question of great importance, and one which, unfortunately, divides those who believe in and desire peace. The one party-the extremer pacifists, and perhaps the more logical -say that treaties must be their own sanction. The whole point of peace is that men rely on law, not on force. And to attempt to secure peace by arms is, and always has been, the fundamental error of mankind. This attitude, I think, goes along with the complete and uncompromising application of Christian ethics. Those who hold it would probably say that force should never be resisted by force. They would expect to conquer force by meekness. They are the real Christians. And I respect and honor them in proportion to their sincerity. But I cannot go with them. What is more important, I know well that almost nobody goes with them; and that, in particular, no government would act, now or in any near future, upon such presumptions. It will be impossible, I believe, to win from public opinion any support for the ideas I am putting forward, unless we are prepared to add a sanction to our treaty. I propose, therefore, that the powers entering into the arrangement pledge themselves to assist, if necessary, by their national forces, any member of the league who should be attacked before the dispute provoking the attack has been submitted to arbitration or conciliation.

ECONOMIC PRESSURE.

Military force, however, is not the only weapon the powers might employ in such a case; economic pressure might sometimes be effective. Suppose, for example, that the United States entered into such a league, but that she did not choose, as she wisely might not choose, to become a great military or naval power. In the event of a crisis arising, such as we suppose, she could nevertheless exercise a very great pressure if she simply instituted a financial and commercial boycott against the offender. Imagine, for instance, that at this moment all the foreign trade of this country were cut off by a general boycott. We should be harder hit than we can be by military force. We simply could not carry on the war. And though, no doubt, we are more vulnerable in this respect than other countries, yet such economic pressure, if it were really feared, would be a potent factor in determining the policy of any country. It is true that no nation could apply such a boycott without injuring itself. But then the object is to prevent that greatest of all injuries, material and moral, which we call war. We can then imagine the states included in our league agreeing that any offender who made war on a member of the league, contrary to the terms of the treaty, would immediately have to face either the economic boycott, or the armed forces, or both, of the other members. And it is not unreasonable to think that in most cases that would secure the observance of the treaty.

(Atlantic Monthly, vol. 115, pp. 516-524, 691-700; April-May,

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(b) [§336] A Permanent International Conference.

BY H. G. WELLS (February 21, 1915).

There is one thing very obvious, and that is the necessity for some controlling world authority if treaties are to be respected and war abolished. While there are numerous sovereign States in the world each absolutely free to do what it chooses, to arm its people or repudiate engagements, there can be no sure peace. But great multitudes of those who sincerely desire peace forever cannot realize this. There are, for example, many oldfashioned English liberals who denounce militarism and "treaty entanglements" with equal ardor; they want Britain to stand alone, unaggressive, but free; not realizing that such an isolatino is the surest encouragement to any war-enamored power. Exactly the same type is to be found in the United States, and is probably even more influential there. But only be so spinning a web of treaties that all countries are linked by general obligations to mutual protection can a real world-pacification be achieved.

The present alliance against the insufferable militarism of Germany may very probably be the precursor of a much wider alliance against any agression whatever in the future. Only through some such arrangement is there any reasonable hope of a control and cessation of that constant international bickering and pressure, that rivalry in finance, that competition for influence in weak neutral countries, which has initiated all the struggles of the last century, and which is bound to accumulate tensions for fresh wars so long as it goes on. What is now with each week of the present struggle becoming more practicable is the setting up of a new assembly that will take the place of the various embassies and diplomatic organizations, of a mediæval pattern and tradition, which have hitherto conducted international affairs.

This war must end in a public settlement, to which all of the belligerents will set their hands; it will not be a bundle of treaties, but one treaty binding eight or nine or more powers. This settlement will almost certainly be attained at a conference of representatives of the various foreign offices involved. Quite possibly interested neutral powers will also send representatives. There is no reason whatever why this conference should dissolve, why it should not become a permanent conference upon the inter-relations of the participating powers and the maintenance of the peace of the world. It could have a seat and officials, a staff, and a revenue of its own; it could sit and debate openly, publish the generally binding treaties between its constituent powers, and claim for the support of its decisions their military and naval resources.

The predominance of the greater powers could be secured either by the representatives having multiple votes, according to the population represented, or by some sort of proportional representation. Each power could appoint its representatives through its foreign office or by whatever other means it thought fit. They could as conveniently be elected by a legislature or a nation. And such a body would not only be of enormous authority in the statement, interpretation, and enforcement of

treaties, but it could also discharge a hundred useful functions in relation to world hygiene, international trade and travel, the control of the ocean, the exploration and conservation of the world's supplies of raw material and food supply. It would be, in fact, a World Council. . . . Though the general will and welfare may point to the future management of international relations through a world congress, the whole mass of those whose business has been the direction of international relations is likely to be either skeptical or actively hostile to such an experiment. All the foreign officers and foreign ministers, the diplomatists universally, the politicians who have specialized in natonal assertion, and the courts that have symbolized and embodied it, all the people, in fact, who will be in control of the settlement, are likely to be against so revolutionary a change.

For it would be an entirely revolutionary change. It would put an end to secrecy. It would end all that is usually understood by diplomacy. It would clear the world altogether of those private understandings and provisional secret agreements, those intrigues, wire-pullings, and quasi-financial operations that have been the very substance of international relations hitherto. To these able and interested people, for the most part highly seasoned by the present conditions, finished and elaborated players at the old game, this is to propose a new, crude, difficult, and unsympathetc game. They may all of them, or most of them, hate war, but they will cling to the belief that their method of operating may now, after a new settlement, be able to prevent or palliate war.

