more powerful the nation the less its justification for resorting to force. The practical difficulties connected with the selection of judges for a world court are not essentially different from those connected with the organization of national courts, but to overcome initial suspicions and jealousies and secure that feeling of confidence and security which is essential in the judicial determination of controversies will require time and the most ample publicity in all the proceedings of the court.

But a court cannot deal successfully with questions that in their nature are not justiciable. Political questions to which no clearly defined rules of law are applicable must be settled by representative bodies constituted for the purpose of dealing with such questions. Questions of autonomy, separation, combination, guardianship, armament and policing, should be determined by a representative body capable of giving expression of the combined judgment of all the nations as to the policy as well as the rightfulness of the measures proposed. Whatever the nature of the question raised, it can be disposed of better by the application of the impartial judgment of representatives of all the nations than by war.

The failure of the Hague Conventions to provide effectual means for the prevention of war is apparent. At the time these conventions were framed the nations of Europe were, and for many years had been, preparing for the great struggle that has just ended. Germany refused to reduce its armament and labored strenuously to increase it. All the other nations deemed it necessary to be prepared to meet force with force. Alliances had been formed with well defined warlike purposes. America stood aloof from European policies, confident that it was not concerned in them. The war, however, has demonstrated that all the nations are interested in the maintenance of peace everywhere.

The Red Cross organizations which have come into being pursuant to the Geneva conventions have accomplished very much good both in war and in peace. Their work has been valuable, not merely in the relief afforded to those in distress, but also in the educational influence they have exerted for the aid of the unfortunate under all kinds of calamities. While the

work of these organizations has not been discredited by the events of the war, the conventions designed to give them protection in their humane work have proved ineffectual in many instances. Hospitals, ambulances, surgeons, nurses and other persons employed in red cross work at the front have been subjected to substantially all the dangers encountered by the fighting forces. Civilians, male and female, have been deported from their homes and practically enslaved. Private property has not been respected, churches, public edifices, works of art, and private homes in untold numbers have been ruthlessly destroyed. Bombardments from the air and long range guns have been directed against the defenseless men, women, and children in their homes; poisons, gases, and liquid fire have been used without limit against the opposing army; passenger and merchant ships have been sunk without warning and peaceful neutrals in large numbers sent to watery graves. The laws of blockade and contraband, of capture and prize, of neutral and belligerent rights on sea have been utterly disregarded. Sennacherib, Saladin or Genghis Khan would have been appalled by the frightfulness of the warfare of professed Christians in the twentieth century. The efforts of the Hague Conferences, and the conference at London which resulted in the Declaration concerning the laws and customs of naval warfare to prescribe limitations to war's barbarities, have not only failed to diminish the needless evils of war, but have been followed by greater disregard of all humane restrictions on the incidents of war. It now appears to be unwise to waste time attempting to limit the savage incidents of war. Real substantial progress must be sought through some organization or agency designed to and interested in preventing war itself. It seems manifest that to accomplish the result the organization must include all the civilized nations of the world, or at least enough of them to express and enforce the combined will of a vast majority of all the people. Whatever just criticisms the proposed constitution of the league of nations may be subject to, the peace conference at which it has been formulated marks the opening of a general study by the responsible heads of the nations of the world of practical measures for the prevention of war. It

is self-evident that a first step toward the definite end of preventing wars is agreement among the nations on the desirability of the end, and a second is the acceptance by them of some plan to accomplish it. Educational influences acting throughout the entire world will be necessary in making any plan or combination efficient. In order to invoke these influences there must be presented for consideration by all people not merely the ideal of a world made up of nations dwelling in peace and harmony with each other and only combining for mutual benefit, but also a clearly defined and efficiently organized system of universal agencies designed and empowered to police the world, preserve the peace and promote the general welfare. While governments which have succeeded in establishing and maintaining peaceful relations among the people inhabiting large portions of the earth are the only available models for the greater combination including the whole earth, they deal with a multiplicity of subjects that need no consideration by the world organization.

