with energy and diligence. The new idea becomes more and more a subject of discussion, and of course is entirely accepted by the one side and entirely rejected by the other side, with almost as much vehemence. These impassioned debates help the progress of the idea very materially, and it keeps going and going, and the new generations who find it controverted tend to adopt it merely because it is a progressive measure, and because young people, always eager to be independent, find wholesale opposition to old ideas to be the most accessible form of originality.

Consequently, the new idea continues to gain in strength, and finally it does not need any more support, and spreads everywhere by the mere effect of imitation, acting with contagion, a faculty with which humans are very heavily endowed. Just as soon as the mechanism of contagion intervenes, the idea enters on the phase which necessarily signifies ultimate success, and it then becomes public opinion, and takes on a penetrating and subtle force, which spreads it progressively among all intellects, creating simultaneously a sort of special receptive atmosphere or a general manner of thinking. Like the fine dust of the prairie, which penetrates everywhere, it finds its way into the interior of all the conceptions, and all the productions of an epoch, and the idea and its consequences, then form part of that compact stock of hereditary commonplaces loaded on us by education. Thus the idea has triumphed, and has entered the domain of public opinion, where it has nothing to fear.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is a fine example of the reception accorded an idea by public opinion as I have illustrated above. For seventy years the apostles of the political doctrine that the direct election of United States Senators by the people is best for them, kept hammering away with their arguments, until it was finally adopted as an amendment to the Constitution. The object of most arguments are at first abhorred, finally endured, and eventually embraced.

The idea of International Peace like the Seventeenth Amendment, has practically run its prescribed course for adoption. It has reached the point where progress is rapid. Of the various ideas which guide a civilization, some rest confined with the upper grades of the nation, while others go deep down among the population. As a rule they arrive there much deformed, but, when they do arrive there, the power they exert over primitive minds incapable of much reasoning is wonderfully large. Under such conditions the idea represents something that is practically invincible, and its efforts are hurled forward with violence analagous to a stream that has overflown its banks. There are always hundreds of thousands of men in a nation of the larger sort who are ready to risk their lives to defend an idea as soon as this idea has actually convinced or subjugated them.

International Peace has been talked and discussed for so many years, that the time is now ripe for it to be inaugurated as part of the international law of the world.

OUR NATIONAL STAGE-FRIGHT

Quite recently our country was merely a pupil at the Hague, a student of the Science of Peace. In her studies she manifested a little more zest, and evidently progressed much more rapidly than her companions. For, when a very significant test came from Mexico, she passed the examination gloriously. Her answer to the great Mexican question was implicitly this: no matter how great a grievance may be, it is less a grievance than war, since war includes all grievances. The world admired her wisdom. The Hague smiled approval.

True, to preserve peace with Mexico, we had to leave Mexico at war with herself. The malodorous moral vapors from that civil seethe are still filling our country with nausea. But if we allow our laudable and just indignation to be tempered with reflection, we shall have to confess that war would only enrage our illiterate neighbors to even grosser excesses; at best, could finally quell their restlessness for only a time; at worst, would create for us more difficulties than it would solve. Besides, to add to Mexico’s crimes the ravages of our weapons would be to increase the world’s woes; to increase them at a time when all hell seems to be conspiring against the human race. Grievances, better than anything else, bear postponement. They are proved by the test of time. If real, they endure.

Mexico is now in the throes of liberty-birth. She is painfully working out her destiny, just as we and other nations have done before her. She has a right to be let alone. There will be time enough for us to settle with her when she has settled with herself. There is honor for us in the waiting. In the interim, humanity, the universal law, demands that we do our diplomatic and charitable utmost to win the innocent sufferers in Mexico from torment.

Our country’s attitude toward Mexico has won for her a unique distinction. From pupil, she has become teacher of peace. Europe’s agonized eyes are now appealingly fixed on her. Naturally, such a sudden and unexpected elevation has somewhat dazed her. She doubts that her voice will be heard, or, if heard, be heeded, in the unearthly clangor of arms. She is apprehensive that stray shots from the war-zone may ricochet across the Atlantic and inflict wounds upon her which it would be dishonor not to redress. This nervousness, forsooth, is a kind of stage-fright. She is much like a player, possessed of all such requisites as talent, memory, and trappings, but timorous of throat difficulties and gallery missiles at the première.

We are a people of energy, hence of nerves, hence of imagination, hence of fears. But let us compose ourselves. Poor performers are deservedly criticized. The world is our audience; it is expecting great things; shall we give it disappointment? No, of course not! But are we not making a bad début?

Comes a murmur from all sides the regular army and the navy should be augmented. Those who dare say nay are forthwith stigmatized as madmen. At the outbreak of the European War, however, armaments were acknowledged by everyone as the cause of the conflict. But now it seems that belligerency has so heated our blood that cool reason has been boiled out of our heads. Facts, nevertheless, remain; even though our opinions and sentiments have changed. Whether we at present care to consider it or not, it is a sorry truth that Europe’s armies have rendered the Hague helpless and inaugurated an era of horrors.29

And now, must we, the only nation influential enough to champion Peace, genuflect to Mars?

