W

'HEN the delegates to the second World Court Congress assemble in Carnegie Hall on the morning of May second, they will constitute the most unique gathering of its kind which has been achieved in all history. Never before has internationalism gone about the business of its own advancement in so comprehensive and effectual a manner. Delegates to the Congress are at liberty to esteem themselves members of the most representative body which has thus far convened for the discussion of international adjudication.

The program has been arranged with a great deal of care and foresight. The special committee in charge has gone diligently about the task of securing for speakers men best qualified to approach the leading topic of interest from the various angles by means of which it can be illuminated and fully interpreted. Of course the central theme will be the need and practicability of establishing a World Court where may be adjudicated all the dif ferences which arise between nations, thus doing away with the present hideous and indecisive solution: war. But this central theme has many ramifications. It divides itself naturally into a discussion of many special issues, and each of these will be aproached during the sessions of the Congress by a speaker especially qualified.

The Congress will avoid the discussion of all questions involving race prejudice. Also the present war will not be analyzed. Its causes will not be pried into, or will there be voiced prophesies regarding its termination. What the Congress will be interested in is the establishment of an interna

tional tribunal for the adjudication of all justiciable questions. The World Court movement has this unique object in view.

Upon the day of our going to press the committee on invitations stated that 1,500 names had been placed upon the list of accepted. There will be 2,500 delegates in attendance at the Congress-or possibly this number will be exceeded.

The Congress will be opened by former President William Howard Taft and John Hays Hammond. The forthcoming Congress will carry forward the work set on foot by the first World Court Congress which was held in Cleveland a year ago. At that time the World Court idea was formulated. During the year which has elapsed much progress has been made. It may be said that the establishment of the Court is actually nearer. In the final analysis, any issue must submit to the dictate of public opinion. While the acceptance of the adjudication plan will depend upon the action of the leading Powers of the world, such acceptance will be assured in advance if sufficient enthusiasm is stirred among the citizens of the world.

A new world state is the ideal-a state in which each nation shall be a

coöperative factor, and in which a single tribunal shall stand supreme in the matter of court decisions involving international disputes or misunderstandings.

The WORLD COURT magazine takes this opportunity of welcoming every delegate to the Congress. It is confidently hoped that great and lasting results may be the fruit of its sessions.

T

HE object of the World's Court League, Inc., as set forth in its Articles of Incorporation, is: "To advocate, and by agitation and appeal, to secure the support of all peoples in the establishment of a World Court for the settlement of all justiciable questions of dispute that may arise. between nations-a rational alternative to war."

Thus it is apparent that the World's Court League is neither a "Stop the war" nor a disarmament movement. Between the extremes of pacifism and militarism it proposes the establishof an international tribunal, which will reduce the causes of war and thereby minimize its possibilities. Neither is the World Court ina Court of Arbitration. There is a difference between arbitration and adjudication. Arbitration proceeds by negotiation and, at best by respect for the principles of law. The World Court will be built upon justice, necessitating the application of the principles of law.

The project of an International Court of Justice has been frequently examined. It was adopted in principle by the forty-four States composing the second Hague Conference (1907); it was endorsed by the Institute of International Law, 1912; and since 1907 has received the hearty support of all the leading powers, including Great Britain and Germany. It received a powerful impetus at the World Court Congress held at Cleveland last May.

The project of a World Court is a mature project. The time has come to take positive action looking toward its early establishment. That it will be a powerful additional factor for the future peace of the world, is not doubted. That it will build up international law, so essential to the peaceful relations among men, is equally accepted.

With a view to arousing the American public to a consciousness of the possibilities that lie in the creation of

such a Court, and developing an insistent demand for it, thus strengthening the hands of the United States Government in its appeal for its early establishment, the World's Court League enters upon its mission.

I'

T is the general belief that the new Secretary of War is a downright and uncompromising pacifist. Newton Diehl Baker stands self-confessed a pacifist, but he also stands self-confessed to a broader and more graspable sentiment: the advocacy of the World Court idea. Linking peace with justice, he insists upon the latter as necessary to the very life of the former. He is not a peace-at-any-price man. He is a peace-with-honor man. strongly desiring that peace might come to the world in a sane, logical, and permanent fashion, he thus addressed the first World Court Congress, held in Cleveland last year, when he was mayor of that city:

And,

"This Congress is called for the purpose of focusing the mind and the conscience of America upon a practical plan for withdrawing for peaceable solution a large area of possible international controversy. There are scholars here whose whole study has been to search history in order that they might extract from its teaching the lessons which it contained for progress and justice in the world. The world is now in the midst of one of history's cyclonic episodes. The theme and work of this convention antedate in importance that episode, and they will continue in importance after the facts, if not the consequences, of that episode are pushed into the twilight zone by the entrance of humanity upon its better destiny.

"From all time there have been voices, individual and collective, lifted up in the interest of peace. Sometimes that voice has seemed to pronounce merely for a spacious and somewhat nebulous conceit or hope that had no

special substance or promise in it; and yet when we do consult history we find that the analogies possible there to be drawn, the teachings to be found there, warrant a great hope of permanence and fruitfulness in the enterprise.

"No man can point out the day when any ancient people gave up personal combat in favor of an ordered system of judicial inquiry for the determination of conflicts-and that not because the record of the day is lost, but because there never was any such day. An ordered system of justice and the reign of law never was the gift of any one man's mind, and was never established among any people by decree. It grew out of those slow processes which we have all come to recognize as the only process which insures permanent and stable growth in society and in institutions.

"The World Court assigns to itself a very practical task. It is not seeking to fabricate and construct out of imaginary materials an ideal Republic or Utopia, but it is seeking, on the basis of a widely scattered number of instances of successful arbitration as an alternative to war, to generalize toward a system. Every country that we know about has had successful arbitrations of menacing, embarrassing and difficult questions. A sufficient number of instances has at length been collected to make induction possible. These instances are to be generalized into a high code.

"If anybody has a notion that this still remains a somewhat vague and unpromising enterprise—if the size of the task dwarfs the imagination and palsies effort, the only answer that need be made to it is that those who believe in the ultimate triumph of right and righteousness require no other assurance than that the day will and must come when a high court will be established among the nations. Just so surely as justice now reigns between citizens, conserving the analogy of in

dividual states and republics, will a high court be established for the nations of the earth. And it will sit in palaces outside whose doors lie silenced battlefields.

"Some of our progress has been made-no, all of it has been made by imperceptible advance. Old moralities. have struggled with new ideas, and old instincts have had to adapt themselves to new conditions. Sometimes it has been the voice of religion that ushered in the better day. Sometimes the pressure of economic conditions, sometimes analogies to nature's own conserving processes have taught here and there, to a man or to a nation, a better way than the old, accepted way. But in this modern age of ours, when, in the language of James Russell Lowell, science has made it possible for the races of the earth to feel a simultaneous emotion, we may hope for the early establishment of this great court."

E

VEN with the present terrible war unfinished, there are minds in America busy over plans both. for preventing future conflict and providing more adequate protection to neutrals in the event of another war.

The views of America's foremost statesman, Elihu Root, touching the question of international law, were set. forth in previous issue. Secretary of State Lansing has also stepped forward with a plea that neutrality be dealt with "from the point of view of the neutral." The present war has clearly demonstrated that international law is inclined to operate in favor of belligerents. Every loop-hole is taken advantage of in time of war. When it is a question of grasping at straws, the spirit of laws may very easily be juggled with.

That the present laws which govern the procedure of one nation as affecting any other nation do not satisfactorily protect the interests of nations not engaged in war at a time when war