While one cannot be blinded to the fact that the untold misery of the wars of the last four centuries has been caused primarily by unre strained nationalism, dynastic, middle class and democratic, it would be equally futile to deny that the growth of national states has been a necessary step in the development of a perma nem and peaceful adjustment of international relRions. Expensive as the process has been, national wars seem to have been but the price paid in the wasteful natural economy of political evolution for the all-important growth of na tional and political ageregates which must al ways precede the ultimate alliance, federation, partnership or leaguing together of nations. Further, the very evils and excesses of national aggression have, in the past, forced upon the world's attention well-meant schemes for ending war and providing for peaceful methods of adjusting national claims. The destructive Thirty Years' War produced the proposals of Emeric Cruce (1623), Hugo Gro tius (1625), and Sully (1638). The dynastic wars of Louis XIV stimulated the growth of international law and invited the pacific plans of William Penn (1693) and the Abbe de St.
Pierre (1712). The reaction against the Seven Years' War, as exemplified in the cosmopoli tanism and rationalism of the latter 18th cen tury, brought forth the discussions by Voltaire, Rousseau and Bentham. The French Revolu tionary Wars stimulated Kant's proposal for a federation of republics, and the Napoleonic baptism of blood led to Alexander's theological proposition for the assurance of international peace and to Castlereagh's more practicable, if less noble, scheme for periodic European congresses of nations when questions should arise which threatened the peace of Europe. The cconcert of powers,' which thus originated, proved unequal to coping with the aggressive nationalism of the last 40 years, the promising beginnings in international organization pro vided at the Hague Conferences proved ineffect ive, and it has required the most expensive and deadly war in human history • to drive statesmen into even a half-hearted determina tion to take effective steps to prevent the re currence of such a disaster in the future. When an adequate and workable international organi zation arises designed to curb aggressive and unscrupulous nationalism and to diminish the opportunities for future wars, the most com plicated and perplexing problem in the history of political organization will have been solved and the authors of the enterprise will take their place on the level of the greatest statesmen of all time.
The history of modern Europe, however, from the passage of the ((Statutes of Laborers* in the later 14th century to the present day is strewn with the wreckage of political attempts to resist, restrain or control great economic, social or psychological tendencies, forces and movements. A permanent and enduring part nership of nations must anticipate and forward economic fair dealing, social democracy and cukural assimilation. An abiding and effect ive international organization has to-day a much better prospect of success than ever be fore in human history, not only because it has as a psychological stimulus the fresh memory of the horrors of the most frightful military cataclysm in the record of human development, but also because there now exists for the first time in such a crisis a real physical, economic and intellectual internationalism which can serve as the foundation for an international political organization. Paradoxical as it may seem, that same Industrial Revolution which, in its immediate effects, greatly forwarded national development at home and imperialism abroad, also laid the basis for a practical international ism. The growth of world trade and financial and commercial interdependence have furnished a set of economic motives for pacific adjustments, while the improvement of means of transporta tion and the communication of intelligence, and the internationalization of science and culture have prepared the way for that growth of in tellectual unity and harmony and that develop ment of likemindedness and sympathy which Professot Tenney rightly regards as the all essential antecedents of any enduring and effectual world organization. But it would, nevertheless, be futile to hope that mankind is fat enough advanced in its development to trust merely to the natural course of political evolution for the speedy attainment of world order and permanent peace. Only by the exercise of the utmost thoughtfulness, can dor, tolerance and conciliation will it. be
possible to bring into existence an inter national spirit and political organization will possess any assurance of ter minating physical conflict among nations. Ex uberant nationalism, political and economic, will have to be curbed before international order can exist. Mr. Morrow has well pre sented the political adjustment which must be made between nationalism and internationalism ; must not, however, deceive ourselves. It is most important clearly to recognize that we are trying to get two things. If we want world peace at whatever price, we can take our eyes away from liberty and think only of order, and the principle of nationality will go by the board. If we want unrestricted liberty at what ever cost, we can think only of the separate national states and the price will be the aban donment of a League of Nations. The recon ciliation of these two aims .4-- world order and individual liberty— is the problem of the Peace Conference. We must go at our task with open eyes. We must start by admitting that we cannot get something for nothing, that if national states are vital to the orderly de velopment of the world, we must sacrifice some world order for the sake of the development of national characteristics; that if world order is so vitally essential that we must have it, then we must sacrifice some of the power and rights of national states in order to insure a greater measure of world order. This is the recon ciliation which the Peace Conference must try to make." Political relations have, however, tended normally to he but the reflection of the deeper economic conditions and forces, and, just as economic unity has always proved the most effective impulse towards political harmony, so economic separatism and suspicion will threiten the dissolution of any political entity. There fore, it seems clear that any permanent and effective international political or juridical or ganization must rest upon a basis of economic trust and fair dealing. This phase of the prob lem has been forcibly set forth by Professor Hankins : 'The great stumbling block to in ternationalism is today the outworn tradition of Mercantilism. This familiar doctrine holds that the nation is the trading unit, that conse quently it profits most when it sells much and buys little, and that consequently each nation ought to shut itself up behind trade barriers and, like a hermit empire, prevent the intrusion of the cheap goods of other nations. With the overthrow of the dynastic state nothing now seems to have so firm a hold in popular tradition and hence so close a connection to the galvanic batteries of patriotism as this hoary tradition. . . . If we are to have a lasting peace, then this illusion must also pals into the limbo of outworn creeds ; and the peoples of the earth, freed from local fears under the protecting security of a superstate, can become rivals in exploiting the earth rather than each other and mutually enrich each other by a free exchange of their products. Far more certain than the proposed super-alliance of nations as a guarantee of future peace as well as prosperity among men would be a Zollverein of all industrial nations. Likewise the most prolific source of international' jeal ousy and suspicion in the future seems likely to be trade discriminations, differential tariffs, unfair control and distribution of raw materials and shipping facilities, and other efforts to maintain the economically self-sufficient na tional state. The immediate problem is the formation of a League of Nations as the means of allaying fear. The problem of the future is the removal of trade barriers and the estab lishment...a4--an international economic organi zation of the world. Only thus will the super rational sanction of nationalistic patriotism be transmuted into a supreme loyalty to humanity.' When these necessary cultural, political and economic prerequisites of a permanent peace have been secured, and then only, can one hope for a just and effective world order, for, as Professor Giddings has well said: cA league to enforce peace must be composed of nations that will both keep faith with one another and practically act in co-operation with one another against the law-breaker. Practi cally these requirements can only be met, and will be met, only if the component nations of the league share a common civilization and hold a common attitude towards questions of right, liberty, law and polity.*