Notwithstanding the lively jeers of militaristic scribes, the statement stands that the possession of weapons is the strongest stimulus to their use. Germany armed to the teeth, felt too puissant for Peace; too easily she found a cause for war: the world weeps. Experience is the queen of instructors; but do her pupils always learn? Mammoth calamities have testified, and are at this moment witnessing, that martial means to avert trouble draw down on men their greatest sorrows. They have caused History to be couched with a sword-point and blood. The nations across the sea are now madly struggling for life, although up to a few months ago, they were cheerfully and blindly making ready for death,—creating the instruments with which to slay one another. Are we, who should be wise with a firm realization of their lack of wisdom, about to be false to our national policy and follow the unhappiest of examples? If the defects of our present national defence speak to foreign countries of our weakness, an increase of militia would indicate military design. A reputation for bellicoseness, fully as much as for impotence, invites complications. Martial rivalry, suspicions, and jealousies are the recipe for disaster.

With military combustibles in perfect order, a tiny spark from Servia set Europe on fire. If we similarly prepare for disaster, the slightest of grievances will serve to prepare disaster for us. Indeed, even with our present limited army, many of us wax perkily indignant, defiant, and menaceful over sundry occurrences. Some hotly mumble that the Tennessee incident is not yet settled; though, in truth, it is difficult, in cool consideration, to establish any reason for continued heat. Others with flashing eye, grumble over the alleged maltreatment of Americans in the belligerent countries; though all United States citizens were bidden home at the very beginning of the contest, and were given every reasonable means of conveyance. Which facts assuredly stamp the troubles of those who have deliberately remained abroad as personal and not national affairs. The moral is this: if, without an adequate national weapon of defence, we are inclined to take such haughty umbrage upon such inferior provocation, how much greater and dangerous will be our resentments, when we are animated with the confidence inspired by an ample military array!

In these turbulent days, when some excuse for war is encountered at almost every turn, the consciousness of unpreparedness is our greatest defense. Our weakness is our salvation. If we clothe ourselves with strength, there is little doubt that certain noisy newspapers which, despite the President’s express wishes, are even now doing their subtle best to stir up mischief, will goad us on to a proof of that strength. God only knows where we shall be, if we forge for ourselves the grim means to get there! And, if the war-god finds homage in the United States, the only remaining powerful luminary of Peace will have set. The world will be enveloped with affliction. Chaos will reign.

But why do we fear the possible advent of turmoil? It is quite improbable. Shackled with a thousand problems and interests of her own, Europe could not harm us, even if she would. Far from desiring to hurt us, however, she seeks to be helped by us. Ours is a sacred trust. Peace and plenty are our charge. While the terrible conflict rages, we can mitigate its ravages. When it closes, we shall have the moral and material wherewith to revive and cure a maimed and bleeding continent. Shall we be such traitors to humanity as to adopt measures which may imperil that trust?

Perchance we sniff complications with Japan. Yet we have received diplomatic assurances from that quarter which should leave us reasonably easy. But if our sense of prudence is so strong that we must provide for emergencies, let us cast about for means which do not spell danger We shall not have to look far, nor ponder much. For securing our country against future catastrophe, there is an obvious30 method, much cheaper, more effective, and less jeopardous than army-building. It is simply a promotion of that principle whose presence is really the cause of Germany’s greatness and whose decay is the most ominous of England’s menaces: national spirit. Let us not posit the safety of our country in the hands of 120,000 paid soldiers. As patriots, each and every one of us should keep the precious spirit of the nation aglow in his own breast. Then, if disaster threatens, we shall meet it in a phalanx against which it can but patter in vain. Millions, armed with disinterested love of country, are much more mighty than thousands, equipped with perfunctory training, brand new guns, and nicely burnished swords. For, the security of our land is in ourselves, not in our army. When the Spanish-American War burst upon us, we were, so far as militia goes, unprepared, but, in point of national spirit, we were practically a unit. Like magic, unity made soldiery appear. The call for volunteers was answered by many more than could be accommodated. If we are now as united as we were then, why are we fearfully clutching about for new defences? If we are not, let us earnestly endeavor to be. The condition of England is a darkly significant example to spur us on. In her hour of greatest trial, those on whom she chiefly relies for sustenance, her seamen, have leapt at her throat, demanding what she is ill able to give. They fervidly argue that their increased risks should and must be renumerated with increased salaries. They prefer a fat pay-roll to their country’s welfare. Much will England’s vast navy and great army avail her, if her children thus fall away from her best interest and from each other. Heaven forbid that any similar division should obtain in America during time of public distress! To prepare against it, is by far more prudent, serviceable, and necessary, than to rear armies.

In fine, let us not insult the Peace with which our land is blessed, by presenting it with arms!

