FISHER

After tKe War, WHat ?

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After the War, What ?

A PLEA

FOR

A League of Peace

IRVING FISHER

THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 70 Fifth Avenue NEW YORK

Note. — This essay on a League of Peace, by Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University, is of especial significance not only because of the uniqueness of its proposals, but because of its history. While it is now being published at a time when many minds are converging on a League of the Nations, it was prepared twenty-five years before the present war and read to the Yale Political Science Club, May 17, 1890. When the present war broke out Professor Fisher rewrote it and it appeared in the New York Times of August 16, 1914. It was read by Lord Bryce with great interest, and Professor Fisher is now engaged, in conjunction with others — notably Dr. Hamilton Holt — in elaborating some of the practical details in accordance with the suggestions of Lord Bryce in the following letter. — The Editor.

Letter from Lord Bryce

3, Buckingham Gate, London, S. W.

November 25, 1914.

Dear Professor Fisher :

Thank you for your article entitled “After the War, What?”, which I ought to have acknowledged sooner. I have read it with very great interest and quite agree with the prin- ciples upon which it proceeds. The real difficulty seems to be to feel much hope that the states of Europe would take so bold and novel a step as to entrust the requisite powers to an international council, and I should be glad if you were to find time to work out your idea in detail, indicating the pro- cess, how the international council would be composed, whether of delegates of the several governments, merely giving the views of their governments, or whether of persons of more independence, eminent by their character, experience and reputation, who would be able to make up in moral authority for what they might want in executive power. Our fear is that if you left these things to the mere delegates of the governments of the powers, the old system of intrigue- forming combinations would recommence, and as soon as a cause for war appeared, parties among the states would declare themselves, and the general interest of checking war would give way to the special interest of the parties involved. It is, however, amply evident to thinking men, both in Europe

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and in America, that something ought to be attempted to pre- vent the recurrence of such frightful calamities as those from which we are now suffering. If you would think further over the matter and give us a more detailed scheme we should be very grateful, for many among us in this country are anxiously reflecting on the very problems you have set forth so lucidly in your paper.

Yours very truly,

Professor Irving Fisher, (Signed) James Bryce.

Yale University.

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After the War, What?

By Irving Fisher

Professor of Political Economy, Yale University

(Reprinted from the New York Times, Sunday, August 16, 1914, with some additions and alterations.)

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder storm ; Till the war drum throbb’d no longer, and the battleflags were furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

(From Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall.” First published in 1842.)

Without taking sides, this article aims to show :

(1) That the “fault” for this war lies little, if at all, with any individual or nation, but with the system (or lack of system) of governments in Europe.

(2) That with modern fast transportation nations close to each other are forced to compete in armaments, the competition being analogous to the so-called “cut- throat” competition in business.

(3) That an essential in any scheme to prevent the recurrence of such rivalry and the risk of a general war which it entails, is some form, however rudi- mentary, of international government, including an arbitration court with international police power to enforce its decrees.

(4) That without some such arrangement following the present war — even if every other measure be taken which tends to maintain peace — there will, in

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all probability, be a periodical repetition of such a European conflagration in the future owing to the international racing in armaments which will inevita- bly begin anew.

(5) That, though the obstacles in the way of effective international control are prodigious, the present war affords a golden opportunity to overcome these obstacles.

Most people are greatly concerned as to where to place the blame for the present war. Individuals are taking sides according to the racial or national prejudices which they have inherited or which are current in their environment. Almost everyone takes for granted that someone is to blame.

But an unbiased study will find it difficult to assign much blame to anybody. When we come to examine the acts and decisions of the various nations in the three weeks pre- ceding the war we are struck with the fact that each decided as it did because there was scarcely any other choice left open. Each warring nation, of course, blames its own enemies. But it is almost as difficult to fix the responsibility for this war as it is to fix, in a mob, the responsibility for a lynching, and for the same reason. The anomaly of the situation is that the nations, one after another, were forced to choose war while preferring peace.

