trusted exclusively to the force of public opinion and Chapter VIII the public conscience for a sanction to enforce the mandates of the newly established Court. public The irresistible force of enlightened public opinion The force of is probably felt more acutely in the United States opinion. and England than on the Continent, and that this public opinion would ever sanction a defiance of a righteous decree of the international court of arbitration is almost unthinkable. Moreover, the force of public opinion in the civilized world will be felt in each separate State, and responsible statesmen will be compelled to explain hereafter in every instance why they do not arbitrate or have recourse to peaceable methods of settlement of a controversy. To use the happy phrase of Baron d'Estournelles, "War has now been solemnly characterized as a conflagration, and every responsible statesman has been appointed a fireman, with the first duty of putting it out or preventing its spread." That, notwithstanding all these precautions, public passion may hereafter prove to be as potent an influence for war as the intrigues of monarchs and diplomats in the past, may be admitted, but it is only another mode of saying that human passions and human nature cannot be changed by any provision of law or treaty, however elaborate or however solemn. While, therefore, expectations should be moderate. and prediction not too optimistic, there is absolutely no ground for despondency or even discouragement. To continue once more the simile of English Constitutional development, the signing of Magna Charta Chapter VIII was by no means a finality, and tyranny and oppression were often rampant in England afterward as before. It was, however, followed in due time by the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill of Rights, and the great edifice of AngloSaxon civil liberty all over the world indicates at least the possibilities of what may hereafter arise upon the foundations laid at The Hague. Ultimate effects independent of temporary or local conditions. Future The ultimate effects of the Conference upon International Law are quite independent of temporary or local conditions. History teaches nothing more clearly than that great ideas are generally nearest their fulfilment when superficial observers, even those of great philosophical acumen, consider this very end to be hopelessly remote. Moreover, desperate attempts to justify the continued existence of an abuse, such as the indefinite increase of military burdens, usually denote the beginning of the end. Even granting that this view may be too sanguine, it cannot be doubted that the favorable impression left by the Peace Conference upon the Governments concerned will tend to induce the calling of future Conferences on particular subjects. It will hardly be denied that every international attempt to regulate or solve social or political problems is a step in advance, however modest, in the building up of International Law.—often. indeed. in direct opposition to the purposes of the particular originators. This follows, quite apart from the results attained, from the mutual recognition implied and manifested in free and open discussion. neutrality. One of the most immediate and practicable develop- Chapter VIII ments in the making of International Law which may A code of reasonably be anticipated, is a thorough scientific definition and elaboration of the rights and duties of Neutral Powers, in accordance with the "wish" adopted by the Conference on motion of the first delegate from Luxemburg. No branch of International Law is in greater need of precise formulation. The very idea of neutrality is of comparatively modern origin, it was not mentioned by Grotius and is first referred to by Bynkershoek. In the nineteenth century it assumed, for the first time, a practical and immediate importance, and at the time of the Peace Conference the possibility of an alliance between the minor, and so-called Neutral Powers of Europe, for the protection of their joint and separate interests, above all of peace, was seriously mooted. Such an alliance might easily have a determining influence in a great European crisis, and its realization would encounter obstacles which, while they are undoubtedly great, could hardly be called insurmountable. This will be rendered superfluous if the wish of the Peace Conference is fulfilled, and, beyond doubt, the most promising field for international jurists to-day is in this direction. The elaboration of a "Code of Neutrality," as it was called at Delft by President Asser of the Institute of International Law, should be the first addition to the Magna Charta of The Hague. It will be noted that the Conference has not 'See ante, p. 138. peace and war. Chapter VIII attempted to change the theory of International Law The theory of in any respect, nor did it seek to modify theoretical or abstract views of peace or war. Reference has already been made to the omission to denounce or even to emphasize the horrors of warfare. The attitude of the Conference toward war in the abstract was eminently practical, and it should be most emphatically stated that it did not, even by implication, indorse the view that war is always and necessarily an evil or a wrong. It may be doubted whether a single member of the Conference would hesitate to indorse the eloquent words of James Martineau, that "the reverence for human life is carried to an immoral idolatry, when it is held more sacred than justice and right, and when the spectacle of blood becomes more horrible than the sight of desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypocrisies. 1 We have therefore no more doubt that a war may be right than that a policeman may be a security for justice, and we object to a fortress as little as to a handcuff." Similarly the work of the Conference implies a definition of the word "peace," meaning infinitely more than the negation of all violence. This idea, which may be regarded as the purely sentimental and non-resistance definition of peace, -if adopted seriously by a federation of nations, would simply mean the indefinite preservation of the status quo, or at least the impossibility of any change except by unanimous consent. It would be, of all possible policies, the most preposterous and 1 Studies of Christianity, p. 352. immoral, for it would abandon civilization itself to Chapter VIII the mercy of the worst existing government. definition of That Peace which was the ultimate goal of the The true Conference must be defined differently: it is the "Peace." result of the reign of law and justice in international relations - the realization of that righteousness which exalteth a nation; and only ignorance or wilful blindness can deny the fact that this has often been approximated, if not achieved, as the result of horrible, bloody, and most lamentable warfare. x Under this definition peace, so far from being International merely the pet comfort of dreamers and weaklings, justice. becomes at once the true ideal of the bravest soldier and of the most far-seeing statesman. It no longer suggests national weakness or unreadiness, but on the contrary it encourages the highest efficiency, and everything which goes to make true national strength. The principles of international punitive justice cannot be codified or even formulated with precision, but their existence and momentous significance is not denied or ignored, even by implication, by any act of the Peace Conference. In view of the participation of Turkey and China, this fact is of special and essential importance, and it also bears directly upon the vast problem of the ultimate control and government of the tropics. punitive power. At the beginning of the new century there is an The struggle unmistakable and almost instinctive groping for in- for external creased external power on the part of all the great nations of the world. To examine the philosophical |