A PRACTICAL INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM
and aggrandizement; and these temptations are magnified in proportion to the power which he holds and to the weakness of the personality which he happens to possess. Not democracies: for while, in Lincoln's phrase, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, it is not so difficult to persuade an excited majority in times of stress that national patriotism means self-interest to the extent of asserting the so-called rights of the individual nation over against the manifest welfare of the world at large and over against the real and permanent welfare of the nation involved. Thus it is that, for the sake not only of international interests but of that true national welfare which depends upon the conservation of international interests, international law of an adequate sort must be created and must gain the respect and allegiance of all the nations that create it. This does not mean that any nation is robbed of its freedom, for does it not help make the law by which it is bound, and is it not thus a member of what might well be termed an International Democracy?
Well, the Hague Conferences have already made beginnings which look toward the creation of such an international law, so necessary for international order. As Prof. William I. Hull says in his splendid book, "The Two Hague Conferences," "The twenty conventions and declarations adopted by the two conferences form a code of international law which is, in the aggregate, of much volume and great importance."
One cannot leave this topic without saying that heretofore the extremely important matter of the creation of an adequate body of international law has been slighted more than it should be by many of those who have been seeking the accomplishment of a new world order. The achievement of this law will, of course, be a gradual
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