No, the fault does not lie in any large degree with individual nations or persons. We shall be doing an historic injustice in trying to make somebody the scapegoat. Besides, we shall be missing the point.

The true philosophy of this war is not one of praise or blame, but of social cause and effect. The great and useless slaughter which we are now witnessing affords a study in social pathology. The universal war fever which seemed so suddenly to burst on Europe is but a symptom of a terrible disease of the body politic, a disease which has been graduallv gnawing at the vitals of Europe for more than half a century. It is hard for us Americans, who are fortunate in never

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having had this particular war disease, to understand its real nature. Why should a quarrel over a little nation in the south of Europe compel an innocent little nation a thousand miles in the north to suffer invasion and devastation? The thing would be comic, if it were not tragic. We look on with amazement and ask: Has Europe gone mad? If not, what could have induced so many millions of people to put all Western civilization in jeopardy?

CONTACT LEADS TO CONFLICT

In the development of society, close intercourse always requires regulation. The disease of Europe lies in the rapid growth of close intercourse between its nations without any corresponding growth in the required regulation. Our diagnosis is “increased proximity without increased regula- tion.” Close and frequent contact between nations must needs give rise to disputes. This is illustrated by the fact that it is on the border between nations where the contact is most close and frequent that international hatred is most intense. The same results would occur in any other place or time. Wherever close and complicated international relations exist without any effective international control, there will be a strong tendency toward international disputes, great navies and standing armies, and occasionally war. The malady is not militarism ; militar- ism is merely the chief symptom. Nor is it autocracy nor secret diplomacy nor selfish tariffs.

It may be difficult for us to admit the fact, but if our forty-eight states, instead of having a federal government, had each its own independent government and military, we should find ourselves in the same situation as Europe. There would inevitably be increasing standing armies, oppressive taxation, and eventually war. Fortunately we have a political union among the states befitting their proximity and com- mercial connections. But the states of Europe have no political union beyond unenforcible and, therefore, unreliable treaties. They are now too close together to get along

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without the restraints of enforcible international law. They have every other sort of connection but political ; they have international commerce and travel ; they interchange ideas. The crying need is for effective regulation of this growing volume of international intercourse.

The family of nations in Europe cannot live together in peace unless they govern themselves. They lack government, precisely as the gold miner in California in the 50’s lacked government. Here were a number of selfish men suddenly brought into close proximity without any government. The consequence was that each had to carry firearms. Then vigilance committees were improvised, and later a stable government brought disarmament. In the beginning each individual was an independent sovereign ; but he soon found it profitable to surrender part of his independence to secure protection. The nations need to protect themselves from themselves. We might well write over the parti-colored map of Europe : Wanted , an International Government. Only such a government, or at any rate some form of international bond, bids fair to cure the disease.

In physiology, health is described as an harmonious adjustment of organs. If the heart is hypertrophied or any organ of the body is too large or too small, disease exists. Taking the commercial relations and problems between nations alone, we find they have grown so fast that the political arrangements necessary to take care of them do not keep up with them. In the terms of Herbert Spencer, who was fond of calling society an organism, the “regulative” function of the European social organism is under-developed as com- pared to the “sustaining” function.

RAPID TRANSPORTATION PARTLY RESPONSIBLE

This European disease, of which militarism is the con- sequence and symptom, has become acute in modern times chiefly because of the sudden growth of rapid transportation and communication. A century ago the natural barriers of

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mountains, rivers and distance between the countries of Europe separated them at least as widely as the Atlantic Ocean now separates us from Europe, if, in fact, not as widely as the Pacific separates us from Japan and China. But the railroad, steamship, telegraph, telephone and newspaper have nearly effaced these pristine barriers. They have therefore been very large factors in aggravating the war malady. They have, as it were, produced an hypertrophy of commerce and other forms of international contact without producing the regulative machinery which should go with them.