THE WAR STATE

PEACE THROUGH ECONOMIC PRESSURE HOW COMMERCE CAN BE AN EFFECTIVE FORCE BEHIND THE WORLD COURT—ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE WORLD COURT CONGRESS IN CLEVELAND ON MAY 14TH — TO ESTABLISH A WORLD COURT — THE FORCE TO PUT BEHIND THE COURT — GREAT POWER OF ECONOMIC PRESSURE — INTERNATIONAL CLEARING HOUSE PROPOSED — HOW ENGLAND AND FRANCE PREVENTED WARS — THREE WAYS TO APPLY ECONOMIC PRESSURE — ADVANTAGES OVER INTERNATIONAL POLICE FORCE — THE QUESTION OF PROFIT OR LOSS — WHAT A TRIAL BALANCE OF COMMERCE SHOWS — THE WORLD COURT CAN BE ESTABLISHED

THE WORK OF THE WORLD COURT CONGRESS

One of the catchwords of the great World Court Congress held in Cleveland in May was “In time of war prepare for peace.” There can be no doubt that the accumulating horrors of the present war are turning the minds of the people of all countries, neutral as well as belligerent, toward peace as never before. As the war drags on and it becomes more and more evident that there is to be no crushing victory for either side, belligerent and neutral nations alike are casting about for methods, other than the absolute weakness of a vengeful or greedy rival, that should be sure decidedly to lessen, if not absolutely to prevent, the evils of war in the future.

Mr. John Hayes Hammond, as chairman of the one hundred distinguished leaders of thought, business and government, has taken up the idea of an International Court before which the governments of the world may appear to find a solution for their international justiciable problems. It seems eminently reasonable and probable that plans well thought out may be not only acceptable, but welcomed at the close of the war, by a sufficient number of states to insure a permanent establishment of such a Court, whose decisions would settle finally all questions of a justiceable nature.

In the great meeting at Cleveland Judge Alton B. Parker, in a significant address lauded the patriotic endeavors of Former President Taft to forward the movement toward the lessening of war by arbitration treaties, and introduced Mr. Taft, whose learned and eloquent address made the plan for a World Court appear eminently practicable through its close analogy to the United States Supreme Court and that court’s treatment of the questions that are justiceable.

In subsequent meetings of the World Court Congress the growth of the judicial element in international arbitration was carefully traced. The much-disputed question of the composition of the World Court and the best form for the organization were fully treated, by Theodore Marburg, the former United States minister at Brussels, and by Mr. Emerson McMillin, of New York City, who presented a detailed plan providing for the selection of judges by an electoral college to be chosen by the different nations who should have an equal representation as regards their sovereignty, but have further representation in the electoral college in proportion to their population and the extent of their commerce.

The eloquent addresses not only stirred the enthusiasm of the great audiences, but men of statesmanlike minds were looking forward to practical definite results. Before the World Court Congress adjourned steps were taken to make the Committee of One Hundred a permanent body, and so to organize public opinion, with the aid of other associations, of legislative bodies, and of the press, that it will prove of distinct assistance to the administration at Washington, which has seemed ready at any fitting moment to support the movement practically.

UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT THE PROTOTYPE OF A WORLD COURT — CONTROVERSIES BETWEEN INDEPENDENT NATIONS SUGGEST THEMSELVES WHICH ARE NOT CAPABLE OF JUDICIAL SOLUTION AND YET ARE QUITE CAPABLE OF LEADING TO WAR

Institutional advances in the progress of the world are rarely made abruptly. They are not like Minerva, who sprang full-armed from the brain of Jove. If they are to have the useful feature of permanence they must be a growth so that the communities whose welfare they affect may grow accustomed to them as natural and so accept them. Our so-called Anglo-Saxon civil liberty with its guaranties of the Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus Act and the Independence of the Judiciary, constituting the unwritten British Constitution, made our American people familiar with a body of moral restraints upon executive and legislative action to secure the liberty of the individual. The written limitations upon Colonial legislative action in Colonial charters granted by the Crown and their enforcement by the Privy Council of England probably suggested to the framers of our Federal Constitution that the principles of British Constitutional liberty be given written form and be committed to a Supreme and Independent Court to enforce them as against the Executive and Congress, its coördinate branches in the Government. The step, epochal as it was, from judicially enforcing such limitations against a subordinate Legislature under a written charter of its powers, to a judicial enforcement of the limitations imposed by the sovereign people on the Legislature and Executive that they the people had created in the same instrument, was not radical but seemed naturally to follow. The revolted Colonies after the Revolution, though united by a common situation and a common cause in their struggle with Great Britain, and acting together through the Continental Congress in a loose and voluntary alliance, were sovereigns independent of each other. The Articles of Confederation, which declared their union to be permanent, were not agreed to and ratified in such a way as to be binding until some five years after the Declaration of Independence. Meantime it had become increasingly evident that, strong as were their common interests, they had divergent ones, too, which might embarrass their kindly relations. The leagues of Greece had furnished an example of confederations of small States, forced together by a common oppressor and foe, which had found it wise to settle their own differences by some kind of arbitral tribunal. The office which the Privy Council and the Crown had filled in settling inter-colonial controversies suggested an analogy less remote than those in Grecian history and prompted the adoption of a substitute. So there was inserted in the Articles of Confederation a provision for a “court to determine disputes and differences between two or more States of the Confederation concerning boundary jurisdiction or any other cause whatever.” The complainant State was authorized to present a petition to Congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing. Notice of this was to be given by order of Congress to the other State in the controversy, and a day was assigned for the appearance of the two parties by their lawful agents who should agree upon judges to constitute a court for hearing40 the matter in question. If they could not agree, Congress was then to name three persons out of each of the thirteen States. From this list each party was required alternately to strike out one until the number was reduced to thirteen, and from these thirteen not less than seven nor more than nine names, as Congress should direct, were in the presence of the Congress to be drawn by lot, and the persons whose names were so drawn, or any five of them, constituted the court to hear and finally determine the controversy.

