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 NEWNVARS 
 
 ncRBERT S.HOUSTON 
 
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BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
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BLOCKING 
 NEW WARS 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT S. HOUSTON 
 
 Member of the Committee of the Chamber 
 oj Commerce of the United States ori 
 . Economic Results of the War 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
Copyright, 1918, by 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & CoMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 HJSTOBn 
 
 Hfc« 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 To my colleagues on the Committee 
 of the Chamber of Commerce of the 
 United States which prepared the Refer- 
 endum on the Economic Results of the 
 War, men with the vision and courage to 
 plan definite ways to prevent future wars: 
 Edward A. Filene, a merchant 
 of Boston; President of Wil- 
 liam Filene's Sons Com- 
 pany; Director of the Cham- 
 ber of Commerce of the 
 United States; former Vice- 
 President of the Interna- 
 tional Congress of Cham- 
 bers of Commerce. 
 Philip H. Gadsden, Lawyer; 
 President of public utility 
 companies in Charleston, 
 South Carolina; formerly 
 President of the Charleston 
 Chamber of Commerce. 
 
vi DEDICATION 
 
 Edward Hidden, President of 
 the Southern Woman's Mag- 
 azine; formerly President of 
 the St. Louis Business Men's 
 League. 
 Herbert A. Meldruivi, a mer- 
 chant of Buffalo; President 
 of the BuflFalo Chamber of 
 Commerce. 
 George E. Roberts, Assistant 
 to the President of the Na- 
 tional City Bank of New 
 York; formerly Director of 
 the United States Mint. 
 Paul H. Saunders, President of 
 the Commercial Trust and 
 Savings Bank of New Or- 
 leans ; Director of the Federal 
 Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 
 This book is dedicated with the expres- 
 sion of a like faith with theirs, in the 
 power of international commerce to aid 
 in maintaining international peace. 
 
 By the Author. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Could the War Have Been 
 
 Blocked? 3 
 
 II. What Will End the World 
 
 War? 11 
 
 III. A Force to Block New Wars . £1 
 
 IV. American Business and the 
 
 League of Nations £8 
 
 V. Binding the Modern World 
 
 Together 35 
 
 VI. Free Seas and Closed Seas ... 45 
 
 VII. Napoleon's Decrees and the 
 
 Kaiser's Submarine 52 
 
 VIII. Fighting Foreign Wars at 
 
 Home.. 61 
 
 IX. War Prevention versus War 
 
 Cost 69 
 
 X. Women, Children and Em- 
 battled Nations 75 
 
 XI. ' 'The Power of the Purse " . . 81 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XII. Removing the Causes of War 88 
 
 Xni. The Bible Warrant for a 
 
 League of Nations 97 
 
 XIV. A Court House for the World 110 
 
 XV. The Sword as Final Arbiter. 119 
 
 XVI. Business the Protector of 
 
 Democracy 125 
 
 XVII. The Voice of the People. ... 131 
 
 XVIII. The New Day after the War 137 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 I. Proposals of the League to 
 
 Enforce Peace 153 
 
 n. Referendum No. 11 155 
 
 HI. Referendum No. 23 200 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
COULD THE WAR HAVE BEEN BLOCKED? 
 
 VISCOUNT GREY of Falloden, while 
 still Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs of Great Britain, expressed the 
 opinion to an American diplomat that 
 the great war might have been avoided 
 if there had been in existence, during 
 that fateful summer of 1914, the pro- 
 posed League of Nations. Such an 
 opinion from so responsible a statesman 
 is certainly a challenge to a world at war. 
 Not so much a challenge as to what 
 might have been, for the angry waters 
 of the past have rushed over the dam, 
 but a challenge, certainly, to the future. 
 For if the greatest war in history could 
 have been avoided, then there is ground 
 for hope that all wars can be avoided, or, 
 at least, that the danger of their recur- 
 
4 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 rence can be greatly lessened. So the 
 opinion of Viscount Grey, particularly 
 in relation to the probable world organ- 
 isation that will follow peace, is deserving 
 of most serious examination. 
 
 If such a world organisation as the 
 widely discussed League of Nations had 
 been in effective existence in 1914, on the 
 basis of the American proposals, what 
 would have been its procedure when 
 Austria refused to arbitrate its differ- 
 ences with Serbia? To begin with, the 
 other nations in the League would have 
 instantly joined in applying economic 
 pressure to Austria. This would have 
 taken the form of a complete trade em- 
 bargo. Manifestly the more complete 
 the embargo the more quickly it would 
 have been effective. In that respect it 
 is like the blockade. But if the League 
 of Nations had been organised and its 
 International Court established it would 
 have had both the authority and the 
 machinery to make the trade embargo 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 5 
 
 complete. The nations in the League 
 would, of course, have had their diplo- 
 matic representatives in Vienna. They 
 would have notified the Austrian Govern- 
 ment that the League had declared an 
 embargo against Austria; that the em- 
 bargo would continue in force until 
 Austria took her case against Serbia to 
 the Liternational Court in accordance 
 with her pledge to the League; that, 
 furthermore, if Austria continued her 
 recalcitrancy and persisted in her prepara- 
 tion to take her case to war for decision 
 rather than to court, she would find their 
 combined military and naval power on 
 the battle line by Serbia's side. 
 
 The economic pressure against Austria 
 would probably have proved too strong 
 to be resisted. In 1912 the total export 
 and import trade of the dual empire 
 amounted to $1,277,000,000. Against 
 this an embargo would have been raised 
 by the nations of the League. And in 
 connection with checking and, to a great 
 
6 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 degree, stopping this vast volume of trade, 
 other repressive actions would have been 
 taken against Austria-Hungary. Com- 
 munication with the outside world would 
 have been interdicted. This would have 
 affected immediately the mails, the tele- 
 graph and cable lines, the telephone and 
 wireless communications. Trains would 
 have been stopped at the Austrian border. 
 Foreign exchange would have been sus- 
 pended, along with foreign trade. And 
 Austria-Hungary would have stood m the 
 eyes of the world a self-confessed, mter- 
 national outlaw, a country with which 
 other countries would refuse to have com- 
 mercial intercourse, or any commmiica- 
 tion or any relations whatsoever. 
 
 This would have been the pressure 
 from without and it would have been 
 accompanied, beyond question, by strong 
 pressure from within. For it is impossible 
 to suppose that many people in Austria 
 would not have been exerting a powerful 
 public opinion, meantime, against their 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 7 
 
 government. Leaders in every section 
 of Austrian life and society — ^in business, 
 in finance, in the press, in the church, in 
 the government itself — ^would have known 
 the cause of all these drastic measures 
 aimed at their country, and many of them 
 would have stirred the people to demand 
 that it be removed. When it was seen 
 that the cause was Austria's refusal to 
 keep her pledge, made with other nations, 
 to take an international dispute to the 
 International Court, an act of sheer out- 
 lawry, it is impossible to believe that 
 Berchtold and his ministers could have 
 ridden the storm of protest that would 
 have arisen. And especially would this 
 appear to be the inevitable reaction of the 
 Austrian people, because their protest 
 against their government's stand before 
 the world in the indefensible position of an 
 outlaw, would be given insistent force 
 by their own uncalled-for suffering from 
 the penalty of that outlawry. Even as 
 they protested they would be suffering 
 
8 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 from the economic pressm-e of the world 
 visited upon them because their govern- 
 ment had refused to keep its word. And 
 behind the economic pressure they would 
 have seen clearly the combined military 
 and naval power of the League of Nations 
 as an oncoming vengeance against out- 
 lawry, ready to be used, if the economic 
 pressure failed, to compel Austria to obey 
 the law and take her case against Serbia 
 to court. 
 
 The conclusion Is unescapable that 
 pressure from within would have been 
 exerted and that it might have proved 
 to be as powerful as the pressure from 
 without. Between the two millstones, 
 it is reasonable to believe, Austria might 
 have had ground into her consciousness 
 the truth that ''righteousness exalteth 
 a nation ' ' and that a pledge when made 
 must be kept. 
 
 The flaw in the armour of this hypo- 
 thetical case is doubtless the war policy 
 of Germany. At least the nations of the 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 9 
 
 Entente Allies will be slow to believe that 
 anything short of war could have stopped 
 the war spirit of the militaristic party in 
 Berlin, when ^'der Tag, ' ' for which prepa- 
 ration had been made for forty years, at 
 last dawned. But the League of Nations 
 strong enough to coerce Austria, through 
 either economic or military power, which 
 Viscount Grey manifestly had in mind, 
 would have included Germany; and it is 
 such a league, with Germany included, 
 that has been assumed in the illustration 
 presented. As to the violence of this 
 assumption for the Germany of 1914 there 
 would be wide divergence of view. But 
 for Germany in January, 1918, her Im- 
 perial Chancellor, Von Hertling, has 
 stated officially that ' ' the Imperial Gov- 
 ernment is gladly ready, when all other 
 pending questions have been settled, to 
 begin the examination of the basis of such 
 a bond of nations." And the *' basis" 
 has been indicated clearly by President 
 Wilson — ^"We fight for the things we 
 
10 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 have always carried nearest to our hearts, 
 for the right of those who submit to 
 authority to have a voice in their own 
 government, for the rights and Hberties of 
 small nations, for a universal dominion 
 of right by such concert of free peoples 
 as shall bring peace and safety to all 
 nations and make the world itself free." 
 
n 
 
 WHAT WILL END THE WORLD WAR? 
 
 BUT the great war came, as all the 
 world knows. Economic pressure 
 has been a vital factor in it from the be- 
 ginning and it may prove to be the deci- 
 sive one. Nation after nation has joined 
 the fighting lines until the spring of 1918 
 finds twenty-three of them engaged. In 
 the fullest sense it has been an inter- 
 national war. It was caused by the defi- 
 ance of public law by Germany. That 
 was and is the supreme issue. There 
 were, to be sure, many auxiliary causes, 
 but the overshadowing cause was the 
 assertion by an autocratic power that it 
 could employ military force to destroy 
 the law of nations. When the Imperial 
 Chancellor of Germany made that asser- 
 tion in support of the actual invasion of 
 11 
 
12 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 neutral Belgium, the challenge was made 
 that the democratic nations had to meet, 
 if they were to continue democratic. 
 