This conclusion is somewhat opposed to common opinion. It has usually been supposed that the development of inter- national trade was the very circumstance which would save Europe from war. Over a half century ago Cobden prophesied that international trade would bring international peace. Yet since then have occurred some of the greatest and bloodiest wars of history. Cobden wrote : “Whilst the governments are preparing for war, all the tendencies of the age are in the opposite direction ; but that which most loudly and constantly thunders in the ears of the emperors, kings and parliaments the stern command, ‘You shall not break the peace,’ is the multitude which in every country subsists upon the products of labor applied to material brought from abroad.” It is true that the growth of commerce increases the need of peace, but it is not true that it increases the probability of peace.

The economic usually grows faster than the political. One reason is that the former grows gradually, the latter by sudden leaps. That is, the growth of industry and com- merce is continuous and quiet, while government changes are sudden and explosive. It is the fear of losing a fraction of “sovereignty” which keeps political structures unchanged long beyond the time when change is the logic of the situation. Political structures yield at last, but by breaking, not by bend- ing, just as the hardened surface of a lava stream occasionally breaks to conform to the accumulating pressures of the liquid

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lava underneath. The result is that, in the absence of inter- national government, the growth of international interests of other kinds has actually increased the risk of war and the need of great armies and navies. It has done this in three ways :

(1) By increasing the opportunities for friction.

(2) By leading to commercial-colonial expansion and the quarrels always attendant on that process.

(3) By increasing the speed of army mobilization, thus making an hour now of equal strategic value to a week of former times.

Thirty years ago Sir Henry Maine said in his Inter- national Law. “I suppose that of the causes of war which we know to exist in our day, there were never so many com- bined as in Eastern Europe during the last ten years.” What Cliffe Leslie once said is even truer to-day: “The chances of collision with continental states are multiplied, and military institutions and ideas seem to have arisen among us pari passu with increased proximity with our military neighbors.”

Railroads are not only channels through which trade may flow ; they are channels through which troops may flow as well. Ships and automobiles can transport not only passengers and freight but soldiers. We all agree in calling the revival in Europe of military practices and ideas a retrograde process. That this co-exists with an amazing progress in industry, science and thought, is not only interesting as a coincidence ; it is attributable to the very same cause — growing proximity. Industrial progress has broken down the ramparts of nature, but governments have replaced them with the fortress and the cannon. We have sent the trading vessel steaming between nations, but the dreadnought has followed in its wake. We find thus the interesting paradox that while wars have in the last generation grown less and less to be desired they have become more and more frequent in number and more extensive in scope.

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RACING IN ARMAMENTS

The armaments of Europe are a net loss, yet no nation can afford to go without them. Each nation of to-day would doubtless be safer from its neighbors if standing armies were a half or a third their actual size; but were such the case any one nation would immediately desire to increase its individual strength. This action invites a similar increase of the other nations and, at last, produces a loss and not a gain to all concerned. As long as the nations are independent, each nation individually acts relatively to other nations. So Eng- land’s naval program is always made relative to the naval strength of other countries, and the programs of other coun- tries are made relative to that of England. So also Germany has adjusted her military force to those of her neighbors, and the latter have adjusted theirs relatively to Germany’s. The argument in Congress for more battleships is always that the United States must keep up with the rest, and it is a good argument so long as we have no voice in reducing navies abroad. The result is a constant tendency to expand. The psychology of motive is for each nation to seek military expansion even when it realizes that the net result is a loss to all concerned, and that the best course, if all would follow it, would be one of contraction. If any nation should hold back (as many who have never understood the problem have urged) the result would be to make it easier for the other nations to surpass it in military strength.

The inevitable result is a constant race or competition. But whatever advantage any nation gains is immediately taken from it by the catching up of the others. This military competition is closely analogous to cut-throat com- petition in business. In a railroad rate war all the participants lose. Yet no one railroad can afford to keep from rate cutting, otherwise it would lose still more. There is only one way of avoiding such cut-throat competition, whether of railroads or of nations; namely, submission to a common regulation.