Proceedings were instituted under this provision before the Constitution by New Jersey against Vermont, by New York against Vermont, by Massachusetts against Vermont, by Pennsylvania against Virginia, by Pennsylvania against Connecticut, by New Jersey against Virginia, by Massachusetts against New York, and by South Carolina against Georgia. Only one of these cases came to hearing and decision by a court selected as provided. That was the case of Pennsylvania against Connecticut, involving the governmental jurisdiction over the valley of Wyoming and Luzerne county. The court met and held a session of forty-one days at Trenton in New Jersey. Able counsel represented the parties, and the court made a unanimous decision in favor of Pennsylvania, without giving reasons. A compromise is suspected, because Connecticut promptly acquiesced, and soon thereafter, with the approval of the Pennsylvania delegation, Congress passed an act accepting a cession by Connecticut of all the lands claimed by it west of the west line of Pennsylvania, except the Western Reserve, now in Ohio, which Connecticut was thus given ownership of, and which it sold and settled. A number of the other cases were compromised, and in some no proceedings were taken after the initial ones.

In the Constitutional Convention the necessity for some tribunal to preserve peace and harmony between the States was fully conceded by all, but the form of court was the subject of some discussion. One proposal was that the Senate should be a court to decide between the States all questions disturbing peace and harmony between the States, while the Supreme Court was given only jurisdiction in controversies over boundaries. Ultimately, however, the judicial power of the United States exercised through the Supreme Court was extended to “controversies between States,” without exception.

To those who do not closely look into this jurisdiction of the Supreme Court it seems no different from that of the ordinary municipal court over controversies between individuals. The States are regarded merely as municipal or private corporations subject to suit process, trial, and judgment to be rendered on principles of municipal law declared by statute of State Legislature or Congress, or established as the common law. It is assumed that the Constitution has destroyed the independence and sovereignty of the States and made the arrangement a mere domestic affair. This is a misconception. The analogy between the function of the Supreme Court in hearing and deciding controversies between States and that of an international tribunal sitting to decide a cause between sovereign nations is very close. When the suit by one State against another presents a case that is controlled by provisions of the Federal Constitution, of course there is nothing international about it. But most controversies between States are not covered by the Federal Constitution. That instrument does not, for instance, fix the boundary line between two States. It does not fix the correlative rights of two States in the water of a non-navigable stream that flows from one of the States into another. It does not regulate the use which the State up stream may make of the water, either by diverting it for irrigation or by using it as a carrier of noxious sewage. Nor has Congress any power under the Constitution to lay down principles by Federal law to govern such cases. The Legislature of neither State can pass laws to regulate the right of the other State. In other words41 there is nothing but international law to govern. There is no domestic law to settle this class of cases any more than there would be if a similar controversy were to arise between Canada and the United States.

For many purposes, the States are independent sovereigns and not under Federal control. They have lost the powers which the people in the Constitution gave to the Central Government; but in the field of powers left to them each is supreme within its own limits, and by the exercise of that power may trespass on the exercise of similar power by its neighbor. How is such a conflict to be settled? It may be by diplomacy, i.e., by negotiation and compromise agreement, but this under the Constitution must be with the consent of Congress. It might be settled by war, but the Constitution forbids. And the State invaded by the forces of another State can appeal to the General Government to resist and suppress the invasion, no matter what the merits of the quarrel. In other words, one of the attributes of sovereignty and independence which the people in ordaining the Constitution took away from the States was the unlimited power to make agreements between each other as to their respective rights, and the other was that of making war on each other when other means of settlement failed.

What did the people through the Constitution substitute for these attributes of unrestricted diplomatic negotiation and compromise and the right to go to war over such interstate issues? The right of the complaining State to hale the offending State before the Supreme Court and have the issue decided by a binding judgment.

Now, can the complaining State bring every issue between it and another State before the Supreme Court? No. The only issues which the Court can hear and decide are questions which in their nature are capable of judicial solution. Mr. Justice Bradley first called such questions “justiciable,” and Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Brewer used the same term. There are issues between States of a character which would be likely to lead to high feeling and to war if they arose between independent sovereignties, and which the Supreme Court cannot decide because they are not capable of judicial solution. In such cases between States of course there can be no war, because the Federal Government would suppress it. Therefore, if an amicable understanding cannot be reached, the States are left with an unsettled dispute between them and no way of deciding it. They must put up with the existing state of things.

