Page:The League of Nations (Grey, 1918).djvu/12

 and each could live in its own territory without fear or disturbance, and that the payment of taxes was for the good of all. The effect of this explanation was to make the chief very angry. Before the British came, he said, he could raid a neighbour, return with captives and captures of all sorts and be received in triumph by the women and the rest of his tribe when he returned. The need for protecting his own tribe from similar raids he was willing to undertake himself. "Now," he said, "you come here and tell me that I ought to like to pay taxes to be prevented from doing this, and. that makes me mad."

The analogy between States and individuals or groups of individuals is not perfect, but there is sufficient analogy to make it not quite irrelevant to ask, whether after this war the view held by great States of the relations desirable between themselves will be that of the African chief or that of individuals in what we call civilized Nations. Nothing but experience convinced individuals that law was better than anarchy to settle the relations between themselves. And the sanction that maintains law is the application of force with the support of the great majority of individuals behind it. Is it possible that the experience of this war will produce a settled opinion of the same sort to regulate the relations of States with each other and safeguard the world from war, which is in fact anarchy?

What does the experience of this war amount to?