THE NEED OF AN INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Only by a general agreement can we secure a general disarmament ; it is through some such international agree- ment— in other words, some rudiment of international govern- ment— that militarism and war can be made to disappear or diminish. The burning question, therefore, is : Will such an agreement follow the close of this war? Sooner or later this great war will be followed by peace. But what sort of peace? Will it be stable or unstable? Will the treaties of peace include conditions, the fulfillment of which will guarantee all concerned against the recurrence of such a struggle, or will the new peace amount to nothing more than another long armed truce, during which the warring nations will recover their lost armaments, wealth and population, and again be ready to fly at each other’s throats after the lapse of a quarter or half a century? To us neutrals these are the important questions, far more important than the question of who will win and what changes in the territorial possessions of the warring nations will ensue.

After the war is over the causes for international quarrels will be no less, but rather more. They will be more for two reasons. One is the continuance in the future of the present steady growth of international relations of all kinds. Quarrels may grow out of international trade in goods, especially where exclusive trade rights in new territory are still available; or out of international travel, especially of officials and royal personages and of immigrants who are personae non gratae, such as Orientals in occidental countries ; or out of inter- national communication, especially where the public press indulges in international criticism. Possible discord may spring from tariffs, canal and other trade routes, sea fisheries, colonization in Africa, exclusion laws, insults to the flag, accidents to ships, and any other incidents of international contact. The other reason for expecting more rather than less reason for quarrels is that war begets war. This great world quarrel will surely leave sores which cannot heal for

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generations, deeper sores than those left, for instance, by the Franco-Prussian War. Bismark is quoted as saying that he deprecated war with France because such a war would lead to at least five subsequent wars. It is time for all people to realize the wisdom of this prophesy, of which the present war is the first step in fulfillment. In order to have a stable peace we must provide machinery to handle the growing volume of questions and controversies as a routine matter, just as the courts handle the numerous personal quarrels in any civilized community.

Such machinery must involve at least two elements : A Court of Justice to render decisions on international disputes, and a Military or Police which shall enforce the decrees. That is, there must be a judicial and an executive department of an international government. Ultimately in the natural course of events there would doubtless follow a legislative branch as well. But the present urgent need is machinery to keep the peace.

To secure this result we must substitute for the crude idea of the balance of power the idea of the pooling of power. The power pooled must exceed the power of any individual nation. The new combined power must be adequate to hold any recalcitrant state to its agreements and to insure that it will abide by the decisions of the Court of Justice. It should have command over both the naval strength and the army strength of the component nations. Laws without power to enforce them are mockeries. A league of peace without the power to keep the peace would be a rope of sand. In fact, what has recently happened in Europe has shown us that we cannot depend on treaties without force back of them.

ADVANTAGES OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

With a true peace league each member-nation would have a double restraint from attacking any other member. It would be restrained by its own promise to submit its grievances to arbitration, and, what is more essential, it would be

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restrained by the fact that to fight any other member would mean to fight all other members. Such a pooling of military strength would of itself tend to disarmament. For the psychology of motive would then be the opposite of what it now is. Each nation would then feel that, while it would have to bear the burden of its own military force, it would not be getting the exclusive benefit of it, but would instead be contributing to the benefit of the others. Militarism would be felt simply as a tax. Instead of racing to get as large an army as the rest, the race would be to keep the quota as small as the rest. An individual nation would feel itself imposed upon if it maintained the largest force to be used for the benefit of the other members of the league. The military force of an individual nation would seem a burden on the nation, with no benefit which could not be had without it. The uselessness of large standing armies would be brought home to each nation individually. If France and Germany were both members of such a league, would France any longer keep a large standing army? Not for defense against Germany, since England, Russia, Italy, Belgium, the United States, and other nations would have agreed through the league to assume that defense for her. Not for offense, because these same nations would then turn against her.

