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. the The true definition of the "Peace." That Peace which was the ultimate goal of Conference must be defined differently: it is 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. punitive 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. for external At the beginning of the new century there is an The struggle unmistakable and almost instinctive groping for in- power. creased external power on the part of all the great nations of the world. To examine the philosophical Chapter VIII and psychological causes of this tendency, which seems to have taken the intellectual leaders of the world completely unawares, would be a fascinating task, for which this is neither the occasion nor the place.1 It is, however, absurd and fatuous to deny either its existence or its force. With weak or unscrupulous leadership, this movement, which undoubtedly has a commercial and material, as well as an intellectual background, may easily become the cover for sordid cruelty and selfish outrage. Believing it to be nothing more, superficial critics and moralists, especially the survivors of the commercial or " Manchester" school of thought of the last generation, have denounced it with a vehemence which is as truculent as it is unavailing. The moral questions involved. The moral questions involved in the relations of peoples, especially between those of materially different grades of civilization, constitute what is perhaps the most difficult theme of ethics. In no sphere of thought is clearness and precision more indispensable, and the moral as well as the political problems which it contains constitute the highest tasks of the statesmen of the future. The Peace Conference certainly did not condemn the struggles which must necessarily precede the triumph of a higher civilization over that of a lower type, and 1 A most interesting and suggestive essay on this subject by Dr. Hilty, entitled "Fin de Siècle," will be found in his Jahrbuch, 1899. See also Eucken, Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker, 483. 2 It is treated with classical brevity and clearness by the late Chancellor Rümelin of the University of Tübingen, in his address Ueber das Verhältniss der Politik zur Moral., 1 Reden und Aufsätze, 144. which advancing standards of conduct may soften, Chapter VIII but can never wholly prevent. Modern civilization cannot regard the existence of uncivilized or halfcivilized forces with the indifference of a St. Simon Stylites, nor will it any longer consider them from a purely commercial or missionary point of view. Moreover, it would be recreant to its trust if it did not forestall real and threatening dangers by judicious and energetic aggression.1 This duty is not Aggression affected by the imputation of base motives, or by sneers about the necessary assumption of superiority, having, perhaps, no theoretical justification. Had the Peace Conference supported a contrary view, even by implication, its work would have been antiquated before it had ever taken effect.2 On the other hand, the work of the Conference is, of course, in direct and uncompromising opposition 1 See Schlief, Der Friede in Europa, 21. Professor H. von Holst, in his Constitutional History of the United States, in discussing the Mexican War of 1846, a classical example of aggression, justifiable on the highest grounds, yet presenting many of the difficult problems referred to in the text, uses this language: "Might does not in itself make right, but in the relations of nations and states to each other, it has, in innumerable instances, been justifiable to make right bow before might. In whatever way the ethics of ordinary life must judge such cases, history must try them in the light of their results, and in so doing must allow a certain validity to the tabooed principle that the end sanctifies the means. Its highest law is the general interest of civilization, and in the efforts and struggles of nations for the preservation and advancement of general civilization, force, not only in the defensive form but also in the offensive is a legitimate factor." (Vol. III., Lalor's translation, p. 271 ff.) And see Hilty on the Spanish-American War, Jahrbuch, 1899, 126 ff., as well as Brooks Adams' America's Economic Supremacy. 2 See Captain Mahan's articles on "The Peace Conference and the justified. idea of war good." Chapter VIII to the ideas of the "barrack-trained" pseudophilosoNegation of phers, especially in Germany, who have attempted as a "positive to regard war as a "positive good," a "necessary element in the Divine Government of the world,". in a sense different from pestilence, famine, or evil in general.' Argument seems wasted upon adherents of this view. It may, however, be said that he who draws a theoretical distinction in favor of the horrors of war as compared with other inevitable evils afflicting mankind, scarcely occupies a higher point of view than those cannibals who measure the extent of the blessings expected from their idol by the number of victims offered at its shrine. The federation of the world for justice. The federation of the world, for justice and for every universal civilized interest, that is the idea which found its best, if not its first, illustration in the Peace Conference. The latter exemplified something akin to federal coöperation, on the part of the Powers having a disparity of size and strength measured by the difference in this respect between Russia and Luxemburg, or the United States and Servia, and having interests as diverse as those of Switzerland and Siam. They could all act together efficiently and amicably on the one secure basis of equality in International Law. It was the direct negation and Moral Aspect of War," in his Lessons of the War with Spain, and other See also the admirable book of Professor Charles Waldstein, The 1 Upon this subject see Schlief's chapters Der Krieg als Element der göttlichen Weltordnung, and Der Krieg als positives Gut. |