of the governmental structure, all undertake to protect their citizens in their persons and property against violence and wrong from others. All forbid private warfare and punish those who wage it. In the exercise of its legislative function the government enacts laws, levies taxes, directs the expenditure of the public moneys and makes provision for the execution of its will. Its judiciary interprets the laws and applies them to cases as they arise. The executive carries the governmental will into effect, employing such organized force as may be necessary to overcome any resistance that may be offered. In despotic countries the executive acts without restraint and may not be called to account for his misdeeds. In free states all executive officers are accountable for their violations of the laws, whether committed with or without claim of authority. In autocratic countries subordinate officers are accountable solely to the autocrat. In democratic countries all officers, high and low, are accountable to the people or to such tribunals as they have established for their violations of the law. While these differences in theory and practice are of the utmost importance in the regulation of internal affairs, the claim of entire freedom from all outside restraint has been maintained by all nations alike. Within each nation a citizen or denizen must not wage private warfare, but may apply to a court or other appropriate governmental agency for protection of his person or the enforcement of his rights, but nations have had no such alternative for the settlement of their controversies. The determining factor in every controversy between nations has therefore been might, not right. The inherent moral strength of manifest right may, and in the great war which has just ended has, attracted strength to aid weak nations, but superior might was the final arbiter. Its brutal strength may oppress and destroy as well as protect. The unprecedented struggle which has just ended has made the world painfully conscious of the need of some efficient organization to prevent the horrors, brutalities and injustices of war, to force nations as well as private persons to submit to the rule of law and to win or lose their controversies according as they are right or wrong, rather than because they are strong or weak. Not all wars, in fact but few wars, result from the denial of a clear moral right. Conflicts between nations arise from a multiplicity of causes, many of which cannot be classed as moral or legal issues. Of these by far the greater part would appear altogether inadequate if not quite insignificant to a disinterested tribunal. WANT OF BINDING LAW AND SUPERVISING FORCE OVER THE NATIONS While international law is not a myth but has real existence and is enforced in the domestic tribunals of each of the leading nations in controversies between the parties before them, if nations disagree no tribunal exists to which either may apply for the determination and enforcement of its rights. If nations disagree as to the true meaning and intent of the treaties they have made, no court has authority to settle their differences. The judgments of arbitrators to which they may submit their controversies are wholly dependent on the good faith of the parties to comply with them. No nation has power to legislate for the high seas except for its own people. The navigable waters covering about three-fourths of the surface of the earth are common property of all nations in the government of which all have rights and interests, yet no power exists that is authorized to make laws governing their common use. The nations may and do make treaties and conventions but these bind only such as consent and voluntarily submit to them and only so long as they see fit to keep faith. Among the advantages which may reasonably be expected to accrue from civil government of the world and the enactment and enforcement of binding international law may be mentioned: The preservation of peace. Relief during peace from the burdens of preparations for war. More efficient laws for the seas. Laws regulating the international use of electrical force. Laws governing the navigation of the air. Higher conceptions of justice. Greatly increased commercial and industrial activity. Cooperation of nations in vast undertakings for the common good. Freedom of travel and association. Increasing respect and good will resulting from better acquaintance. Humane assistance to unorganized and undeveloped peoples. General advancement in moral standards and conceptions. All these advantages, so far as they relate to interior conditions, have accrued to the people of the United States as the result of their union under one efficient government for general concerns, leaving local affairs to the states. While it may be too much to expect these results in equal measure from any possible league or union of the nations, it seems at least a well grounded hope that a league, union or confederation of all nations whose governments are based on the theory of accountability of all officials to the people or their representatives, would produce results corresponding in main with those enjoyed by the people of the United States and resulting from their union of states. At the time the American Union was formed the colonies were thirteen separate sovereignties. By the adoption of the Constitution they ceded such attributes of sovereignty as were essential to their common safety to the general government and retained all others. Among the attributes so ceded was that of sovereign power to make war. No combination of the nations can be effectual for the needs of the world unless they, like the American States, cede to the general union of nations their sovereign right to make war and to do those things for the general good which the nations cannot do separately. It is equally important that they reserve to themselves the sole right to regulate their internal concerns. It would appear better to confer too little than too much power on the union or league but it must have enough to prevent war and all preparation for war. Europe is the part of the earth which has been most afflicted by destructive wars in re cent times. People from all parts of it in great numbers have migrated to America and become citizens of this country. Most of them have been very readily assimilated in the body politic, and no serious disorders have resulted from the mixture of all nationalities. In the generation born in this country and educated in the public schools all children of parents coming from northern Europe appear as Americans, usually with little or nothing to indicate the nationality of their parents. The Latin races are assimilated more slowly, but without serious difficulty. Africans and Asiatics are also here, the former in great numbers, yet notwithstanding their differences from the European stock, their relations to the whites. become quite readily adjusted and all live together in peace. Freedom of movement and of industrial and economic adjustment and a general disposition to treat every one according to his personal capacity and worth and to apply the law impartially to all are the most potent influences which combine in producing the happy situation. The fundamental difficulty in preserving the good relations of the people of Europe to each other arises from their segregation into small nations, speaking different languages, and under governments in the hands of ambitious rulers who seek personal and national aggrandizement at the expense of neighboring people. Political barriers there prevent the freedom of personal and commercial movements that binds the different states of the American Union together so closely. Permanent peace is dependent on general confidence of the nations and of individuals in their ability to obtain substantial justice by peaceable methods. No condition of society has ever existed, and perhaps none ever will exist, under which all people are entirely satisfied of the justice of the laws and of the distribution of the burdens and rewards of public and private enterprises and activities. But if all can come to have confidence in the agencies through which the people collectively may themselves right their wrongs, they may patiently bear what they regard as injustices until there is a chance to correct them. If the supervising force is one created by the people themselves for the purpose of enforcing justice among them, and one which they may change when they find it necessary to do so, in an orderly and peaceable manner prescribed by law, there is no need of war or mob violence. There is no theoretical difficulty in framing a constitution for all the nations of the world under which all ultimate power will be retained by the people. The practical difficulty, however, of creating agencies adequate to preserve the peace and promote the general welfare, yet with powers so limited and counterbalanced that they cannot become instrumentalities of oppression, is quite obvious. The farther public agencies are removed from the people whom they are designed to serve, the more the need of strict limitation of their powers, and of publicity in all their official acts. The needed publicity would hardly have been possible a hundred years ago. It is entirely practicable now. The telegraph and the printing press, working together, place before the reading public at night all matters of great interest that have occurred during the day. When there is an overwhelming public sentiment on any question it finds immediate expression in all the leading countries through the press and public meetings. The need of clearly expressed laws, binding on all the nations, becomes more and more apparent as commercial and social intercourse increases. The people of the manufacturing and commercial states of Europe are dependent on the agricultural countries for both their food and raw material for their industries. In the great war which has just ended ability to obtain supplies from America was regarded as the determining factor in the contest. The present economic adjustments cannot continue without general conditions of peace. Warfare renders it necessary for each country to be either self-supporting or allied with an accessible neighbor from whom the deficiencies of home products can be supplied. The United States is perhaps best able to supply all the wants of its people from its own products of all the countries in the world, yet the scale of living demanded by all classes from common laborers to multi-millionaires calls for coffee, tea, spices, drugs, sugar, rubber, silk, tropical fruit and manufactured articles of many kinds and minor articles too numerous to mention. To live as we are accustomed to live and as we i |