 WTiile it is true that the United States 
 did not join in resisting this first challenge, 
 although a great part of its citizenship 
 believed it was the duty of the govern- 
 ment to do so, the second challenge, de- 
 claring Germany's lawless purpose to defy 
 the public law of the seas by the sub- 
 marine, was resisted. So this country is 
 in the war with the Allies, in support of 
 the democratic principle that autocratic 
 military power cannot defy international 
 law. It is this issue that makes the war 
 one between autocracy and democracy. 
 And the war must be won, in the much- 
 quoted because defining phrase of Presi- 
 dent Wilson, to *'make the world safe 
 for democracy. ' ' 
 
 From the beginning of the war, eco- 
 nomic pressure has been a potent force 
 and has been used in many ways, both 
 new and old. Every nation engaged 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 13 
 
 found it essential to place its whole indus- 
 trial organisation on a war footing. This 
 has gone forward, in a quick progression, 
 through industries to individuals. While 
 Germany was able to effect a highly con- 
 trolled organisation, through autocratic 
 power, more quickly than her enemies, 
 they have all steadily developed and 
 mobilised their resources for war purposes. 
 
 So as the war has gone on it has been 
 manifest that economic power, as a war 
 measure, was being engaged as completely 
 as military power. And the end will come, 
 so many observers believe, through the 
 effective use of superior economic force, 
 victory resting with the nations that 
 possess that superiority. Of course the 
 Allies are fully aware that they possess 
 that superiority and they are determined 
 that it shall be so used that they shall be 
 the victors. 
 
 The sea power of Great Britain has 
 been the dominating agency in enforcing 
 economic pressure, through its use in in- 
 
14 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 tercepting Germany's imports and ex- 
 ports. In order to make this power as 
 effective as possible the American doc- 
 trine of continuous voyage, developed 
 in the prize courts of the United States 
 during the Civil War, was adopted by 
 both England and France. By this doc- 
 trine, if the ultimate destination of a cargo 
 was proved to be an enemy port, that fact 
 established its enemy character and made 
 it liable to seizure. Proof had to be 
 established in prize courts under the rules 
 of international law. But swiftly the 
 ocean-borne commerce of Germany was 
 reduced and practically destroyed. The 
 resulting pressure upon Germany and 
 Austria has been widespread and most 
 severe. This has been shown in innu- 
 merable ways, such as the rationing of the 
 civil population, the hunger strikes, the 
 reports in the German and Austrian 
 papers, as well as through reports from 
 contiguous neutral countries. While the 
 actual figures of loss, in both the export 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 15 
 
 and import trade, are not available, they 
 unquestionably represent a total so stag- 
 gering that their effect can be considered 
 one of the most disastrous blows dealt 
 the Central Powers during the war. 
 
 In addition to the blockade work of the 
 English Navy, the whole economic power 
 of the British Empire was invoked in 
 January, 1916. Every self-governing do- 
 minion, every colony, every part of the 
 Empire responded by boycotting Ger- 
 man trade. The result was an embargo 
 at the source, the form in which economic 
 pressure can be made most drastic. Trade 
 black lists were issued, restrictions were 
 placed on the shipment of raw materials, 
 coal ports were closed to ships that car- 
 ried pro-German cargoes and presently 
 a world-wide boycott was in force against 
 Germany and her Allies that will continue 
 with constantly increasing pressure until 
 the war ends. In this tightening ring 
 of commerce every nation of the Entente 
 Allies has a part. The United States, in 
 
16 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 particular, used the economic weapon 
 before it was able to use any military 
 weapon and throughout the war its vast 
 commercial power will be employed. This 
 power has been mobilised in many ways. 
 The Government in the spring of 1918 
 took entire control of foreign exchange; 
 before that it had established a license 
 system for export trade, and adopted a 
 Trading with the Enemy Act of the most 
 comprehensive and drastic character. All 
 of these measures — and they have been 
 adopted in some form by France and our 
 other Allies — ^have combined in creating 
 a financial and economic offensive against 
 Germany that is likely to prove as power- 
 ful in ending the war as the military 
 offensive. 
 
 But Germany has not been alone in the 
 war in feeling the force of economic pres- 
 sure. England and France have felt it, espe- 
 cially through the destruction of merchant 
 ships by the submarine. This has limited 
 the import of foods by both countries and 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 17 
 
 made necessary carefully devised control 
 of the food supply and regulation of its 
 consumption. And economic pressure has 
 been felt in America through the neces- 
 sity laid on this country of saving enough 
 from the stock of grain and meat and fats 
 to supply the deficiencies among our 
 Allies. For a number of months eighty- 
 four Dutch ships were held in the harbour 
 of New York, many of them loaded with 
 supplies, because it was feared that a 
 considerable part of their cargoes would 
 ultimately find their way to Germany and 
 because, moreover, these cargoes were 
 sorely needed in England and France and 
 Italy. Finally, in January, 1918, these 
 ships were allowed to sail under guaranty 
 that all the supplies they bore would go 
 only to neutrals or to the Allies and that 
 the ships would be returned to this 
 country for use in our own carrying trade. 
 Within a few months after our entry 
 into the war, a Food Administration was 
 established under the direction of Her- 
 
18 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 bert Hoover, and it has carried out the 
 most comprehensive plans both for con- 
 serving and using the food supply and 
 for increasing it. Similar plans have been 
 followed by Dr. Harry A. Garfield, the 
 Fuel Administrator. And the most 
 drastic one, forbidding the use of coal in 
 industry, with a few designated excep- 
 tions, for five consecutive days, beginning 
 January 18th, 1918, and for nine Mondays, 
 beginning January 21st, came as such a 
 sudden shock that the whole country was 
 fairly dazed. But the order was obeyed 
 until it w^as rescinded after the third coal- 
 less Monday, and the coal situation defi- 
 nitely improved. And it can be frankly 
 stated that the food and fuel orders 
 brought the war more closely to America 
 than anything else had done. On a 
 wheatless or meatless day, especially if 
 it were a coalless one, the news of fight- 
 ing in France was borne home in a closer, 
 sharper way than ever before. It was 
 economic pressure of a very real sort and 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 19 
 
 in a country that had always believed its 
 resources were exhaustless. 
 
 As the war has gone on it has seemed 
 probable that its end would come with the 
 complete economic collapse of one or the 
 other group of belligerents. It is largely 
 a struggle for subsistence, both for armies 
 and navies and for the belligerents back 
 of them. The heavy gun is no more im- 
 portant, in forcing a decision, than the 
 big cargo ship. Or to state it differently 
 and more accurately, when the ships can 
 supply the necessary men and munitions 
 the guns will be able to force a decision 
 and end the war. 
 
 Germany's drive for a separate peace 
 with Russia was made both as a military 
 and as an economic measure. After the 
 treaty with Ukraine it was believed that 
 food supplies would be forthcoming that 
 would greatly relieve the situation with 
 the Central Powers. To what degree this 
 will be true, in view of the demoralised 
 situation throughout Russia, is not clear, 
 
20 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 but, as far as it is true, it will prove to be 
 an economic factor of definite conse- 
 quence. 
 
 It is plain that this economic pressure, 
 applied by all of the belligerents, has 
 been a war measure, just as definitely 
 as the fighting by armies and navies. 
 And its operation in working to end so 
 great a war illustrates the effects it would 
 produce when used as a preliminary meas- 
 ure, by a league of nations against a 
 single nation, to prevent war. 
 
Ill 
 
 A FORCE TO BLOCK NEW WARS 
 
 EVEN while the present war was 
 waged, a pledge to use economic pres- 
 sure was made as a threat to avert a new 
 war. The business men of America, in 
 February, 1918, took the imprecedented 
 action of serving definite notice on the 
 business men of Germany that they will 
 not hesitate to use a trade embargo 
 against Germany, unless she lessens the 
 danger of future war by reducing the size 
 of her armaments. This notice, published 
 to the world, was embodied in a formal 
 referendum submitted to the six hundred 
 thousand business men in the hundreds 
 of commercial organisations making up 
 the Chamber of Commerce of the United 
 States; and, voting as organisations, they 
 endorsed it by a vote of 1,204 to 154. In 
 21 
 
22 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the printed explanation accompanying the 
 referendum it was stated that the action 
 proposed ' ' involves no thought of revenge 
 or punishment, but is based on the logic 
 that only through industrial intercourse 
 with the United States can the military 
 party of Germany get the sinews with 
 which to precipitate a second great world 
 war." The point was emphasised that 
 the size of Germany's armament, after 
 the war, would determine the size of the 
 defensive armaments maintained by other 
 nations; and, with unescapable logic, it 
 was argued that the size of Germany's 
 armament would depend on her after-war 
 receipts of raw materials and on the 
 profits from her foreign trade. And it was 
 on the broad ground of preventing great 
 armaments and thereby preventing future 
 wars that affirmative support for the 
 referendum was asked and the pledge of 
 the organised business men of America 
 secured to "enter an economic combina- 
 tion against Germany if governmental 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 23 
 
 conditions make it necessary for self-de- 
 fence. ' ' 
 
 The Merchants Association of New 
 York gave a negative vote on this refer- 
 endum for the reason, as stated, that 
 "While in entire accord with the senti- 
 ment and purpose, ' ' expressed in the ref- 
 erendum, *'the Association believes that 
 the proposed method is neither the most 
 appropriate nor the most effective for ac- 
 complishing the end sought. The inter- 
 national co-operation which it implies is 
 more properly a function of government 
 and can better be accomplished through 
 governmental channels than through the 
 intervention of unofficial commercial bod- 
 ies." This dissent is clearly based on 
 method and not on the use of economic 
 pressure by a league of nations to pre- 
 vent war. 
 