There have been several interesting cases before our Supreme Court illustrating the character of the jurisdiction I have been describing. Chicago built a sewage canal to drain her sewage with the aid of the waters of Lake Michigan into the Desplaines River, then into the Illinois, and then into the Mississippi, from which St. Louis and other Missouri towns derived their water supply. The Governor of Illinois was empowered to open the canal. The State of Missouri brought suit in the Supreme Court of the United States to enjoin the State of Illinois and the Sanitary District of Chicago from continuing the flow, on the ground that the impurities added to the Mississippi water had greatly increased the typhoid fever in Missouri. It was held that this was a subject matter capable of judicial solution—that Missouri was the guardian of her people’s welfare and had a right to bring such a suit, and, if she made a clear case, to enjoin such use of the Mississippi and its tributaries.

Mr. Justice Shiras, in upholding the jurisdiction (Missouri vs. Illinois, 180 U.S. 208, 241), spoke for the Court as follows:

“The cases cited show that such jurisdiction has been exercised in cases involving boundaries and jurisdiction over lands and their inhabitants, and in cases directly affecting the property rights and interests of a State. But such cases manifestly do not cover the entire field in which such controversies may arise, and for which the Constitution has provided a42 remedy; and it would be objectionable, and indeed impossible, for the Court to anticipate by definition what controversies can and what can not be brought within the original jurisdiction of this Court.

“An inspection of the bill discloses that the nature of the injury complained of is such that an adequate remedy can only be found in this Court at the suit of the State of Missouri. It is true that no question of boundary is involved, nor of direct property rights belonging to the complainant State. But it must surely be conceded that, if the health and comfort of the inhabitants of a State are threatened, the State is the proper party to represent and defend them. If Missouri were an independent and sovereign State, all must admit that she could seek a remedy by negotiation, and, that failing, by force. Diplomatic powers and the right to make war having been surrendered to the General Government, it was to be expected that upon the latter would be devolved the duty of providing a remedy, and that remedy, we think, is found in the Constitutional provisions we are considering.”

This hearing was on demurrer. When the case came before the Court again on the merits, Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the judgment of the Court, and, while affirming the jurisdiction of the Court, pointed out the difficulties the Court has in exercising it and the care it must take in doing so. He said in the course of his opinion:

“It may be imagined that a nuisance might be created by a State upon a navigable river like the Danube which would amount to a casus belli for a State lower down unless removed. If such a nuisance were created by a State upon the Mississippi, the controversy would be resolved by the more peaceful means of a suit in this Court.”

Speaking of this provision in the Constitution extending the judicial power to controversies between States, Mr. Justice Bradley in Hans vs. Louisiana (134 U.S. 1-15) said:

“Some things, undoubtedly, were made justiciable which were not known as such at the common law; such, for example, as controversies between States as to boundary lines, and other questions admitting of judicial solution. And yet the case of Penn vs. Lord Baltimore (I Ves. Sen. 444) shows that some of these unusual subjects of litigation were not unknown to the courts even in Colonial times; and several cases of the same general character arose under the Articles of Confederation, and were brought before the tribunal provided for that purpose in those articles (131 U. S. App. 1). The establishment of this new branch of jurisdiction seemed to be necessary from the extinguishment of diplomatic relations between the States. Of other controversies between a State and another State, or its citizens, which, on the settled principles of public law, are not subjects of judicial cognizance, this Court has often declined to take jurisdiction.”

A very satisfactory discussion of the scope of the power of the Supreme Court to settle controversies between States is contained in Mr. Justice Brewer’s opinion in the suit brought by Kansas against Colorado to restrain the latter from absorbing so much of the water of the Arkansas River flowing from Colorado into Kansas as seriously to interfere with the supply of water from the river for irrigation purposes in Kansas. He said (206 U. S. 95, 99):

“When the States of Kansas and Colorado were admitted into the Union they were admitted with the full powers of local sovereignty which belonged to other States (Pollard v. Hagan, supra; Shively v. Bowlby, supra; Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U. S., 508, 519); and Colorado by its legislation has recognized the right of appropriating the flowing waters to the purposes of irrigation. Now the question arises between two States, one recognizing generally the common law rule of riparian rights and the other prescribing the doctrine of the public ownership of flowing water. Neither State can legislate for nor impose its own policy upon the other. A stream flows through the two and a controversy is presented43 as to the flow of that stream. It does not follow, however, that because Congress cannot determine the rule which shall control between the two States, or because neither State can enforce its own policy upon the other, the controversy ceases to be one of a justiciable nature, or that there is no power which can take cognizance of the controversy and determine the relative rights of the two States. Indeed, the disagreement, coupled with its effect upon a stream passing through the two States, makes a matter for investigation and determination by this Court....

