not only the cost of building and fitting out fleets, of maintaining armies and purchasing food and ammunition, but we must contemplate the waste of energy in withdrawing thousands of ablebodied men from productive industry. The religious and ethical aspects of militancy are more frequently presented. It is considered quite unchristian by some to kill one's fellow-man. War is murder, war is hell. It is unphilosophic and irrational as well, for no truth is demonstrated by the presence of the heaviest artillery.

But is there not an optimistic view of war which we are compelled at times to take and always to consider? Industrialism has been evolved from militancy. The main bulwark of manufacture and commerce is the security to life and property which the army and navy afford. If the military and naval establishments are expensive, they pay for themselves many times over in a low rate of interest to the borrower. Has not empire been founded by the sword, and is it not empire which gives man peace? Who would exchange the equilibrium of great states resting on the European concert for the chronic strife of mediaval feudalism?

There must surely be some reason, deep-seated in human nature, for the glory that accompanies feats of arms. May we not find it in great part in the contempt for physical pain, for death even, that marks the hero? In these politer times there are moral heroes who bravely face the mouth of imaginary cannon, and who fight at close range with the spiritual forces which make for evil, but who are cowards in the presence of physical pain, and who cry piteously for gas or some other anesthetic whenever they feel the sting of the surgeon's steel. Our condemnation is severe for the contests and gladiatorial strife of the Roman amphitheatre. We are unsparing in our denunciation of the bull-fights of Spain and Mexico. And yet it remains true of our own country, in times of peace, that professional prize-fighters attract more notice than any other class of men who appeal to public attention, unless it be the college champions who strive for victory at the oar or on the diamond or the gridiron. Why is it that boys in preparatory schools can name the famous athletes of our great universities, and know nothing of the professors who fill the chairs of Latin, Greek, and mathematics? Why is it that football has come into such commanding notice at our chief seats of learning? Many urge that prize-fighting is child's play as compared with

football. Certainly, in the latter more are "knocked out" under the rule that a fallen contestant must rise in ten seconds. Why are the greatest prizes of university life those awarded not by the trustees or the faculty as a tribute to learning, but by the students themselves in recognition of good fellowship and wellrounded manhood-given so largely to athletes? May we not safely say that it is contempt for physical pain and the summoning of every faculty in one desperate effort for supremacy that wins our plaudits? Are not these now just as they have ever been, and are they not likely to survive and dominate in future generations?

Peace may be

There is danger in the evanescence of heroism. dishonorable, selfish, luxurious, and sordid. The decay of national honor may be by process of slow rot, and thus escape the observation of the thoughtless; but ultimate ruin is sure, if not swift. History is not silent on this point, but is vocal with instruction and warning of the peril that lurks in a purely mercantile policy, a policy that asks regarding a war, not "Is it right?” but "Will it pay?"

There are no fetters more galling than those forged by the money power. There is no humiliation more pitiable than that of the subservient tool of a conscienceless plutocrat. An English king may be subsidized by Louis XIV. to eliminate him as an element in the foreign policy of Europe; a poet laureate for a pension may sing the virtues of a royal profligate; a famous philosopher and man of letters may become the hireling of a prince or minister, and advocate political measures not for their statesmanship, but for the pounds, shillings, and pence that reward his disgraceful service; a college president may have his tenure of office qualified by a censorship of his political and economic opinions. These are all contemptible. So are they who, under the cover of anonymity, write for a venal and blackmailing press, or, bolder far, ascend the platform or pulpit, and defend the rogues with whose dollars they fill their pockets. What respect does a man command who says, "These are my opinions; and, if they do not suit, they can be changed"? What sadder sight than to behold genius enslaved, energy paralyzed, eloquence hushed, song silenced, and art corrupted, all through the virus of the money power? But what can measure our contempt for those who would extend this system of venality to our national government and its foreign relations? Men who would scorn, in their

individual business affairs to compound a felony, are heard to advocate our accepting a subsidy to pension the dependent families of American citizens and sailors who have been ruthlessly murdered. What is American citizenship, and what its privileges and immunities, and by whom are these guaranteed? Are we ever to wage war? If not, then why build cruisers and battleships?

The loftiest ethical philosophy underlies the constitutional safeguards of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The noblest morality is reflected in the legal rule that justice is priceless and inalienable. Shall we now, in scorn of our birthright, and reckless of the blood and treasure which our fathers sacrificed to secure it, sell ourselves into slavery to Mammon? Are there not greater calamities than the decline of securities in Wall Street?

But what of law and reason? Do they not suffice to compose the quarrels of private citizens? And may not sovereign governments reasonably hope to find in a supreme court of international judicature a high tribunal of justice, whose jurisdiction shall be ample enough to comprehend all the disputes that may arise between the various nations of the earth?

