Peace

PEACE, freedom from war or hostilities; a state or relation of concord and amity. In international law, that condition of a nation not at war with another. Gudelinus in his De jure pacis commentarius (162o) defines peace as "tranquil freedom, con trary to war of which it constitutes the end and the destruction." Although ever since the dawn of history war has been a recog nised institution and custom, it has been increasingly realised, with the advance of civilisation, that the use of violence and force was an abnormal condition which ought to be entirely eliminated from human affairs. More particularly in the world as it now exists with a dense and rapidly rising population de pendent for its maintenance and welfare on highly developed international communications, war means the paralysis, if not the actual destruction, of culture, economic progress and human civilisation. Modern weapons of warfare are now so efficient and destructive that hostilities can no longer be confined to the combatant forces of the belligerents, but bring disaster and the horrors of war to peaceful inhabitants without distinction of age or sex. The problem, therefore, of how best to prevent war assumes at present a more vital importance than it has ever had before.

Much reliance was placed in the past on the "balance of power" and on treaties of military alliance between the great Powers, but such schemes utterly failed to maintain peace in the world. In proportion as they guaranteed immunity from attack to the Powers within the particular group, they tended to stimulate war with outside States and were in fact a cause rather than a pre vention of war.

More progressive minds have based their plans for the pres ervation of peace on a federation or union of all the "civilised" Powers. The creation of an International Tribunal and of an International Legislature form a prominent feature of these schemes. On the other hand, more recent jurists believing that the society of nations is in a perpetual condition of anarchy be cause it possesses no code of law have advocated the codifica tion of international law so as to render it universal and binding on all nations. Again, disarmament or at least the general limita

tion of armaments to the lowest possible point, has also been put forward as an essential element of peace.

As to the federation of States for the maintenance of peace, there are three plans which for their outstanding merit and be cause of the influence they have exercised on the present day organisation of the society of nations, deserve special attention. They are, in the chronological order of their publication, St.

Pierre's Projet pour rendre la paix perpetuelle en Europe; Jeremy Bentham's Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace and Kant's Zinn ewigen Frieden.

Abbe de St.

Pierre's project, published in 1713. was the outcome of the difficulties attending the settlement of the peace at the Conference of Utrecht which so much impressed the author that he set out at once to work a scheme for the abolition of war. The first article of the project provides that the twenty four Christian States of Europe should form themselves into a perpetual alliance for their mutual security against both foreign and civil war and for the mutual guarantee of their respective possessions and of the treaties of peace. The third article enacts that the Allies were to renounce the right of making war against each other and first seek reconciliation through the mediation of the rest of the members of the alliance and, in the event of the failure of mediation, to refer the disagreement for arbitration to the "Senate of Peace" which thus became a permanent and compulsory arbitral court. The sanction for these provisions is contained in article 4 of the project which stipulates that if any of the Allies should refuse to comply with the award of the Senate, for which three-fourths of the votes were sufficient, or should ignore any of the regulations passed by the Alliance or should prepare to wage war, then the Alliance was to arm and act offensively against the contravening State until it was reduced to obedience.