Page:The League of Nations and freedom of the seas.djvu/8

 of their exercise, but without them it cannot be an effective instrument for peace.

Striking as the new development is it has received too little attention. It has been allowed to slip in almost without comment, and few, if any, of those who of late have been publicly discussing the subject have stopped to inquire why the new feature has intruded itself at this particular juncture. Its credentials are not asked for. Yet obviously its sudden appearance needs explanation if we are to obtain a clear understanding of the trend of opinion as it exists to-day.

The explanation is not far to seek. A glance at the history of the whole movement reveals it at once. It is that the more recent development of the old idea of a League of Nations is the result of a fusion of two schools of thought. The older one, whose object was a league to prevent war, culminated in the Holy Alliance. The newer one is that which grew up after the failure of the Holy Alliance had led men to despair of finding a means for the prevention of war. The new school, whose harvest was the Declaration of Paris and the Geneva and Hague Conventions, sought the more modest goal of mitigating the horrors of war. It is to this school of thought and not to the older one that the idea of Freedom of the Seas belongs. It indeed represents the high-water mark of what may be called the Hague school. It is the creed of its most advanced and enthusiastic advocates.