 While there was some opposition based 
 on the ground taken by the Merchants 
 Association of New York, the referendum 
 was carried by a great majority. But this 
 
24 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 action must in no wise be interpreted as 
 identifying the business men of America 
 with the Paris Economic Conference, held 
 before the United States entered the war, 
 or construed into support of the plans 
 there considered. In fact, a broad dis- 
 claimer of any such purpose or intention 
 was expressed in the statement, '*W^e be- 
 lieve the American people will not join 
 in discrimination against German goods 
 after the war, if the danger of excessive 
 armament has been removed by the fact 
 that the German Government has in 
 reality become a responsible instrument 
 controlled by the German people." 
 
 This significant referendum can fairly 
 be considered a challenge to the business 
 men of Germany, from the business men 
 of America, to prevent a disastrous eco- 
 nomic war, by holding back the Junker 
 and militaristic party from mad prepara- 
 tions for future war, when peace finally 
 comes. It is in full accord with President 
 Wilson's statement of American war aims. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 25 
 
 in his address of January 8th, 1918. The 
 third of these aims proposed ' ' the removal, 
 so far as possible, of all economic barriers 
 and the establishment of an equality of 
 trade conditions among all the nations 
 consenting to the peace and associating 
 themselves for its maintenance." It is 
 interesting to state that ''equality of 
 trade" was limited by the President, in 
 this same address, in a way that permits 
 of most effective use of economic pressure 
 as explained in another chapter. 
 
 But clearly, in all this discussion, busi- 
 ness and political, there is emerging a 
 powerful international force, economic 
 pressure, that the world must reckon with. 
 In February, 1918, in the United States 
 Senate, Senator Owen presented a reso- 
 lution stating that ''The United States 
 believes that under a general association 
 of nations it should be a violation of inter- 
 national law and the highest international 
 crime for any nation, on any alleged 
 ground, to invade by military power the 
 
26 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 territorial limits of another nation, and 
 that the penalty for such invasions should 
 be the immediate international blockade 
 of the invading and offending nation; an 
 embargo on all mail, express, and freight 
 to and from such nation, and the suppres- 
 sion of such invasion by the combined 
 forces of the general association of nations 
 organised for the protection of world 
 peace." 
 
 And at about the same time the British 
 Minister of Blockade, Lord Robert Cecil, 
 gave public expression to his belief that 
 economic pressure would be a powerful 
 weapon for a league of nations to use 
 against a recalcitrant nation. To this 
 declaration he added this definite per- 
 sonal commitment : " I would not remain 
 for an hour a member of any government 
 who did not make the arrangement of a 
 league of nations after the war one of 
 its main objects. ' ' 
 
 Mr. W^alter Runclman, in November, 
 1917, gave it as his view that ''The only 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 27 
 
 sense in which a league of nations can be 
 reasonably contemplated is in that de- 
 fined by President Wilson. ... A 
 league which would, in effect, penalise 
 Great Powers must have behind it a 
 great sanction. ... I look roimd in 
 every direction in vain for a sanction, 
 except that of the economic offensive. " 
 
IV 
 
 AMERICAN BUSINESS AND THE LEAGUE OF 
 NATIONS 
 
 AMERICAN business men had gone 
 on record in favour of economic 
 pressure over two years before the refer- 
 endum, already outUned, was submitted 
 to vote. In fact, economic pressure has 
 its place in the League of Nations pro- 
 gram through their support and approval. 
 President A. Lawrence Lowell of Harvard 
 University, it is interesting to recall, 
 raised the question, when the proposals 
 of the League to Enforce Peace were being 
 formulated in Philadelphia in June, 1915, 
 as to what effect economic pressure could 
 have had as a deterrent force against Aus- 
 tria. And the author undertook to state 
 briefly the ground for believing that that 
 pressure would have been strong enough 
 28 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 29 
 
 to have compelled Austria to present her 
 case against Serbia for a hearing — ^the 
 ground that has been traversed, and some- 
 what expanded, in the first chapter. 
 
 The third proposal in the League plat- 
 form of principles was under discussion, 
 the one having to do with the sanctions 
 to put behind a court. After full agree- 
 ment had been reached on the use of ^ 
 military power as a sanction, I proposed, 
 as a representative of the Chamber of 
 Commerce of the United States, that eco- / 
 nomic pressure be made a preliminary 
 sanction, in the third plank of the plat- 
 form, to be followed by military power as 
 a final sanction. This view was supported 
 by Philip H. Gadsden of Charleston, my 
 colleague on the Platform Committee, 
 in representing the Chamber of Com- 
 merce, and it was embodied, in a modified 
 form, in the third proposal, as follows: 
 
 The signatory powers shall jointly use 
 forthwith both their economic and military 
 forces against any one of their number that 
 
30 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, 
 against another of the signatories, before any 
 question arising shall be submitted as pro- 
 vided in the foregoing. 
 
 My purpose In following this eco- 
 nomic pressure proposal from Its Intro- 
 duction, through Its first and then into 
 its final form, in the platform of the 
 League to Enforce Peace, Is to make clear 
 and to emphasise the point that this dis- 
 tinctly commercial sanction, which will 
 aflFect business profoundly when put into 
 effect, originated with busmess men, was 
 presented by business men for adoption 
 in the platform of the League, and then 
 ratified by the business men of America 
 in an overwhelming majority when sub- 
 mitted to a referendum by the Chamber 
 of Commerce of the United States. If 
 this be treason to the business of the world 
 the business men of this country must 
 accept the responsibility after prolonged 
 consideration of all the consequences. At 
 the national convention of the Chamber, 
 
BLOCKING NEW WAES SI 
 
 held in Washington in February, 1915, 1 
 had offered a resolution urging **that the 
 next Hague Conference provide as a J 
 penalty for the infraction of its conven- 
 tions, that an embargo shall be declared 
 against an offending nation by the other 
 signatory nations." This was referred 
 to a committee on international affairs 
 that was constituted to consider it, under 
 the chairmanship of Edward A. Filene 
 of Boston. General discussion was going 
 on throughout the country of some new 
 world organisation that might follow the 
 war. The American Academy of Political 
 and Social Science considered the ques- 
 tion at its meeting in Philadelphia in 
 April. In Cleveland, during May, a 
 World Court Congress was held under 
 the presidency of John Hays Hammond, 
 engineer and business man of interna- 
 tional distinction, and all of its sessions 
 were given to discussion of international 
 organisation and the establishment of a 
 World Court. Chairman Filene had called 
 
32 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 his Chamber of Commerce Committee 
 together in Cleveland and the resolution 
 on economic pressure was considered; 
 and a month later, on June 17th, 1915, 
 the Committee met again, this time in 
 connection with the meeting at Indepen- 
 dence Hall in Philadelphia, at which was 
 formed the League to Enforce Peace. 
 The Committee unanimously agreed to 
 the presentation before the Independence 
 Hall Conference of economic pressure as a 
 sanction to be employed by the proposed 
 League of Nations. As has been stated, 
 this presentation was made and the sanc- 
 tions adopted and the third plank in- 
 cluded ' * the combined economic and mili- 
 tary powers" of the signatory nations. 
 This provided for the use of these powers 
 concurrently and not in sequence, as the 
 Committee of the Chamber of Commerce 
 urged. But the Committee joined heart- 
 ily in support of the new League and two 
 of its members, later increased to three, 
 were included in the League's Executive 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 33 
 
 Committee, as representatives of busi- 
 ness men. Then in an endeavour to enlist 
 the active support of the business men 
 of the country for the programme of the 
 League, the Committee of the Chamber 
 of Commerce of the United States pre- 
 pared a comprehensive referendum (which 
 is printed in the Appendix) on the League's 
 four proposals and this was submitted 
 to the six hundred constituent commercial 
 bodies at that time comprising the Cham- 
 ber. The result was an overwhelming 
 majority in favour of the use of economic 
 pressure and a much smaller majority in 
 favour of the use of military power. With 
 this mandate of the business men of the 
 United States behind them, the three 
 members of the Chamber of Commerce, 
 on the Executive Committee of the 
 League to Enforce Peace, Mr. Filene, Mr. 
 Gadsden and myself, pressed for an inter- 
 pretation of article three that would 
 square with the business men's view as to 
 the place which economic pressure, a 
 
34 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 commercial sanction, should have in the 
 plan for a League of Nations. And this 
 interpretation was secured by the action 
 of the Executive Committee, which au- 
 thorised the following: 
 
 The signatory powers shall jointly employ 
 diplomatic and economic pressure against any 
 one of their number that threatens war 
 against a fellow signatory without having first 
 submitted its dispute f(^r international in- 
 quiry, conciliation, arbitration or judicial 
 hearing, and awaited a conclusion, or without 
 having in good faith offered so to submit it. 
 They shall follow this forthwith by the joint 
 use of their military forces against that nation 
 if it actually goes to war, or commits acts of 
 hostility, against another of the signatories 
 before any question arising shall be dealt with 
 as provided in the foregoing. 
 
 It can be definitely claimed, therefore, 
 for economic pressure, in the plan pro- 
 posed by the League to Enforce Peace, 
 that it stands for the settled conviction, 
 reached after full discussion, considera- 
 tion and referendum, of the business men 
 of the United States. By them it is sub- 
 mitted to the judgment of the world. 
 