The original colonies of which the United States is now composed viewed each other with the same distrust, jealousy and hostility, as do now the sovereign states of Europe. These colonies were ready to fight over extension of territory or exclusive trade rights. When these colonies united into the United States, such feeling gradually disappeared. The desire for each state to be strong enough to fight its neighbor- ing states was replaced by a reluctance to expend anything whatever for military force. It is now with difficulty that even a state militia can be maintained. Once in our history did a group of states rebel against the rest, but to-day every state has accepted its subordination to the Union. For world peace we must follow the same course. If this war, the civil

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war of Europe, should lead to cementing the concert of the powers into a world federation, it may yet be worth all it costs.

Certainly if all concerned could look at the proposition coolly and calculate the two sides of the ledger they would find the gain from a pooling of interests a hundred times the loss. To maintain the present independent sovereignties costs treasure even in times of peace, while in times of war it costs not only treasure but lives and racial stamina. In spite of the war marriages, modern war means the mowing down of the flower of our best manhood, the cutting off from parent- hood of the bravest, strongest, healthiest young men, and the leaving to their less sturdy brothers (whose defects in stature, lungs, heart, eyesight and other particulars excluded them from the army) the continuance of the race. Even on the basis of economic advantages alone the citizen of Europe ought to find it enormously profitable to exchange the single right to shoot his neighbor for the guarantee of his own security and the cancellation of the major part of his taxation.

OBSTACLES

But it may be objected that we are not sufficiently rational to weigh the question coolly and that it is idle to expect any sovereign government to surrender one jot or tittle of its sovereignty. Can we expect at the end of this war any con- cessions except those forced on the conquered nations? It is certainly obvious that, opposed to a program of any kind of unification, will be the natural resistance to new ideas and a strong tendency to cling to old precedents. The great question is : Will or will not the rational desire for stable peace outweigh the foolish desire to maintain “unimpaired” the right to make war? Will those who control the policies of the European nations be able to see the need for and to bring about some form of central government among them? That something will be done in the general direction of guaranteeing peace can scarcely be doubted. The common

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interest must play some part, however small. It always has.

Unless this something is constructive, unless it is some- thing which cuts loose from the bondage to old precedents, the present war will have been utterly in vain. The same causes will continue to produce the same effects. The nations will again vie with each other to possess the biggest armies and navies. The people will again have to carry an increasing burden of taxation and of military duty, and, recurring two or three times a century, there will again come wars like the present, to kill off the best and leave the worst in the popula- tion of Europe. Perhaps those in power may have the wisdom, courage and humanity to decide that this, the first of world wars, must also be the last.

OUR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

After the present war we may expect a deeper and clearer sentiment on these subjects than ever before. It will be more than ever realized that war to-day is an anachronism; that there is no advantage in war even to the victor; and that the disadvantages are vastly greater than in bygone times. It is often true in history that the more terrible a calamity, the greater the stimulus to prevent its recurrence. On this prin- ciple, the present war ought to be followed by the greatest opportunity for lasting peace which Europe has ever had. After Europe has drunk to the dregs this bitter cup of sorrows, after all the suffering and humiliation to come, there will scarcely be found a man, woman or child in Europe, whether among the victorious or the vanquished nations, who will not thirst for peace — for a peace which will endure. Then, we may believe, will be the psychological moment for constructive statesmanship of the highest order. It remains to be seen whether statesmen are available who can rise to the occasion. Whatever eventuates must be preceded by well considered plans, and it would not be surprising, if the right men think out the right plans, that the long cherished hopes of peace advocates may at last be realized, and that this greatest of

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wars may prove but the precipitant of the greatest advance in constructive politics which the world has ever seen. No one can yet tell what particular form a lasting peace, if brought about at all, will assume. But it is, I believe, most likely to be in the form I have mentioned, an international agreement backed up by military force — a league of peace such as Mr. Carnegie once proposed, provided with some form of inter- national police. It may be that such an approach to a “Fed- eration of the World” is still only a poet’s dream. But, it cannot seem more remote to-day than did a general European war a short time ago. Events move fast in these days.

