Covenants Without the Sword agreement, in the Highest Court of Justice of the World, as to the basis of the system—each jurist following the traditional views of the school of juristic thought in which he had been trained? Isn't no court better than a weak court? Isn't voluntary arbitration, with all its defects, the real evolutionary product of international law development, so far? Must not an effective Federation of Nations, or at least an actual Inter- Par liamentary Union, antedate any Court? D The primary object of and only real justification for such a Court is, of course, that it shall make war impossible or at least less likely; and yet the most vital objection to the plan for such a tribunal is that it does not reach the causes of war in the modern world at all. It merely provides another means for dealing with disputes which, today, do not lead to war. It takes more than an ordinary dis pute over fact or law to produce war today—at least outside of Latin America. "Wars for the most part are no longer the contests of princes in which the people have little concern, but are national struggles to which the people themselves are parties rather than the governments which represent them. It is the opposing people that is to be coerced into the recognition of the claims of the belligerent."31 Not only the causes but the incidences and effects of war are different today and changing constantly. The sword bulks larger now than ever before in history, but it is more difficult to unsheath. The emotional element which plays so large a part in history and the affairs of men has shifted its centre as to international politics. It centres now not in such abstractions as national glory, or the defense of a mythical chip on the shoulder, but in the protection "Bordwell, Law of War, 3.
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of concrete international investments, economic interests and enterprises, food supplies, markets, etc. War not only seems an absurdity and an anachronism to the man in the street, but the powers that rule and shape our national desti nies are no longer the captains and the kings but the capitalists and the people. To them entirely different issues appeal. The policy of the "open door" is com mercial, not political. Just the other day our government insisted that America must have its share in the building of the Hankow railroad in China. Imagine how such a position, now placidly accepted as fair, would have dumbfounded the old diplomats with their alliances and dynastic quarrels. Then, too, of course, other ideas of right prevail. Napoleon could not say today, "With the armies of France at my back, I shall always be in the right." Nor could Charles Augustus of Sweden declare today, as he did when he broke the truce of Roskild, "There is always just cause of war as soon as there is found a realm incapable of resisting." But all these mighty forces which are making for peace would not be helped by such a Court. In other words, where they do not operate to prevent war, no such Court can. I am not going into a discussion of war; but as bearing on the possible func tions and possibilities of such a Court it is worth noting the obstacles which at present prevent the peaceable adjust ment of international differences. They may be grouped roughly as (1) distrust of foreign peoples, due to ignorance of their life and institutions and lack of individual acquaintance. The Mongols say: "The thigh bone of an elk cannot be fitted into a sauce-pan, and stranger does not jibe with stranger."32 In "Rochet, Sentences, Maximes et Proverbes Marchoux et Mongols, page iii.