V 
 
 BINDING THE MODERN WORLD TOGETHER 
 
 IN considering the grounds on which 
 American business men base their be- 
 lief in the value of economic pressure as a 
 force for the maintenance of peace, it is 
 necessary to present a brief survey of the 
 organisation of the modern world. The 
 controlling idea in that organisation is 
 interdependence. And the essential fac- 
 tor in interdependence is communication. 
 The agencies for quick communication 
 have become so familiar that their signifi- 
 cance, as a rule, is quite overlooked. Be- 
 ginning with the printing press these 
 agencies have increased in number and 
 speed to the point where there seem to be 
 no longer frontiers of the possible; if there 
 still are, in some souls, they are assuredly 
 being crossed and recrossed. Following 
 35 
 
36 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the post, by ship and coach and train, 
 came the telegraph by land and sea, the 
 telephone, and then, as a capping achieve- 
 ment, the wireless. And with these dis- 
 tributive means of communication the 
 productive means also multiplied, in 
 printing presses, typewriting machines 
 and all kinds of mechanical devices. But 
 even more important, knowledge was 
 democratised, both as effect and cause, 
 in this modern period, and provided end- 
 less books and newspapers and all man- 
 ner of periodicals, besides letters, tele- 
 grams and wireless messages, all forms of 
 communication which the agencies of dis- 
 tribution bore throughout the world, near 
 and far. This power of quick communica- 
 tion developed endless relationships, all 
 bearing their part in creating and main- 
 taining a world-wide interdependence. For 
 communication has respected national 
 boundaries no more than the winds of 
 heaven. 
 
 It would be interesting to consider here 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 37 
 
 how many forces became definitely inter- 
 national, through this power of communi- 
 cation, but they are too numerous to be 
 considered in detail. At present the char- 
 acter of economic pressure is the one point 
 to make clear. In this modern world 
 business can be broadly defined as its 
 organised commercial life, in the three 
 great divisions of production, distribu- 
 tion and consumption. Business, in 
 each of these divisions, is international. 
 It employs the one truly international 
 language, that of figures, understood in 
 every country. Today money is inter- 
 national because it has gold as a com- 
 mon basis. Credit based on gold is 
 international. Commerce based on money 
 and on credit is international. Then 
 the amazing network of agencies by 
 which money and credit and commerce 
 are employed in the modern world are also 
 international. How closely interrelated 
 all these agencies are was shown in a 
 dramatic way when the great war broke. 
 
38 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 Instantly stock exchanges throughout the 
 world were closed. Moratoriums were 
 declared m nearly every country. This 
 was not due to the fact that the world 
 had suddenly become bankrupt, but it 
 was due wholly to a breakdown of the 
 machinery through which the business 
 world carried on its aflPairs. In brief, it 
 came from a breakdown in the agencies 
 of international communication. The 
 world-wide disturbance that was imme- 
 diately caused threw into high relief the 
 fact that all nations had been bound to- 
 gether, chiejfly through the development 
 of commerce, into an interrelated and 
 interdependent organism. It showed to 
 even the most self-centred and self-suflB- 
 cient country that it was part of a great 
 whole. In that wonderful figure of the 
 Apostle Paul, in describing the early 
 Christian Church, *'they were members 
 one of another." Not one among them, 
 however strong, could stand alone. It is 
 the growing understanding of this fact, 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 39 
 
 which the war has embedded in the con- 
 sciousness of the world, that gives the 
 underlying hope for a league of nations. 
 As all suffer through war, all must com- 
 bine to lessen the danger of wars. And 
 that tremendous purpose, to find a sane 
 and practicable way out of war, has be- 
 come one of the great purposes of the 
 war. As the League to Enforce Peace 
 expressed this purpose in these two 
 graphic declarations: "Make the world 
 safe by the defeat of German Militarism ' ' 
 and ''Keep the world safe by a League of 
 Nations." And Viscount Grey gave ex- 
 pression to the necessity for such a league 
 in these memorable words: "Unless man- 
 kind learns from this war to avoid war, 
 the struggle will have been in vain. Over 
 humanity will loom the menace of de- 
 struction. If the world cannot organise 
 against war, if war must go on, then the 
 nations can protect themselves hence- / 
 forth only by using whatever destructive 
 agencies they can invent, till the resources 
 
40 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 and inventions of science end by destroy- 
 ing the humanity they are meant to 
 serve. ' ' 
 
 And the Enghsh statesman who pre- 
 ceded Viscount Grey in the Foreign 
 Office, Lord Lansdowne, points out the 
 path, on which the best judgment of the 
 world is centring, that must be followed 
 if that catastrophe is avoided. Lord 
 Lansdowne said, "If the Powers will 
 come under a solemn pact and bind them- 
 selves to submit future disputes to arbi- 
 tration; if they will undertake to outlaw, 
 politically and economically, any one of 
 their number which refuses to enter into 
 such a pact, or to use their joint military 
 and naval forces for the purpose of coerc- 
 ing a Power which breaks away from the 
 rest, they will indeed have travelled far 
 along the road which leads to security." 
 
 The leading churchmen of England, 
 headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 prepared an appeal in February, 1918, 
 which gave the most unqualified support 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 41 
 
 to the League of Nations programme. * ' We 
 believe that a new system of international 
 law and authority," said the appeal, 
 *' acting through an inclusive league of 
 nations in place of any balance of power, 
 is a condition of a just and lasting peace, 
 particularly as it affords means whereby 
 the fresh demands of national life as they 
 arise can be adjudicated upon and equi- 
 tably satisfied. 
 
 * 'Accordingly, we hold it to be of the 
 utmost importance, as President Wilson 
 has just emphasised, that such a league 
 should not merely be contemplated as a 
 more or less remote outcome of a future 
 settlement, but should be put in the very 
 forefront of the peace terms as their pre- 
 supposition and guarantee. 
 
 ''Whether it be or be not practicable, 
 without any slackening of the energy 
 with which the war must be waged, to 
 make a beginning upon the League as re- 
 gards the Allies and neutrals, even before 
 the peace conference, we do not venture 
 
42 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 to decide, though we think this course 
 has much to commend it. But we are 
 sm-e of the pressing need there is here 
 and now of giving the League of Nations 
 the backing of an organised body of 
 strong conviction; sure, also, that this 
 task offers to the Christian consciousness 
 an opportunity to make its own spirit 
 felt in national policy such as has not 
 occurred heretofore since the outbreak 
 of this war. ' ' 
 
 This strong and convincing appeal 
 bore, in addition to the signature of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, the signatures 
 of the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop 
 of Oxford, the Bishop of Southwark, the 
 Bishop of Peterborough, the Rev. Dr. 
 James Cooper, Moderator of the Estab- 
 lished Church of Scotland; the Rev. Dr. 
 W. B. Settle, the Rev. Dr. J. Scott Lid- 
 gett, the Rev. Dr. F. B. Meyer, the Rev. 
 Dr. D. S. Cairns, the Rev. Dr. J. Esthn 
 Carpenter, the Rev. Dr. Alexander Con- 
 nell, the Rev. Father Plater, Lord Henry 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 43 
 
 Bentinck, Lord Parmoor, the Rt. Hon. 
 Arthur Henderson, George Lansbury, 
 Arthur Mansbridge, Professor A. S. 
 Peake, and Principal T. F. Roberts. 
 
 The support for the League of Nations 
 plan in America has been as influential 
 and widespread as in England. President 
 Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia Uni- 
 versity in an address before the Chamber 
 of Commerce in St. Louis, February 16, 
 1918, said: 
 
 **A league to establish and to enforce 
 the rules of international law and con- 
 duct is now in existence, with the United 
 States as one of its most potent members. 
 This league should be a permanent addi- 
 tion to the world's organisation for order 
 and for peace. Upon its firm establish- 
 ment three consequences will almost 
 necessarily follow. First, there can be 
 no separate alliances or ententes of a 
 political or military character between 
 nations included in the league, and this 
 league must aim in time to include the 
 
44 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 whole civilised world. Second, there can 
 be a speedy reduction of armaments, 
 both to lighten the burdens of taxation 
 and to turn the minds of the nations away 
 from international war, to prevent which 
 will be such a league's chief aim. Third, 
 the most favoured nation clause must be 
 made applicable to all members of the 
 league whenever treaties of commerce 
 are concluded between any two or more 
 of the nations that are included in it. 
 This will either greatly lessen or wholly 
 remove one of the strongest economic 
 temptations to international war." 
 
 As indicating how generally the respon- 
 sible opinion of the world has centred 
 on this programme, these w^ords of Presi- 
 dent W^ilson are significant because they 
 restate his unchanging belief in * ' the part- 
 nership of nations which must henceforth 
 guarantee the world's peace. That part- 
 nership must be a partnership of peoples, 
 not a mere partnership of governments. ' ' 
 
VI 
 
 FREE SEAS AND CLOSED SEAS 
 
 PRESIDENT WILSON in his notable 
 statement of the war aims of the 
 United States, in his address to Congress 
 January 8, 1918, to which reference has 
 been made, presented an exception to the 
 free use of the seas, which reveals a imi- 
 versal agency for enforcing economic pres- 
 sure. ''Absolute freedom of navigation 
 upon the seas, outside territorial waters, 
 alike in peace and in war" he declared 
 to be one of our aims, with this pregnant 
 qualification, "except as the seas may be 
 closed in whole or in part by international 
 action for the enforcement of international 
 covenants." 
 
 This exception offers a wide range for 
 the effective employment of economic 
 pressure. The seas are the great high- 
 45 
 
46 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 ways of commerce. For centuries they 
 were infested with pirates, corsairs, bucca- 
 neers, all manner of ocean bandits. Na- 
 tions made common cause against them, 
 but they were not swept from the seas 
 imtil a century ago. And even then a 
 form of legalised piracy, privateering, was 
 sanctioned as a war measure and con- 
 tinued imtil a comparatively recent pe- 
 riod. But all the time commerce was ex- 
 panding and its claims for protection were 
 being asserted. At the Paris Conference 
 of 1856, Lord Clarendon agreed for Great 
 Britain, then, as now, the greatest mari- 
 time power, in these four declarations: 
 
 (1) That privateering should be abol- 
 ished. 
 
 (2) That a neutral flag covered enemy 
 goods, except contraband. 
 
 (3) That neutral goods, except contra- 
 band, were not liable to capture imless 
 imder an enemy flag. 
 