“As Congress cannot make compacts between the States as it cannot in respect to certain matters by legislation compel their separate action, disputes between them must be settled either by force or else by appeal to tribunals empowered to determine the right and wrong thereof. Force under our system of government is eliminated. The clear language of the Constitution vests in this Court the power to settle those disputes. We have exercised that power in a variety of instances, determining in the several instances the justice of the dispute. Now, is our jurisdiction ousted, even if, because Kansas and Colorado are States sovereign and independent in local matters, the relations between them depend in any respect upon principles of international law? International law is no alien in this tribunal....

“One cardinal rule, underlying all the relations of the States to each other, is that of equality of right. Each State stands on the same level with all the rest. It can impose its own legislation on no one of the others, and is bound to yield its own views to none. Yet, whenever, as in the case of Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S., 208, the action of one State reaches through the agency of natural laws into the territory of another State, the question of the extent and the limitations of the rights of the two States becomes a matter of justiciable dispute between them, and this Court is called upon to settle that dispute in such a way as will recognize the equal rights of both and at the same time establish justice between them. In other words, through these successive disputes and decisions this Court is practically building up what may not improperly be called interstate common law.”

Controversies between one State and another, or its citizens, which are not justiciable or capable of judicial solution find examples in the suits brought before the Supreme Court. One case of which the Supreme Court refused to take jurisdiction was Wisconsin vs. the Pelican Insurance Company (1 U. S.), in which the State of Wisconsin sought to enforce against a Louisiana insurance company a judgment rendered in a Wisconsin court for penalties imposed by a Wisconsin statute upon foreign insurance companies for failure to comply with statutory regulations of its business. It was held that neither under international comity nor law was one nation required to enforce extra-territorially the criminal law of another nation, and that therefore the controversy presented was not one of which as between the States of the Union the Supreme Court could take cognizance. Again, in Louisiana vs. Texas, 176 U. S., 1, Louisiana sought to restrain the Governor of Texas from so enforcing a quarantine law as to injure the business of the people of Louisiana. The law itself on its face was a proper one for the protection of Texas. In dismissing the suit the Court said:

“But in order that a controversy between States, justiciable in this Court, can be held to exist, something more must be put forward than that the citizens of one State are injured by the maladministration of the laws of another. The State cannot make war, nor enter into treaties, though they may, with the consent of Congress, make compacts and agreements. When there is no agreement, whose breach might create it, a controversy between States does not arise unless the action complained of is State action, and acts of State officers in abuse or excess of their powers cannot be laid hold of as in themselves committing one State to a distinct collision with a sister State.44

“In our judgment, this bill does not set up facts which show that the State of Texas has so authorized or confirmed the alleged action of her health officer as to make it her own, or from which it necessarily follows that the two States are in controversy within the meaning of the Constitution.”

Thus suppose C nation in the exercise of its conceded powers admits to its shore, and indeed to its citizenship, the citizens or subjects of A nation and excludes those of B nation from both. The discrimination is certainly within the international right of C nation, but it may lead to acrimony and war. This is not a justiciable question, nor one that could be settled by a court.

The so-called General Arbitration Treaties negotiated by Secretary Knox with France and England used the word “justiciable” to describe the kind of questions which the parties bound themselves to submit to arbitration. They defined this to include all issues that could be decided on principles of law or equity. The issue whether a question arising was justiciable and arbitrable was to be left to the decision of a preliminary investigating commission. The term justiciable and indeed the whole scheme of these treaties were suggested by the provision for settling controversies between States in the Federal Constitution and the construction of it by the Supreme Court. The controversies between States, decision of which was not determined by rules furnished by the Constitution or by Congressional regulation, were strictly analogous to questions arising between independent nations, and were to be divided into justiciable and non-justiciable questions by the same line of distinction. The treaties were not ratified by the United States Senate, but their approval by England and France and by the Executive of this country constitutes a valuable and suggestive precedent for the framing of the Constitution and jurisdiction of an arbitral court to be one of the main features of a league of peace between the great nations of the world.

Now, is it idle to treat such a league as possible? Well, let us take England and Canada. For a hundred years we have been at peace. For that century we have had a frontier between us and Canada four thousand miles long which is entirely undefended by forts or navies. We have had issue after issue between the two peoples that because of their nature might have led to war. But we have settled them by negotiation, or, when that has failed, by arbitration, until now it is not too much to say that the “habit” of arbitration between us is so fixed that a treaty to secure such a settlement in future issues would not make it more certain than it is. I concede that conditions have been favorable for the creating of such a customary practice. The two peoples have the same language and literature, the same law and civil liberty and the same origin and history. Each had a wide domain, in the settlement and development of which their energies and ambitions have been absorbed. The jealousies and encroachments of neighbors in the thickly populated regions of Europe have not been present to stir up strife. And yet we ought not to minimize the beneficent significance of this century of peace by ignoring the fact that many of the issues which we have settled peaceably seemed at the time to be difficult of settlement and likely to lead to war. The Alabama Claims issue and the Oregon Boundary dispute were two of this kind.