A POSSIBLE PLAN

If sufficient agreement could be secured, the best plan would seem to be to use some neutral or neutralized terri- tory, whatever seemed most expedient — possibly The Hague, possibly Belgium, possibly Alsace-Lorraine in case of Germany’s defeat, or Poland in case of the defeat of the allies — for setting up the first machinery of an inter- national court and administration, the head offices for an international army and navy (or for co-ordinating the national armies and navies), under the joint control, like the international postal union at Berne, of all nations willing to participate. The territory might thus serve as a sort of District of Columbia for a loose Union of Nations. On this neutral ground in the heart of Europe could be kept a small international police to enforce, if need be, the decrees of the Court of Justice. The contracting nations would agree to submit all future disputes to this court and to sanction the use of the international police to enforce the decrees of that court against any refractory member of the league. It could also be provided that the entire military force of the members of the league should be subject to the call of the league when necessary. The proposed league should be open to an enlargement of member- ship as other nations wished to put themselves under its pro- tection. The league would in essence be simply a great mutual

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war insurance company, and any nation that joined would do so because it would be both cheaper and more effectual to provide against war by paying small insurance premiums to a great league of peace than by maintaining a great army. The league would be, in fact, a rudimentary super-govern- ment. But its powers would be limited to the one function of keeping the peace, unless by common consent the nations chose to add to those powers a supervision over other inter- national affairs. No nation would lose anything except the right to fight other nations.

Such a league as I have proposed could not be expected to act as an absolute preventative of war in Europe, any more than the formation of our federal government was an absolute preventative of war between the different states of the Union, or than our municipal governments succeed in preventing all riot and fighting among its citizens ; but it would greatly lessen the chance of war by affording an alternative way out of disputes.

If the treaty of peace, when it comes, cannot of itself include a definite program for making the peace permanent, it may at least be found feasible to agree to call a conference at The Hague of the world’s best jurists for the purpose of drafting the articles of such a lasting treaty for submission subsequently to all governments. The logic of the situation must have its influence. The solidarity of Europe must lead to a greater community of action. Whether what is done is adequate or inadequate, we have a right to expect something. Political evolution must go on.

SOME PRECEDENTS

It was the natural solidarity of the German States which overcame their desire to continue their individual independ- ence and led, first to the Zollverein and then to the German Empire. It was the natural solidarity of the Italian States which led to a united Italy. It is to-day the natural solidarity of the Scandinavian countries which is leading them to talk of

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union. This is the first effect of the war in that direction In the world as a whole there has been a growth of inter- national action. As a consequence of increasing propinquity and commerce there has grown up a network of treaties ; there has come an international postal union ; there have been international agreements as to weights and measures, and even coinage ; there has been a growing tendency to arbitrate inter- national quarrels. There have been international conferences and treaties growing out of the peace movement, and the establishment of the Peace Palace at The Hague. The peace conferences and treaties as to the rights of neutrals have further recognized the needs of commerce, even in war. What little texture of so-called international law we now possess is the outgrowth of maritime commerce. But the term “inter- national law” is really a misnomer. To be real, a law implies enforcement. At present we have no international law be- cause we have no international force. Our so-called law is a precursor, let us hope, of regulation by force. We have had international treaties, and the next step should be inter- national government. If some of the heads of the contend- ing governments, and the heads of neutral powers, especially the United States, can, as soon as the war is over, present a practicable plan to keep the peace, the common people of Europe will welcome it with glad acclaim, and any reluctant sovereigns can scarcely avoid accepting it.

PRESENT TENDENCIES TOWARD PERMANENT PEACE

The effort in both the Taft and Wilson administrations to secure treaties of arbitration are steps in the direction of a peace league. Twenty-six of Mr. Bryan’s treaties have been signed. Since this article was printed in the New York Times last August the idea of a world league of peace has grown with prodigious rapidity, not coming, it is evident, from any- one source, but springing spontaneously into the consciousness of many minds and winning approval as it has been passed along from one to another. Mr. Roosevelt, like Mr. Carnegie,

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had favored an international peace league and an international police several years ago, and both have written on the subject since the present war broke out. Lord Bryce, President Emeritus Eliot, Gen. Nelson Miles, Mr. W. T. Stead, Sir Max Waechlins, Mr. Wilbur F. Gordy, Mr. Norman Angell, Congressman Frank O. Smith, Prof. G. B. Adams, Mr. Frank Crane, and many others have conceived and expressed essen- tially the same idea.