 (4) That blockades to be binding must 
 be made effective. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 47 
 
 These declarations, although long un- 
 popular with many influential men and 
 interests in England, marked a great ad- 
 vance in the struggle for free commerce 
 on a free ocean. They were international 
 declarations, agreed upon at an inter- 
 national conference, and asserted the 
 fundamental truth that the sea is an 
 international highway, subject to inter- 
 national control. 
 
 But the United States did not adhere 
 to the declarations as they did not con- 
 cede the American contention that all 
 private property should be exempt from 
 capture by war ships, as Well as by priva- 
 teers, in maritime warfare. In the Hague 
 Conference of 1899, Dr. Andrew D. 
 WTiite, head of the American delegation, 
 endeavoured to have this exemption of 
 private property established, but it was 
 decided that consideration of the question 
 could not properly be given as the sub- 
 ject was no*: included in the official pro- 
 gramme announced when the conference 
 
48 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 was called. But when the second Hague 
 Conference assembled in 1907 that omis- 
 sion had been fully corrected and at the 
 first session of the Commission of the 
 Conference, to which the question was 
 referred, Joseph H. Choate, head of the 
 American delegates, submitted this coun- 
 try's proposal, as follows: 
 
 *'The private property of all the citi- 
 zens of the signatory powers, with the 
 exception of contraband of war, shall be 
 exempt on the sea from capture or seizure 
 by either the armed vessels or the military 
 forces of the said powers. Nevertheless, 
 this provision does not at all imply the 
 inviolability of vessels which should try 
 to enter a port blockaded by the naval 
 forces of the said powers, nor the in- 
 violability of the cargoes of the said 
 vessels. " 
 
 Twenty-one nations supported the pro- 
 posal, eleven opposed it, one failed to 
 vote and eleven were absent. But among 
 the nations opposed were Great Britain, 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 49 
 
 France, Russia and Japan. Among the 
 nations joining the United States in an 
 affirmative vote were Germany, Austria- 
 Hungary, Italy, Denmark, Holland, Bel- 
 gium, Norway and Sweden. But no 
 final decision was reached on the question. 
 Mr. Choate said a year later, in an ad- 
 dress before the New York State Bar 
 Association, "It was not possible, in the 
 face of the great commercial nations that 
 opposed it, nations likely at any time to be 
 engaged in war, to press the question 
 further." 
 
 Now, under the stress of war, President 
 Wilson has revised this American pro- 
 posal. It still stipulates absolute freedom 
 of the seas but it carries the important 
 amendment that the seas may be closed 
 in whole or in part * ' by international ac- 
 tion for the enforcement of international 
 covenants." In fact that is precisely 
 what has occurred during this world war. 
 The seas have been ''closed in whole" 
 to the commerce of Germany and the 
 
50 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 Central Powers through the international 
 action of the nations of the Entente; and 
 this action has been taken in order to en- 
 force '* international covenants" because 
 of treaties broken and public law spurned 
 by Germany and her allies. And the 
 result has been economic pressure of the 
 most drastic character. The ocean-borne 
 commerce of the Central Nations has 
 been not merely reduced but destroyed. 
 Their ships are interned in hostile ports 
 of all the seven seas. Even the lawless 
 submarines, while damaging the com- 
 merce of their foe, have not helped their 
 own. And these are all acts of war in 
 a time of war. Manifestly should the 
 freedom of the seas be abridged through 
 the joint action of a league of nations, to 
 enforce "international covenants" against 
 a nation that had broken a covenant, the 
 resulting economic pressure would be of 
 overwhelming severity. No nation, how- 
 ever powerful, could withstand it for a 
 long period; especially when many kinds 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 51 
 
 of economic pressure were being applied 
 at the same time, through all the other 
 international agencies that have been de- 
 scribed. 
 
VII 
 
 napoleon's decrees and the kaiser's 
 submarine 
 
 WHEN Napoleon was struggling for 
 the masteiy of Europe, in the 
 early years of the nineteenth century, 
 much as the Emperor of Germany has 
 been struggling for it during the early 
 years of this century, he saw that his most 
 determined and stubborn foe was Eng- 
 land. And then, as now, the ocean-borne 
 commerce of England, in relation to the 
 commerce of the world, was tremendously 
 large. Manifestly the way to strike hard 
 against the island kingdom was to strike 
 her commerce. Napoleon struck through 
 an embargo and William II through the 
 submarine. In the Berlin Decree of 1806 
 Napoleon declared a drastic prohibition 
 against all trade with Great Britain. 
 This was immediately answered from Lon- 
 52 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 53 
 
 don by retaliatory Orders in Council forbid- 
 ding trade with France. Napoleon, not to 
 be outdone, promulgated his famous Milan 
 decree, making lawful prize of all vessels 
 submitting to British search or taxation. 
 These decrees, for both England and 
 France, were definite acts of war, and were 
 so intended. But to a nation across the 
 ocean, the young republic of the United 
 States, they were also, in effect, acts of 
 war, although this country was a neutral. 
 In 1807 the United States adopted an 
 embargo in an endeavour to protect its 
 foreign trade through compelling England 
 and France to either make less restrictive 
 or abolish altogether their repressive com- 
 mercial policies. This purpose was de- 
 clared by the Government when it pro- 
 claimed the embargo, it being officially 
 stated that it was believed that '*by 
 teaching foreign nations the value of 
 America's foreign commerce and produc- 
 tion, they will be inspired with a dispo- 
 sition to practise justice." 
 
54 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 So one hundred and ten years ago this 
 country undertook to apply economic 
 pressure to accomplish an international 
 purpose, that of justice. And looking 
 back at the results, with the advantage of 
 a perspective of over a century, it is en- 
 tirely clear that we failed in our aim. 
 Neither England nor France was forced 
 through our action to change its drastic 
 commercial policy. In fact, the chief 
 sufferer was this country itself. Our for- 
 eign trade fell off from $108,300,000 to 
 $22,400,000. in a single year. Channing, 
 in making a survey of our endeavour to 
 apply economic pressure, says in his 
 "Jeffersonian System": '*The Jefferson- 
 Madison policy of war through commer- 
 cial restriction had not worked well in 
 practice. And when our Minister to Eng- 
 land, William Pinkney, took up with 
 George Canning, the British Prime Min- 
 ister, the matter of lifting the embargo, 
 he had to bear the biting but probably 
 true statement that Canning would be 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 55 
 
 glad to facilitate the removal of the 
 embargo as a measure of inconvenient 
 restriction upon the American people." 
 There were other acts in the way of non- 
 intercourse legislation, embargoes and 
 endeavours at commercial reprisal adopted 
 by this country both before and after 
 1807. But this one example is typical 
 of all the others. So it can be presented 
 as a historical precedent and the claim 
 freely admitted that it does not prove the 
 case for economic pressure. Nor, on the 
 other hand, let it be definitely stated, 
 does it disprove the case. It is only 
 necessary to make the most hurried sur- 
 vey of the conditions surrounding the 
 American embargo of 1807 to see that 
 they were such that economic pressure 
 could not possibly avail to accomplish 
 the purpose this country had in mind in 
 undertaking to apply it. 
 
 But eighteen years had elapsed since 
 we had adopted the federal constitution. 
 The thirteen colonies that had been in the 
 
56 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 old federation were members of the new 
 nation, struggling toward unity and some 
 semblance of collective action. Our com- 
 merce was important chiefly to ourselves, 
 as Canning truly intimated. To interdict 
 it, struck a heavy blow at the manufac- 
 turing of New England and New York 
 and Pennsylvania, then in its infanc3% 
 and produced no compensating result for 
 the agricultural states south of the Poto- 
 mac. 
 
 But this embargo of 1807 and other 
 similar embargoes of the time failed to 
 inspire other nations "with a disposition 
 to practise justice" because they were 
 not powerful enough. For the same rea- 
 son Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees 
 failed. And for the same reason the 
 British Orders in Council failed. But 
 these failures, by throwing into high relief 
 the cause of failure, reveal the one sure 
 ground on which economic pressure must 
 be based in order to succeed. It must be 
 strong enough to be effective, otherwise 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 57 
 
 it is futile. And the whole case for eco- 
 nomic pressure in the programme of a 
 league of nations is grounded on the fact 
 that international economic pressure, 
 applied by a league of nations, would be 
 eflfective against any other nation, how- 
 ever strong that nation might be. 
 
 There is another manifest difference in 
 the conditions surrounding economic pres- 
 sure a century ago and those that would 
 surround economic pressure now. Then ' 
 instantaneous communication, the very 
 spirit and heart of modern world organ- 
 isation, did not exist. It took many 
 weeks to cross the ocean in sailing ships. 
 Even on land there were no facilities, save 
 the slow-moving coach, to bear mail 
 pouches with their infrequent letters. 
 Under the heavy handicap, which the 
 archaic machinery of communication im- 
 posed, it is not improbable that these em- 
 bargoes of a century ago would have 
 failed, even if the United States had been 
 at that time a nation of great commercial 
 
58 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 power and consequence. So that this 
 precedent, so often referred to, could not 
 fairly be considered to have either bind- 
 ing effect or much illumination for our 
 guidance today. 
 
 There are two other historical examples, 
 however, that may have some point and 
 interest in the present discussion, al- 
 though they cannot be said to present 
 cases parallel with the one that will exist 
 when a league of nations is constituted. 
 When the great armada was being formed 
 by Philip of Spain, the merchants and 
 bankers of Genoa were persuaded by the 
 merchants of London to withhold credit 
 and monies from the Spanish King. This 
 financial pressure was sufficient to delay 
 the attack of the armada for over a year 
 and by that time Sir Francis Drake and 
 the captains of Elizabeth were ready to 
 meet the shock. It would seem fair to 
 say that what could be accomplished 
 three centuries ago, against a nation as 
 powerful as Spain then was, might cer- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 59 
 
 tainly be accomplished against any na- 
 tion today through the concerted appli- 
 cation, not merely of financial pressure 
 but of all forms of economic pressure 
 through a concert of nations in a league. 
 Another example that may bear some 
 information of service belongs to the 
 present century and to so recent a warlike 
 incident as the dispatch by the German 
 Emperor of the gun-boat to Agadir, thus 
 bringing on the acute crisis with France 
 with the imminent probability of general 
 war throughout Europe. While that 
 crisis was at its height, I chanced to be 
 in Paris and was having luncheon one 
 day with a young French banker of the 
 Credit Lyonnais. I remarked on the fact 
 that the crisis seemed to be a trifle less 
 acute and inquired the reason. ' ' We are 
 withdrawing our French investments from 
 Germany," was the rejoinder, "and that 
 economic pressure is relieving the situa- 
 tion." Presently the press of the world 
 was commenting on this pressure which 
 
60 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 France was applying against Germany 
 and there seems to be no doubt that this 
 pressure was the deciding factor in reUev- 
 ing the situation. 
 