It is interesting to note that we now have two permanent arbitral English-American Commissions settling questions. One of them is to determine the equitable rules to govern the use of waters on our national boundary in which both nations and their citizens have an interest, and to apply them to causes arising. The analogy between the function which the45 Supreme Court performed in the Kansas and Colorado case in regard to the use of the Arkansas River and that of this Commission in respect to rivers traversing both countries and crossing the border is perfect. Having thus reached what is practically the institution of a League and Arbitral Court with England and Canada for the preservation of peace between us, may we not hope to enlarge its scope and membership and give its benefits to the world?

Will not the exhaustion in which all the belligerents, whether victors or vanquished, find themselves after this awful sacrifice of life and wealth make them wish to make the recurrence of such a war less probable? Will they not be in a mood to entertain any reasonable plan for the settlement of international disputes by peaceable means? Now, can we not devise such a plan? I think we can.

The Second Hague Conference has proposed a permanent court to settle questions of a legal nature arising between nations. But the signatories to the convention would under such a plan not be bound to submit such questions. Nor were the conferring nations able to agree on the constitution of the court. But the agreement on the recommendation for the establishment of such a court shows that the idea is within the bounds of the practical.

To constitute an effective League of Peace we do not need all the nations. Such an agreement between eight or nine of the Great Powers of Europe, Asia, and America would furnish a useful restraint upon possible wars. The successful establishment of a Peace League between the Great Powers would draw into it very quickly the less powerful nations.

What should be the fundamental plan of the League?

It seems to me that it ought to contain four provisions. In the first place, it ought to provide for the formation of a court which would be given jurisdiction by the consent of all the members of the League to consider and decide justiciable questions between them or any of them, which have not yielded to negotiation, according to the principles of international law and equity, and that the court should be vested with power, upon the application of any member of the League, to decide the issue as to whether the question arising is justiciable.

Second—A Commission of Conciliation for the consideration and recommendation of a solution of all non-justiciable questions that may arise between the members of the League should be created, and this Commission should have power to hear evidence, investigate the causes of difference, and mediate between the parties and then make its recommendation for a settlement.

Third—Conferences should be held from time to time to agree upon principles of international law, not already established, as their necessity shall suggest themselves. When the conclusions of the Commission shall have been submitted to the various parties to the League for a reasonable time, say a year, without calling forth objection, it shall be deemed that they acquiesce in the principles thus declared.

Fourth—The members of the League shall agree that if any member of the League shall begin war against any other member of the League, without first having submitted the question, if found justiciable, to the Arbitral Court provided in the fundamental compact, or without having submitted the question, if found non-justiciable, to the Commission of Conciliation for its examination, consideration, and recommendation, then the remaining members of the League agree to join in the forcible defense of the member thus prematurely attacked.

First—The first feature involves the principle of the general arbitration treaties with England and France, to which England and France agreed, and which I submitted to the Senate, and which the Senate rejected or so mutilated as to destroy their vital principle. I think it is of the utmost importance that it should be embraced in any effective League of46 Peace. The successful operation of the Supreme Court as a tribunal between independent States in deciding justiciable questions not in the control of Congress nor under the legislative regulation of either State furnishes a precedent and justification for this that, I hope, I have made clear. Moreover, the inveterate practice of arbitration, which has now grown to be an established custom for the disposition of controversial questions between Canada and the United States, is another confirmation of the practical character of such a court.

Second—We must recognize, however, that the questions within the jurisdiction of such a court would certainly not include all the questions that might lead to war, and therefore we should provide some other instrumentality for helping the solution of those questions which are non-justiciable. This might well be a Commission of Conciliation—a commission to investigate the facts, to consider the arguments on both sides, to mediate between the parties, to see if some compromise cannot be effected, and finally to formulate and recommend a settlement. This may involve time, but the delay, instead of being an objection, is really one of the valuable incidents in the performance of such a function by a commission. We have an example of such a Commission of Conciliation in the controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the Seal Fisheries. The case on its merits as a judicial question was decided against the United States, but the world importance of not destroying the Pribiloff Seal herd by pelagic sealing was recognized and a compromise was formulated by the arbitral tribunal, which was ultimately embodied in a treaty between England, Russia, Japan, and the United States. Similar recommendations were made by the court of arbitration which considered the issues arising between the United States and Great Britain in respect to the Newfoundland Fisheries.

Third—Periodical conferences should be held between the members of the League for the declaration of principles of international law. This is really a provision for something in the nature of legislative action by the nations concerned in respect to international law. The principles of international law are based upon custom between nations established by actual practice, by their recognition in treaties and by the consensus of great law writers. Undoubtedly the function of an Arbitral Court established as proposed in the first of the above suggestions would lead to a good deal of valuable judge-made international law. But that would not cover the whole field. Something in the nature of legislation on the subject would be a valuable supplement to existing international law. It would be one of the very admirable results of such a League of Peace that the scope of international law could be enlarged in this way. Mr. Justice Holmes, in the case of Missouri vs. Illinois, to which I have already referred, points out that the Supreme Court in passing on questions between the States and in laying down the principles of international law that ought to govern in controversies between them should not and can not make itself a legislature. But in a League of Peace there is no limit to the power of international conferences of the members in such a quasi-legislative course, except the limit of the wise and the practical.