Mr. Roosevelt has said : “The futility of international agreements in great crises has come from the fact that force was not back of them. What is needed in international mat- ters is to create a judge and then to put power back of the judge. The policeman must be put back of the judge in international law just as he is back of the judge in municipal law. The effective power of civilization must be put back of civilization’s collective purpose to secure reasonable justice between nation and nation. We must labor for an inter- national agreement among the great civilized nations which shall put the full force of all of them back of any one of them, and of any well-behaved weak nation which is wronged by any other power.”

President Emeritus Eliot has expressed himself as follows : “There can be no secure peace in Europe until a federation of the European States is established, capable of making public contracts intended to be kept and backed by an over- whelming international force subject to the orders of an international tribunal.”

Says Congressman F. O. Smith of Maryland in a speech before the House of Representatives : “All the peace that ever existed within any nation is compulsory ; it would not last five minutes were it not for the presence of the executive power with its well-filled store of powder and ball. It is incon- ceivable how universal peace could exist without a similar executive power strong enough to beat down all opposition and compelled by self-interest to maintain peace.” Mr. Hamilton

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Holt,* editor of The Independent, has, I believe, worked out the idea of a Peace League in fuller and more practical detail than any one else.

The most encouraging feature of the situation is that whereas, when this article was first sketched out, twenty-five years ago, the dream of a world government seemed as Utopian as when Tennyson had his vision of it seventy years ago, to-day the whole world is whispering of it as a possibility, and it is being thought of not only in academic and literary circles, but by those who have or have had an active part in political affairs. Instead of ridiculing the idea, they are ask- ing how it can be realized and are seeking to work out the details. There are several separate movements working to this end, which are going quietly forward on both sides of the Atlantic. I may mention the English “Union of Demo- cratic Control,” the South German Democrats, the International Peace Bureau, with Senator La Fontaine of Belgium, Presi- dent, the Dutch Anti-War Council, the World Peace Founda- tion of Boston, the New York Peace Society, and Jane Ad- dams’ Women’s Peace Party. It is certain that before long there will be launched more specific proposals than any hitherto published. There seems now to exist a golden opportunity to enlist the sympathy and the judgment of mil- lions of neutrals, and later of the belligerents themselves, on the momentous question of how to protect from future de- struction the treasures, physical and human, of civilization

* “The Way to Disarm : a Practical Proposal,” The Independent, September 28, 1914.

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The Church Peace Union

( Founded by Andrew Carnegie)

TRUSTEES

Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D., LL.D., Baltimore, Md.

Rev. Arthur Judson Brown, D.D., LL.D., New York.

Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D., LL.D., Boston, Mass. President W. H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D., Providence, R. I. His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Md. Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., LL.D., New York Rev. Frank O. Hall, D.D., New York.

Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., Kansas City, Mo.

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, LL.D., Chicago, 111.

Hamilton Holt, LL.D., New York.

Professor William I. Hull, Ph.D., Swarthmore, Pa.

Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., LL.D., New York.

Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, LL.D., Chicago, 111.

Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Boston, Mass.

Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., New York.

Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, Ph.D., New York.

Marcus M. Marks, New York

A

Dean Shailer Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, 111. Edwin D. Mead, M.A., Boston, Mass.

Rev. William Pierson Merrill, D.D., LL.D., New York. John R. Mott, LL.D., New York George A. Plimpton, LL.D., New York.

Rev. Julius B. Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D., New York. Judge Henry Wade Rogers, LL.D., New York.

Robert E. Speer, D.D., New York.

Francis Lynde Stetson, New York.

James J. Walsh, M.D., New York.

Bishop Luther B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., New York.