 In each of these cases, it should be 
 noted, financial pressure was being applied 
 against a single nation by another single 
 nation. But even so, the result strongly 
 supports the view that when this force 
 is applied by a group of nations against a 
 single nation pressure would prove to be 
 irresistible.* 
 
 *To the reader who wishes to ched: up these American 
 experiences with the embargo more in detail, the following 
 citations will prove of interest: 
 
 Embargoes were used as a means of redress by the 
 United States in 1794 (30 days), 1797. 1807 (27 months), 
 1808 and 1812 (2 years). 
 
 Commercial intercourse with France was suspended by 
 an act of Congress of June 13, 1798, and other acta of 
 similar character followed. 
 
 Commercial intercourse with Great Britain was sus- 
 pended by an act of Congress of March 1, 1809. The 
 act was revived on February 2, 1811. 
 
 Commercial intercom-se with Dominican ports was sus- 
 pended by act of Congress of February 28, 1806. 
 
 The United States Congress in 1887, by way of reprisal, 
 passed an act empowering the President to deny Canadian 
 vessels entrance to American waters and to deny entry to 
 Canadian products, if American fishing rights should be 
 denied or abridged in Canadian waters. 
 
VIII 
 
 FIGHTING FOREIGN WARS AT HOME 
 
 ONE of the manifest advantages of 
 economic pressure as an interna- 
 tional force is the way in which it can be 
 appHed. Each of the nations in a league 
 can apply it instantly from within and the 
 moment the announcement is made that 
 an embargo has been declared, pressure 
 begins to be exerted. It is not necessary 
 to spend billions of dollars and years of 
 time in building armament and creating 
 armies, as is the case in developing effec- 
 tive military power. The modern world 
 is prepared to exert economic power 
 instantly. Preparation has been made 
 through the agencies of commerce and in 
 every nation machinery is at hand 
 through which economic pressure could 
 
 be applied. The stock exchanges, the 
 61 
 
62 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 cables, the wireless, the international 
 postal service and the wonderful modern 
 facilities, already referred to, for com- 
 munication and intercommunication con- 
 stitute this machinery. It is worldwide 
 in its extent and it would become opera- 
 tive the moment a league of nations 
 decided to set it in motion. 
 
 This marked advantage, which eco- 
 nomic power possesses over military 
 power, has never been appraised at its 
 •full value. But one needs only to read 
 the briefest survey of the time and money 
 required to organise military power in 
 England and the United States during 
 the great war to be convinced that at 
 least in this important particular of im- 
 mediate availability, economic power has 
 an overwhelming advantage. As Secre- 
 tary of War Baker stated in his testimony 
 before the Senate Conunittee on Military 
 AlBFairs, even with the aid of a draft law 
 it required all the time between April, 
 1917, and January 1st, 1918, to raise the 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 63 
 
 armed forces of the United States from 
 9,524 oflScers to 110,856 officers and from 
 202,510 to 1,428,650 men. And despite 
 the fact that the manufacturing power 
 of the nation was being exerted to the ut- 
 most to equip this army during the period 
 in which it was being mobiHsed, the time 
 was not sufficient to bring this equipment 
 to the proper standard at the beginning 
 of 1918. MiKtary power today repre- 
 sents not merely man power but the or- 
 ganised industrial power of a nation. 
 That has been established in the expe- 
 rience of every belligerent country and it is 
 now everywhere conceded. Even when the 
 military power is organised and equipped, 
 a considerable time is required, for 
 the transportation of men and supplies, 
 before it can be effectively used. War- 
 ships and transports must be sent across 
 the sea or endless trains must bear soldiers 
 and munitions to the scene of hostilities 
 before military power can be employed 
 to advantage. But economic power, on 
 
64 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the other hand, as has been pointed out, 
 can be applied instantly from within by 
 every nation and its eflfeet becomes in- 
 stantly apparent. 
 
 This comparison Is not developed as an 
 argiunent against military power but only 
 to make clear the fact that economic 
 power in the modern world has certain 
 clear and great advantages over military 
 power. In most of the proposals for a 
 league of nations to follow the war, the 
 use of military power, either exclusively 
 or as a last resort, is provided for. In the 
 programme outlined by the League to 
 Enforce Peace, economic pressure is pre- 
 sented as an international force to be 
 used before military force is employed. So 
 it becomes pertinent to outline the ad- 
 vantages possessed by economic power, 
 although making clear that it should never 
 be looked upon as the final but only as 
 a preliminary power. There is strong 
 reason to believe, however, that in many 
 cases the use of economic pressure as a 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 65 
 
 preliminary power would be suiEcient to 
 bring a recalcitrant nation to a world 
 court for a settlement of its differences, 
 thus avoiding the use of military power 
 altogether. 
 
 In addition to the agencies existing to- 
 day through which economic pressure 
 could be applied, new agencies would 
 doubtless be formed in connection with 
 a league of nations. An international 
 clearing house has been proposed as an 
 essential piece of machinery for the serv- 
 ice of commerce in any world organisa- 
 tion that would follow the war. An able 
 Chicago banker, John J. Arnold, Vice- 
 President of the First National Bank of 
 that city, a man who is considered a mas- 
 ter of the intricacies of international ex- 
 change, has long urged the desirability 
 of an international clearing house. Such 
 a clearing house would settle balances 
 between nations just as our modern clear- 
 ing houses now settle balances between 
 banks in cities in which they are located. 
 
ee BLOCKING NEW WAES 
 
 Beyond question such an international 
 clearing house, when established, would 
 quickly become a powerful auxiliary 
 agency in the League of Nations, helping 
 to give it stability and serving, when 
 occasion arose, as a new instrumentality 
 by which economic pressure could be 
 applied. 
 
 ^\Tien Mr. George B. Cortelyou was Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury in President Roose- 
 velt's Cabinet, he proposed that inter- 
 national gold certificates might be secured 
 by gold deposits made by the various 
 commercial nations and that these certifi- 
 cates could be used in settling trade bal- 
 ances, thus avoiding the delay and danger 
 of transporting the actual gold. The 
 Federal Reserve Banking System, which 
 has been working with distinct success 
 in the United States, might suggest a 
 model for an international banking system 
 to accomplish the purpose which Secre- 
 tary'- Cortelyou had in mind. If this took 
 the form of an international clearing 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 67 
 
 house, in which each nation should make 
 deposits of gold in direct proportion to 
 the volume of its foreign trade, it is mani- 
 fest that a piece of powerful international 
 machinery would be established that 
 could perform prompt and important 
 service for a league of nations. As an 
 illustration — if a nation sought to make 
 war, in defiance of its pledge to seek ad- 
 judication of its differences before a 
 world court, it would, as an automatic 
 penalty, forfeit its gold deposits with the v 
 International Clearing House and also its 
 trading rights and privileges as a mem- 
 ber nation. The procedure and penalty 
 would be similar to the suspension or ex- 
 pulsion of a member by a stock exchange. 
 Such a clearing house would be an 
 agency to aid in preventing war and, 
 what is even of greater importance, it 
 would be a powerful agency to aid in pro- 
 moting peace. For the advantages of 
 being a member of such a world clearing 
 house would be so great — ^in fact, so vital, 
 
68 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 — ^to every nation that it is hard to beheve 
 that they would be surrendered, except 
 as a final resort in a desperate situation. 
 The alternatives would be the way of 
 law and honour, with trade advantages 
 held, or the way of war and broken faith, 
 with trade advantages lost. To cause a 
 nation to pursue the second way would 
 require the force of such an overwhelming 
 demand for war, among its own people, 
 that nothing could resist it. Of course 
 such a situation is not only conceivable 
 but it is one that will recur, until the 
 practice and the spirit of peace have be- 
 come part of the consciousness of the 
 world. 
 
IX 
 
 WAR PREVENTION VERSUS WAR COST 
 
 ONE apparently strong and valid ar- 
 gument to be brought against the 
 use of economic pressure is that it would ^ 
 bring great loss to a nation applying it. 
 And that is true. But it is equally true 
 that this loss would be far less than the ^ 
 loss brought by war. The appropriations 
 of the United States for war purposes in 
 1915, a year after the great war broke, 
 but two years before we entered it our- 
 selves, were $158,000,000. For the year 
 1918, the war appropriations have already 
 reached the great total of $7,527,338,716. 
 This vast sum, fifty times greater than 
 the sum appropriated in 1915, represents 
 the war cost for only a single nation. 
 The annual cost of the war of all the 
 nations engaged in it is many times that 
 69 
 
70 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 sum. And the total cost of the war from 
 the beginning represents a sum equal, 
 undoubtedly, to the value of all the prod- 
 ucts of all the belligerents for a generation. 
 At the beginning of 1918 it was estimated, 
 after careful computations, that the cost 
 of the war to Germany represented one- 
 third of the total wealth which the German 
 Empire had built up through centuries. 
 And the cost to the other nations is rel- 
 atively as great. In comparison to the 
 staggering sums involved, the loss to com- 
 merce from the application of economic 
 pressure would be extremely small. This 
 would be true even if the entire export 
 and import trade of all the belligerent 
 nations should be sacrificed. 
 