Peace must be organized and maintained. This present monstrous catastrophe is the outcome of forty-three years of skillful, industrious, systematic world armament. Only by a disarmament as systematic, as skillful, and as devoted may we hope to achieve centuries of peace.

No apology is needed, therefore, for a discussion of the way in which peace may be organized and established out of the settlement of this war. I am going to set out and estimate as carefully as I can the forces that make for a peace organization and the forces that make for war. I am going to do my best to diagnose the war disorder. I want to find out first for my own guidance, and then with a view to my co-operation with other people, what has to be done to prevent the continuation and recrudescence of warfare.

Such an inquiry is manifestly the necessary first stage in any world pacification. So manifestly that, of course, countless others are also setting to work upon it. It is a research. It is a research exactly like a scientific exploration. Each of us will probably get out a lot of truth and a considerable amount of error; the truth will be the same and the errors will confute and disperse each other. But it is clear that there is no simple panacea in this matter, and that only by intentness and persistence shall we disentangle a general conception of the road the peace-desiring multitude must follow.

Now, first be it noted that there is in every one a certain discord with regard to war. Every man is divided against himself. On the whole, most of us want peace. But hardly any

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one is without a lurking belligerence, a lurking admiration for the vivid impacts, the imaginative appeals of war.

(c) [$337] Minimum Program.

BY THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION FOR A DURABLE PEACE.

1. No annexation or transfer of territory shall be made contrary to the interests and wishes of the population concerned. Where possible their consent shall be obtained by plebiscite or otherwise.

2. The States shall guarantee to the various nationalities, included in their boundaries, equality before the law, religious liberty and the free use of their native languages.

3. The States shall agree to introduce in their colonies, protectorates and spheres of influence, liberty of commerce, or at least equal treatment for all nations.

4. The work of the Hague Conferences with a view to the peaceful organization of the Society of Nations shall be de-. veloped.

The Hague Conference shall be given a permanent organization and meet at regular intervals.

5. The States shall agree to submit all their disputes to peaceful settlement. For this purpose there shall be created, in addtion to the existent Hague Court of Arbitration, (a) a permanent Court of International Justice, (b) a permanent International Council of Investigation and Conciliation.

6. The States shall bind themselves to take concerted action, diplomatic, economic or military, in case any State should resort to military measures instead of submitting the dispute to judicial decision or to the mediation of the Council of Investigation and Conciliation.

7. The States shall agree to reduce their armaments.

8. In order to facilitate the reduction of naval armaments, the right of capture shall be abolished and the freedom of the seas assured.

9. Foreign policy shall be under the effective control of the parliaments of the respective nations.

Secret treaties shall be void.

(d) [$338] The League of Nations.

By H. N. BRAILSFORD.

The constitution and principles of the League of Nations shall be determined by a congress which shall sit [within one year from the conclusion of peace]. At this congress, in addition to the late belligerents, the United States of America shall be represented, and to it such other civilized sovereign states as the American President shall name, shall be invited. The following sketch conveys suggestions for the constitution of the League:

The signatory states agree to refer all disputes incapable of adjustment by diplomacy—(a) if justiciable, to a court of arbitral justice; (b) if non-justiciable, to a standing council of

inquiry and conciliation, to which their governments will nominate representatives for a term of years. They undertake neither to make wars nor to mobilize against each other until the court or council has, within a stipulated time, issued its award or recommendation, nor for a stipulated time thereafter.

The executive of the League [representing the governments of the great Powers] shall, in case of a threatened breach of this fundamental obligation, concert effective measures, military or economic, to insure its observance. The signatory states will support this common action, subject to the several undertakings into which each of them may enter on their adherence to the League.

The executive will concert measures for mutual defense when a signatory state is attacked by any state which refuses to submit its case to the appropriate tribunal or council.

Should any state fail to accept and give effect to the recommendations of the council of conciliation or the award of the tribunal, the executive will forthwith determine what collective action, if any, is required to meet this situation.

The executive, subject to safeguards to be agreed upon, shall determine the right of any state to be admitted to the League, and may expel, subject to safeguards and the right of appeal, any state which has violated its constitution. The right of secession is recognized.

No treaty of alliance, past or future, shall bind any state adhering to the League to support an ally who had engaged in war without submitting his case to a court or council of the League, or has become involved in war by reason of his failure to accept or give effect to the award or recommendation of a court or council of the League.

2. NATIONALITY.

The signatory Powers will define in a declaration, to be embodied in the constitution of the League, their resolve to accord to all racial minorities in their European territories full liberty for the use of their language, the development of their culture, and the exercise of their religion.

3. REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS.

The Powers will consider measures for a general reduction of armaments on land and sea. [This might provide (a) for the limitation of the term of service in national armies, say to six months in the infantry; (b) for the suspense of all building of capital ships for a term of years until a permanent agreement could be reached as to ratios of building.]

4. THE LAW OF WAR AT SEA.

This may be remodelled on the principle that embargoes on commerce, blockades, and the capture of enemy merchant vessels are permitted only in public wars sanctioned or declared by the executive of the League. In private, unauthorized wars the strictest definition of neutral rights as maintained by the American school will be enforced.