Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 22.pdf/572

 The Green Bag

544

even result, after patient perseverance,

strengthening the reign of law among

in some form of modiﬁed disarmament the character of which cannot be fore seen. But the jealousies of the several

nations rather than toward the estab

lishment of peace as a summum bonum under all circumstances. But they

powers, and their commercial ambi

seem to have drifted from the position

tions, will long render complete dis

of Elihu Burritt, who asked sixty years ago for a congress to deﬁne and develop international law and to create an inter national tribunal to apply it, and from that of Horace Bushnell, who deﬁned the peace movement as the growth of law. They might, perhaps, in many instances do more helpful work by reviving some of the principles formu

armament,

saving

the

retention

of

some form of naval police necessary to the preservation of international order,

utterly impracticable. There are ‘other forms of agitation which may be more useful. In the judgment of Mr. Andrew Carnegie the establishment of inter national arbitration is more important than disarmament. It was with the purpose of securing disarmament that the ﬁrst Peace Conference at The Hague, in

1899, was called, and the

effort failed. That is not a reason for not bringing it up at the third Peace

lated two generations ago, suggestive

of the measures likely to prove most

efficacious in the peace conferences of the future. President

Taft

touched

upon

the

be

crucial issue of the hour, and supplied the peace societies with food for thought

faced in their logical order, and there is

when, at the dinner of the American

little to be accomplished by working for remote ends which cannot be at

Peace and Arbitration League given in his honor last March in New York City, he professed himself unable to see why questions of national honor should be excluded from the disputes

Conference.

But

problems

must

tained till the immediate obstacles have been removed. Disarmament is

an important ultimate goal of the movement for international peace, but

covered

it can come only when the body of international law has expanded so as

There will be great diﬂiculty in fact in

to provide rules whereby all nations may settle their differences, and a per

manent international court has been established to administer such law. For this reason Secretary Knox is at

present most interested in bringing

by

treaties

of

arbitration.

getting the powers to consent to this

proposal. The same considerations which render impossible their conver sion to the policy of disarmament must necessarily deter nations like Great Britain and Germany from agreeing to submit questions involving "vital

about the permanent establishment of

interest" or “national honor" to arbi

the proposed Court of Arbitral Justice,

tration.

and for this reason, we imagine, dis armament is unlikely to have the fore most place in the program of our

in any way detract from the impor tance of unconditional arbitration as an

State Department for years to come. Peace societies are adopting resolu

tions in favor of disarmament.

These considerations do not

ultimate goal of international diplo macy.

Considered

President’s

position

in this

is

light

sound.

the

And

They

wherever it is possible to negotiate a

are free from much of the sentimental ism which their very name connotes, and are bending their energies toward

treaty on this basis let it be hoped that governments will rise to the oppor tunity. There is, however, no prospect