 In 1912 the imports of France amounted 
 to $1,588,553,000 and the exports to 
 $1,295,528,000. The imports of Germany 
 for the same year were $2,544,557,000 and 
 the exports $2,131,718,000. The imports of 
 Austria-Hungary were $722,030,000 and 
 the exports $554,973,000. For the United 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 71 
 
 Kingdom the imports were $3,623,794,000 
 and the exports $2,371,073,000. Italy's 
 imports were $714,471,000 and exports 
 $462,607,000. Japan's imports were $308,- 
 258,000 and exports $261,258,000. The 
 United States had imports of $1,653,265,- 
 000 and exports of $2,170,320,000. 
 
 These great totals represent much less 
 than the yearly cost of the war to each 
 of the belligerents. The official figures 
 issued by the United States Treasury 
 Department, giving the cost of the Euro- 
 pean war up to August 1st, 1917, showed 
 that the expenditures of the United King- 
 dom aggregated $26,705,000,000, and that 
 the daily war cost was $25,000,000. For 
 France, the total expenditures had been 
 $16,530,000,000 with a daily war cost of 
 $18,500,000. For Italy the aggregate 
 cost was $5,050,000,000 with a daily ex- 
 penditure of $7,000,000. With the Cen- 
 tral Powers, Germany had made aggre- 
 gate expenditures reaching $19,750,000,- 
 000 with a daily cost of $25,000,000, the 
 
72 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 same daily cost as that of Great Britain. 
 Austria-Hungary had war expenditures 
 that equalled $9,700,000,000, with a daily 
 war cost of $13,000,000. As 1918 opened, 
 the daily cost of war to the United States 
 had mounted to the same great total of 
 $25,000,000. 
 
 The statement of these figures makes 
 clear the wide disproportion between the 
 cost of war and the cost of preventing war 
 through the use of economic pressure. 
 But manifestly it is a false assumption 
 to say that the nations in a league would 
 have all their outgoing and incoming com- 
 merce destroyed when they joined in 
 applying economic pressure to a recal- 
 citrant member. The most that could 
 happen would be the total loss of trade 
 which each nation in the League had with 
 the nation against which economic force 
 was being directed. To some degree this 
 loss would be met by increased trade 
 among the nations of the League with 
 each other but for the purposes of a com- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 73 
 
 parison we shall give to war the benefit 
 of every possible doubt and assume that 
 the entire volume of trade which the 
 recalcitrant nations had with the other 
 members of the League would represent 
 a complete loss. Even on this basis it is 
 apparent that the cost of a war that 
 might possibly be avoided is very greatly 
 in excess of any conceivable loss that 
 might be entailed through the application 
 of economic pressure. 
 
 The trial balance that is being con- 
 sidered is of commerce alone and no ac- 
 count is being taken of the destruction 
 of life and the other great human losses 
 that come with war. But this strict 
 commercial accounting shows a heavy 
 debit against war. 
 
 A criticism has been made of the use of 
 economic pressure by Mr. Hamilton Holt, 
 the able editor of The Independent, and 
 by others to the effect that the burden, 
 in applying economic pressure, would be 
 borne unequally by the signatory nations. 
 
74 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 It has been pointed out that a small na- 
 tion, in a given case, might suffer a greater 
 trade loss than a large nation, and this is 
 possible. But this inequality can be met 
 by making the share of the total loss of 
 trade which each nation would bear di- 
 rectly proportionate to the amount of 
 its foreign trade. By thus pro-rating the 
 loss on the basis of the ability of each na- 
 tion to bear it absolute fairness would be 
 secured. The League of Nations which 
 would apply the economic pressure could 
 equitably determine the amount of the 
 resulting loss which each nation should 
 assume. Even if this were not done the 
 loss to each nation would be far less than 
 the loss which would be entailed by war; 
 so, it is reasonable to expect, few contro- 
 versies would arise from the distribution 
 of the loss suffered in preventing the dam- 
 age and destruction of war. 
 
WOMEN, CHILDREN AND EMBATTLED 
 NATIONS 
 
 IN addition to the loss that would be 
 suflFered by the nations applying eco- 
 nomic pressure, the objection most strong- 
 ly urged against its adoption by a league 
 of nations is that its effect would be heav- 
 iest on non-combatants. This objection 
 will not stand before analysis. For, as 
 the less cannot exceed the greater, eco- 
 nomic pressure alone, as a preliminary 
 force to prevent war, will never be so 
 hard on women and children and other 
 non-combatants as economic pressure in 
 time of war, reinforced and intensified by 
 all the other rigours of war. 
 
 Belgium and Northern France, Serbia 
 and Rumania, every country that has 
 been occupied by an enemy in this war, 
 75 
 
76 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 offers pathetic and overwhelming proof 
 of the suffering which war brings to non- 
 combatants. In many ways it is suffer- 
 ing with a sharper edge than that borne 
 by soldiers on the fighting line. War as 
 it has been waged by Germany is no re- 
 specter of persons. The Bryce report 
 presents damning evidence of the grievous 
 wrongs done the women and children and 
 old men of Belgium, wrongs that have 
 gone to the point of bearing many of 
 them away to servitude. And this rec- 
 ord has been matched in Poland, Ar- 
 menia, Serbia and Rumania, at least as 
 far as physical suffering is concerned. 
 
 The strikes which broke out in Berlin 
 and Vienna early in 1918 were due largely 
 to the sufferings which war had brought 
 to workers and their families, far behind 
 the battle lines. The blockade had 
 hemmed Germany in completely from the 
 sea, and pressure through lack of food and 
 other supplies was greater on civilians 
 than on the soldiers and sailors. This 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 77 
 
 has been due to the fact that the latter 
 are being looked after by all the belliger- 
 ents even before the needs of women and 
 children are considered. For such is the 
 imperious rigour of war that nothing is 
 permitted to stand in its way. The case 
 is fully established by this war that eco- 
 nomic pressure affects non-combatants 
 quite as much as it does combatants, and 
 that, in addition, they have to bear many 
 losses and dangers that are peculiar to war. 
 This objection, moreover, seems to 
 wholly overlook the fact that economic 
 pressure is proposed as a sanction to put 
 behind international courts so that their 
 use will be compelled in the settlement of 
 differences between nations and law be 
 substituted in the place of war. If eco- 
 nomic pressure against a nation succeeds 
 in a given case, and war is avoided, it is 
 clear that that nation has escaped con- 
 tending with the military forces of the 
 other nations, as well as with their eco- 
 nomic forces. In all wars the first, in- 
 
78 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 deed the immediate result, is commercial 
 non-intercourse, which is economic pres- 
 sure in the most complete and hostile form. 
 So it is plain that a nation at war sufifers, 
 both through its combatants and its non- 
 combatants, from all the losses and ravages 
 of war, including economic pressure. 
 
 But there is even a broader argument 
 to bring against this stock objection. 
 The present war has shown for all the 
 world and for all time that the old dis- 
 tinctions between combatants and non- 
 combatants have largely disappeared. 
 Wars are no longer limited to the fighters 
 on sea and land. Embattled nations are 
 drawn up on continental battle lines. 
 Industries fight. Women and children 
 and old men make munitions. Railways 
 and steamship lines are organised and 
 devoted to war uses. Everything and 
 everybody is mobilised. The Red Cross 
 forms children and women, as well as men, 
 into a great army of mercy behind the 
 lines, drawn from every village in so vast 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 79 
 
 a country as the United States. Hoover, 
 through the Food Administration, out- 
 Hnes menus which an opinionated and 
 self-rehant democracy accepts with 
 scarcely a protest. Garfield specifies the 
 number of shovels of coal that can be fed 
 to the furnace and marks the temperature 
 the household thermometer should regis- 
 ter. And when the President issues an 
 order taking over all the railroads, a coun- 
 try that has been grounded in the sacred 
 right of property and always believed 
 that individual initiative was the Amer- 
 ican's birthright, does little more than 
 mark the day. All of this means simply 
 that we perceive, as England and France 
 and Germany and all the belligerents 
 have perceived, that war today is a surg- 
 ing, resistless struggle of all the human 
 and industrial and financial power of 
 every nation engaged. 
 
 It is the overwhelming consciousness of 
 this all inclusive nature of modern war 
 that has developed the strongest argu- 
 
80 BLOCKING NEW WAES 
 
 ment that has ever been presented in 
 favour of abolishing war. In a truer way 
 than we are apt to grasp, war is destroy- 
 ing war. This is not a pacifist idea, but 
 one that is based on nature's primal law 
 and need of self-preservation. Men see 
 that the enginery'' of war which they have 
 created, largely in the last generation, 
 will destroy themselves. The submarine, 
 the airship, the poisonous gases, the cur- 
 tains of fire, the tanks, the great guns — 
 they have been loosed from the brain of 
 man and are running wild in the world 
 like beasts of the jungle, seeking whom 
 they, may devour — and they have found 
 man, their creator. Not only are they 
 destroying him, but they are destroying 
 also the civilisation he has slowly reared 
 through the centuries. It is this hideous, 
 hydra-headed monster of war which the 
 democratic nations a^ convmced that 
 Germany is responsible lor and they are 
 determined to slay it, for the protection 
 both of Germany and of themselves. 
 
