Page:Whymenfightameth00russuoft.djvu/120

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
108
WHY MEN FIGHT

in motion. But this authority need never concern itself with any of the internal affairs of national States: it need only declare the rules which should regulate their relations, and pronounce judicially when those rules have been so infringed as to call for the intervention of the international force. How easily the limit of the authority could be fixed may be seen by many actual examples.

The civil and military State are often different in practice, for many purposes. The South American Republics are sovereign for all purposes except their relations with Europe, in regard to which they are subject to the United States: in dealings with Europe, the Army and Navy of the United States are their Army and Navy. Our self-governing Dominions depend for their defense, not upon their own forces but upon our Navy. Most Governments, nowadays, do not aim at formal annexation of a country which they wish to incorporate, but only at a protectorate—that is, civil autonomy subject to military control. Such autonomy is, of course, in practice incomplete, because it does not enable the "protected" country to adopt measures which are vetoed by the Power in military control. But it may be very nearly