In all ages of the world, in all stages of civilization, the method of preserving internal peace has been by the interposition of public force between private disturbers of the peace. In crude societies and petty despotisms law is merely the will of the ruler which he enforces through the agencies at his command. In advanced societies laws are enacted by lawmaking bodies, which are construed and applied to controversies as they arise by the judges in the courts, and their judgments are carried into effect by the executive force. To the successful working of this system it is esesntial that the laws, if not really just, be such as accord with the prevailing views of justice among the people concerned. In order that the courts may successfully perform their functions it is necessary that litigants have confidence in the integrity and capacity of the judges. If they have this in full measure there is little need of executive force to carry their judgments into effect. Judgments of the Supreme Court of the United States even in controversies between the great states of the Union are accepted as final and conclusive and faithfully carried out without any application whatever of physical force. The Judicial

Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain desides questions arising in the colonies and dependencies of the British Empire in all parts of the world. These decisions are also respected by all parties interested and carried into effect without the use of force. English-speaking people everywhere are accustomed to submit to the judicial determination of all their controversies. Differences in race, language, religion and laws render it far more difficult to construct a world court which will inspire general confidence throughout all the nations than to establish a satisfactory court in a nation of homogeneous people. But no other peaceful method of settling disputes has ever been devised, and experience proves that this system is practicable and can be made thoroughly efficient.

A judicial system for the determination of questions between nations having been established, the war and navy departments of each separate nation must eventually shrivel and contract into mere police organizations for the preservation of internal peace. The monstrous diversion of men and means from peaceful activities which military and naval establishments have required in recent years will then cease. The general league when extended to include all the countries will have no need of war and navy departments. Executive functions will be shorn of their most prominent attributes, and reduced to police supervision and the execution of general welfare measures designed for the benefit of all. Growing commerce and increasing enterprises in which two or more nations are concerned will continue to demand with more and more earnestness, clearness and definiteness in international law. Questions strictly justiciable in their nature will multiply and give constant employment to international courts. Modern inventions bring all the peoples in close contact with each other and call for international codes regulating their use. World government is demanded by the spirit of the times, but not the world government of ambitious rulers. On the contrary it has been necessary to do away with all forms of arbitrary, irresponsible rulership, and substitute public agencies which merely execute the will of the people they serve. The great purpose of the league of nations is to afford the people of each and

every country full security against aggression in the place of the delusive safety their armies and navies have afforded them in the past. The ultimate guarantee of this security must come from universal recognition by all people of the moral and material soundness of the principles and purposes of the league.

The conventions which have no relation to war afford a far more cheerful subject for consideration. When it is considered that there has been no superior force to compel observance of them and that their execution has rested solely on the good faith of the parties it is most cheerful and encouraging to observe how well each nation has adhered to its agreement and how much of benefit has resulted to all concerned. The convention of 1875 which established an international bureau of weights and measures at Paris and provided standards and prototypes of weights and measures for the metric system which is in use throughout continental Europe and other countries is a very necessary measure to preserve uniformity in the basis of all computations and transactions. This convention has been ratified and proclaimed by the United States, and Congress under the powers conferred on it by the Constitution has sanctioned the use of the metric system in this country, though it has never come into general use in commercial transactions. A table showing the equivalents of the weights and measures of the metric system expressed in the denominations in use in the United States is established by law. In this manner the standards and prototypes preserved by the International Bureau at Paris become the ultimate standards for our own system of weights and measures. The acts of Congress do not interfere with the use of the denominations with which the people are familiar, and, notwithstanding the far greater simplicity and convenience of the metric system, comparatively few people in the United States know much about it and the use of the old terms and units continues. England, though the leading commercial nation of the world, still adheres to an even more awkward system not only of weights and measures but also of money. The rea1 Revised Statutes of the United States, §§ 3569, 3570.