Legal remedies, as often conceived, involve the co-operation of lawyers and witnesses with judges and jurors, and the subsequent intervention of the executive arm of the state in a writ of execution or other mandate enforced by the sheriff. Thus "due process of law" and the "law of the land" are terms suggestive of the regular stages in the slow and orderly proceedings of courts of justice. Blackstone in his Commentaries makes a distinction between remedies by act of the parties and remedies by operation of law, a distinction which has been attacked by some jurists as unphilosophical. The summary redress of grievances by act of the injured party is well recognized in our law, both civil and criminal, as,- for example, in the case of abatement of certain nuisances, recaption, and entry on lands, and in the doctrine of self-defence. The nocturnal burglar and the highwayman, if killed by a citizen while resisting an attempt on their part to commit felony on his person, or on his wife or child, or even in his presence, die under the law of the land as truly as if executed by the public hangman. Courts-martial, with power to inflict the death penalty summarily, are indispensable to the efficient employment of military and naval forces. In all these cases the supervening of the law's traditional delays would be the very climax of absurdity. Violence, instant and overwhelming, can alone establish justice.

There are many

The field of arbitration is necessarily limited. issues that cannot be arbitrated nor even discussed if honor is to be maintained. This is true alike in the realm of public and of private law. A citizen may do well to arbitrate with his banker or with a tradesman any question involving an account, the possession of vouchers, the accuracy of computation, or the delivery of goods. Sovereign states, disputing with one another, may well submit to arbitrament questions of customs-duties or of delimitation of territory. But what man would refer to arbitrators a personal assault upon a member of his family? What nation would argue in court the cause of a rebellion by insurgents against its sovereign authority?

Compulsory arbitration is irreconcilable with the liberty of the individual and the sovereignty of the state. The fallacy inherent in such schemes is apparent in the legislation of some of our Western States regarding strikes by laborers for higher wages. A man has a clear right to sell his labor in any market for whatever price he is willing to take for it. He also has a right to relinquish any uncongenial employment at will. Legislation under which a public officer drives back a laborer to the post of toil which he has voluntarily abandoned is equivalent to the re-establishment of slavery. Similarly, in the family of coequal sovereignties, no member can be forced to submit a controversy to a forum of argument rather than rest its decision on the issue of arms.

The organization of an international tribunal is peculiarly difficult on account of the great inequality subsisting between the different nations of the earth. Of course, we are familiar with the academic maxims that all men are created free and equal, and that all sovereign states are free, independent, and equal. But these are fictions of the law. Equality here means simply equality before the law, equality in the eye of the court. Nature, however, abhors equality, and nowhere more than in distributing the power and influence of sovereign states. To be practical, let us ask, "How many judges shall the proposed international tribunal have?" and, further, "Will England, France, Germany, Russia, and Austria be content each with one judge, and cheerfully concede an equal voice in the court's decision to Portugal, Greece, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium?" The dogma of equality before the law does not mean that the poor man, ignorant and vicious, is equal, on a trial before a judge and jury, to his neighbor, who is wealthy, intelligent, and highly respected. Nor can one nation,

bankrupt, corrupt, and reactionary, hope to prevail against a competitor that is vigorous, healthy, and progressive. The equality of states is a dogma of theorists.

All the proposed plans for achieving perpetual peace through the establishment of standing tribunals of unlimited competence are failures practically. The chief difficulty is not in reaching a decision, but in enforcing judgment. Ultimately, a defaulting and recalcitrant state can be coerced only by war, which it is the professed object of such a tribunal to avoid. But the world will arm to compel obedience, we are told. The answer is that this is a poor step towards perpetual peace. Sanctions of international authority consisting of differential rates of duties on imports by which disobedience is to be punished can be dismissed as visionary and Utopian.

Finally, few men could be intrusted with the really divine function of sitting in judgment and then condemning seriatim the proudest and most powerful sovereigns in the world. There could be no adequate sense of responsibility. Intolerable arrogance, to use a phrase of Lord Chief Justice Russell at Saratoga two years ago, would soon characterize the members of such a court. They would be as gods. Power so vast cannot be sufficiently safeguarded.

International law, as a practical guide in the affairs of nations, has many defects. We may here notice two; namely, its lack of an authoritative exponent and the fact that it has no sufficient sanction. These are necessarily broad statements. Any two nations can of course agree in writing touching a definite subjectmatter, and define their mutual obligations in unmistakable terms. So the municipal law of any sovereign body may enforce by the usual remedies an obligation existing under international law. But, in general, we may say with John Austin and his school of jurists that international law, so called, is not law at all, but only international morality. This is not to be taken as a disparaging characterization; for there is probably no one who does not recognize his amenability to what we may call the higher law, or principles of right conduct which are not within the code to which the state compels obedience.

Litigating citizens find in the paramount authority of the state the sanctioning power which enforces the judgments of courts. But a supreme tribunal of nations can have no executive arm by which to vindicate its authority and chastise disobedience. Some