Fourth—The fourth suggestion is one that brings in the idea of force. In the League proposed, all members are to agree that if any one member violates its obligation and begins war against any other member, without submitting its cause for war to the Arbitral Court if it is a justiciable question, or to the Commission of Conciliation if it is otherwise, all the members of the League should unite to defend the member attacked against a war waged in breach of plighted faith. It is to be observed that this does not involve the members of the League in an obligation to enforce the judgment of the Court or the recommendation of the Commission of Conciliation. It only furnishes the instrumentality of force to prevent attack without submission. It is believed it is47 more practical than to attempt to enforce judgments after the hearing. One reason is that the failure to submit to one of the two tribunals the threatening cause of war for the consideration of one or the other is a fact easily ascertained, and concerning which there can be no dispute, and it is a palpable violation of the obligation of the member. It is wiser not to attempt too much. The required submission and the delay incident thereto will in most cases lead to acquiescence in the judgment of the Court or in the recommendation of the Commission of Conciliation. The threat of force against plainly unjust war—for that is what is involved in the provision—will have a most salutary deterrent effect. I am aware that membership in this League would involve on the part of the United States an obligation to take part in European and Asiatic wars, it may be, and that in this respect it would be a departure from the traditional policy of the United States in avoiding entangling alliances with European or Asiatic countries. But I conceive that the interest of the United States in the close relations it has of a business and social character with the other countries of the world—much closer now than ever before—would justify it, if such a League could be formed, in running the risk that there might be of such a war in making more probable the securing of the inestimable boon of peace to the world that now seems so far away.

THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS

REVIEW OF BOOKS

THE INFORMATION DESK

An article by Ellis B. Usher, of the University of Wisconsin, in a current magazine, says the vote of the State is steadily falling off. In the year 1900 the percentage of votes cast to the voting population was a fraction above 74. In 1912 the percentage had fallen to 46½, and in 1914 it was only 43. Professor Usher attributes the steady decrease in the number of votes cast to the disgust of the voters with the primary election laws and other meddlesome legislation. “We have attempted,” he says, “to substitute machinery for citizenship. We have cumbered our statute books with laws, and expected them, unaided and automatically to create citizens faithful to their duties. Instead, this new machinery has proved an annoyance, and a restraint upon the electorate, and has defeated that untrammeled action by the voter that is of the highest essence of citizenship.”

In his address at the annual meeting of the United States Steel Corporation, Judge Gary the Chairman of the Board of Directors, said there had been quite a general feeling that the government of the United States had not pursued a well defined and consistent policy toward business, but that on the contrary it had been the policy of some of the governmental agencies to interfere with, to delay and obstruct natural progress; to punish and destroy rather than to regulate and encourage. He thought there were signs now of a fairer policy, and consequently of a better business outlook.

Jose Cascales Munoz, ex-professor of sociology in the University of Madrid, Spain, has issued an eloquent plea for peace. He says that disarmament can be brought about only by an agreement of the stronger powers and the formation of an international army to support the decisions of a world court to which all international disputes must be referred. For the establishment of such a world court a world conference would be necessary. Professor Munoz thinks that if even three strong nations could unite for the formation of such a world court the others could gradually be brought into line, and little by little the work would be made perfect.

The New York Peace Society has sent a letter to President Wilson setting forth the Society’s views on national defense and armament. The letter was signed, among others, by Andrew Carnegie, Oscar S. Straus and Jacob H. Schiff. It declares that the United States needs a powerful navy for defense, but never for aggression, and that our systems of national and state militia should be extended on such a basis as to constitute an adequate land defense.

Prof. Kuno Meyer, speaking of the recent activities of Japan, says: “This is a golden opportunity for Japan. She realizes that the European nations cannot interfere with her and that America will not.” This is attributing selfish and material motives to Japan. If she is animated by such motives it is certainly an opportunity for her to push for the hegemony of Asia while the nations of Europe are cutting each other’s throats, and the American nations are anxiously waiting to see what the effect of the great struggle is to be upon the Western Hemisphere.

A correspondent of a daily paper suggests that automobiles be equipped with “cow-catchers,” or some device which would throw any unfortunate pedestrian, who happens to be run into, aside, instead of drawing him under the wheels. This suggestion is worth considering. A cow-catcher on an automobile might not be ornamental, but if it would save human life the owners and operators of the machines could stand a little ugliness. Besides, there is sufficient ingenuity among auto-builders to make a device of that kind that would not be positively hideous. If properly constructed it would often save property as well as life and limb.

Reproduced from an actual photograph

Rock Ballast, Electric Power, Third Rail, Electric Automatic Signals.

“The Water Level Route”

“There is a certain solidity and permanence about this concern which smacks of nothing unfinished.”

Albert W. Atwood

in Harper’s Weekly