XI 
 
 **THE POWER OF THE PURSE " 
 
 FOR centuries nations have used eco- 
 nomic pressure for accomplishing the 
 most fundamental reforms in their own 
 governments. It has been steadily oper- 
 ating in Germany to produce results that 
 are almost revolutionary. Von Beth- 
 mann-HoUweg resigned as the Imperial 
 Chancellor of Germany in July, 1917. 
 There was much discussion as to the rea- 
 sons for the resignation, but there was no 
 mistaking the fact that the force which 
 compelled it was *'the power of the 
 purse," exerted in the refusal of the 
 Reichstag to pass the war credits asked 
 for. So powerful a minister as the Chan- 
 cellor, who had been able to stand against 
 Von Tirpitz and the Junkers on a number 
 of vital questions and who had the sup- 
 81 
 
82 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 port of the Kaiser, could not resist the 
 economic pressure applied by the Reichs- 
 tag. And when the Kaiser named Dr. 
 Michaelis as his successor, without con- 
 sulting his parliament, he created so 
 many difficulties for him that he could 
 not last the year out. Having in its con- 
 trol the power before which Von Beth- 
 mann-HoUweg had to bend and break, 
 the Reichstag was able to exact from 
 the new Chancellor a pledge that it would 
 be consulted on all important questions 
 of foreign policy; and it forthwith put the 
 agreement to the test by committing Dr. 
 Michaelis to its formula of a peace with- 
 out annexations and in the reply to the 
 note of Pope Benedict it enforced the in- 
 clusion of its own peace resolution em- 
 bodying this formula. But although this 
 second Chancellor was willing to bend 
 under pressure, he incurred the ill will 
 of the Reichstag on a number of his acts, 
 especially in his indifference or tacit ap- 
 proval toward the propaganda Von Tir- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 83 
 
 pitz and the Fatherland party spread 
 through the army, and he had to go. 
 Then an unprecedented event occurred, 
 one fraught with promise for a demo- 
 cratic Germany, or, at least, for a Ger- 
 many in which the people will have 
 larger control of their government. Count 
 von Hertling, called to the Chancellor- 
 ship by -the Kaiser, delayed his accept- 
 ance until he had consulted leaders in the 
 Reichstag and been convinced that he 
 could secure a majority support. This 
 was equivalent, practically, to confirma- 
 tion by the Reichstag, much the same, 
 at least in effect, as the confirmation of 
 the appointees of the President of the 
 United States by the Senate, or to the 
 vote of confidence in a new French min- 
 istry by the Chamber of Deputies. So 
 here is responsible government finally 
 taking form in Germany, in the stress of 
 war, through *'the power of the purse." 
 If Germany can employ economic pres- 
 sure to make her own autocratic govern- 
 
84 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 ment, supported by an archaic constitu- 
 tion, responsive to the people in a much 
 greater degree than ever before, Ger- 
 many could assuredly employ economic 
 pressure as a force to maintain world 
 peace, as a member of a league of na- 
 tions. And Germany, with a responsible 
 government controlled by the people, has 
 been considered at all times as a nation 
 qualified for membership in such a league 
 by President Wilson, ex-President Taft 
 and other leading statesmen among the 
 Entente Allies. It would be a significant 
 and impressive illustration of the effec- 
 tiveness of economic pressure if, largely 
 through its power, Germany was able 
 to accomplish such reforms within, that 
 it could become part of a league that 
 would employ economic pressure to se- 
 cure and maintain peace throughout the 
 world. But such an illustration would be 
 but one of many repetitions of history. 
 The contest in Germany, between auto- 
 cratic power, represented by the Emperor 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 85 
 
 and his ministers, and the Reichstag, 
 representing the people, is strangely sim- 
 ilar to the long contest, of three centuries 
 ago, between the King and Parliament in 
 England. And the two contests for re- 
 sponsible government, to be controlled 
 by the people, are identical in the force 
 employed by the people to gain their 
 ends. In both cases that force was *'the 
 power of the purse, ' ' a phrase first coined 
 in the bitter struggle against the English 
 Crown led by Hampden and Pym in the 
 Commons. 
 
 A force that produced results favourable 
 to the people, in England and in Germany, 
 and in many other countries as well, 
 would appear to be fashioned for effective 
 use by a league of nations. And eco- 
 nomic pressure applied against a single 
 nation by a league of nations would be 
 much more powerful and much quicker 
 in producing results than it has proved 
 to be when applied by part of the people 
 of a country — ^it is never all of them, but 
 
86 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 only a majority — ^against their govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The English Minister of Blockade, Lord 
 Robert Cecil, has presented some ex- 
 tremely interesting data from English 
 history that bears on this point. Li a 
 statement issued early in 1918 he said 
 he was convinced that the economic 
 weapon would prove a most useful arm 
 for the enforcement of the League's 
 decrees. '* Every student of the League 
 of Nations idea," he said, ''finds certain 
 diflSculties at the outset. One of these 
 is how the decrees of such a league can 
 be enforced. It is natural to draw an 
 analogy between the growth of interna- 
 tional law and order and the growth of 
 law and order within an individual coun- 
 try, and, while I admit that such an anal- 
 ogy must not be carried too far, I find 
 much that is instructive in the develop- 
 ment of our English Commonwealth from 
 the state of anarchy that existed over a 
 long period after the War of the Roses. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 87 
 
 How did a strong English King finally 
 gain ascendency and control over the war- 
 ring barons? He instituted a central body 
 which enforced decrees on the barons 
 largely by economic means. I am con- 
 vinced that that is the line upon which a 
 league of nations may hope to proceed 
 effectively. My experience in the present 
 war has taught me the great power of an 
 economic weapon. How would a league 
 of nations use it.^^ Well, for example, if 
 any nation went to war with another, 
 without submitting its dispute to inter- 
 national consideration, it would forthwith 
 be cut off from commercial intercourse 
 with every member of the League. That 
 would be a tremendous weapon and one 
 that few if any nations would care to 
 defy.'* 
 
xn 
 
 REMOVING THE CAUSES OF WAR 
 
 THE causes of war are often commer- 
 cial. And there is good gromid for 
 the view that the causes of war must be 
 removed, or at least greatly reduced, if 
 there is to be a just and durable peace in 
 the world. For international courts will 
 avail little, it is strongly urged by some, 
 unless the danger of war is overcome. 
 Of course the quick and manifest re- 
 joinder is, to a criticism so superficial, 
 that just as courts within nations are not 
 set up to remove the causes of crime but 
 to piuiish criminals, so international 
 courts would be established, not to re- 
 move all causes of war, but to settle the 
 disputes between nations that might lead 
 to war. Still there is a deep-seated feeling 
 in the world that wars will recur, in some 
 88 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 89 
 
 way, unless they can be controlled at 
 their source. 
 
 The business men of the world admit 
 at once that the international trade, in 
 which they engage, has been in the past 
 and will continue to be a possible cause 
 of war. And they are prepared to pro- 
 pose a plan that will work directly toward 
 controlling that cause even if it can scarce- 
 ly be hoped to remove it wholly. And 
 the plan is this — ^let the international 
 chamber of commerce, which had been 
 making steady and strong progress in the 
 ten years before the war, be developed 
 into a powerful agency for developing 
 and distributing the commercial opinion 
 of the world, on all questions of inter- 
 national trade that might carry within 
 them the seeds of future wars. For 
 example, the congress of the interna- 
 tional chamber held a largely attended 
 session in Paris in the summer of 1914, 
 shortly before the war broke, and de- 
 cided to begin a plan to determine by 
 
90 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 referendum — a plan that has proved to 
 be so highly successful with the Chamber 
 of Commerce of the United States — the 
 opinion of the business men of the world 
 on various matters affecting international 
 trade. In fact, it was decided to submit 
 a definite referendum as to what consti- 
 tuted disloyal or imfair competition be- 
 tween nations in international trade, 
 but war was hard on the heels of the Con- 
 gress and the referendum was never 
 taken. But this plan, which was agreed 
 upon before the war, should be put into 
 operation when the war is over. There 
 can be little reason to doubt that in the 
 light of knowledge, which friendly dis- 
 cussion would throw upon disputed ques- 
 tions of trade, adjustment and concilia- 
 tion would often result. This would be 
 meeting the possible trade causes of war 
 in constructive fashion, in a spirit of 
 accommodation, and many of them would 
 be settled. As Edward A. Filene of Bos- 
 ton said before the War Convention of 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 91 
 
 the Chamber of Commerce of the United 
 States, "There is no real reason why 
 nations should spend valuable energy 
 in blocking and hampering each other. 
 There is business enough in the world to 
 satisfy the rightful ambition of all 
 peoples." And he gave this clear chal- 
 lenge of international business, broaden- 
 ing through the centuries into a co-ordi- 
 nated unity, ''Whether we think in terms 
 of the business weKare of our own par- 
 ticular nations alone, or in terms of the 
 general progress and stability of the world, 
 this much is clear: It will not do to leave 
 to traditional diplomacy and to ever- 
 changing cabinets and governments alone 
 the handling of those business difficulties 
 which will menace the successful conduct 
 of international trade and threaten the 
 durable peace of the world. " 
 
 In order that international business 
 difficulties might not be left to govern- 
 ments alone, through sheer lack of effec- 
 tive means for bringing to bear upon them 
 
92 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the collective business judgment of the 
 world, the Chamber of Commerce of the 
 United States has appointed a committee 
 "to make a study of the question of the 
 reconvening of the International Congress 
 of Chambers of Commerce at the earliest 
 time that is judged expedient." 
 
 It is not improbable that an inter- 
 national chamber of commerce might 
 become an essential factor in the proposed 
 league of nations. In some countries 
 the chambers of commerce have oflBcial 
 status and connection with their respec- 
 tive governments. And whether they 
 had such connection or not they could 
 become a powerful agency for mobilising 
 good will among the nations, by the ac- 
 cepted give-and-take spirit of business, 
 by developing an established policy of 
 fair dealing, under which trade discrimi- 
 nations would disappear, and by con- 
 sciously weaving the bands of commerce 
 into bonds of peace. 
 
 Such an international organisation as 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 93 
 
 part of a league of nations would serve 
 two great purposes — it would constantly- 
 work toward the removal of the commer- 
 cial causes of war, and it would work defi- 
 nitely, if war was impending for political 
 or any other cause, toward the quick and 
 effective use of economic pressure against 
 a nation that refused to take its case for 
 judgment, to the World Court. Centuries 
 ago these two purposes were served by a 
 strong commercial organisation, that of 
 the Hanseatic League. The trading cit- 
 ies in this League flourished through gene- 
 rations, held together by the common 
 bond of commercial self-interest. They 
 became so powerful that they steadily 
 gained trading rights and privileges, even 
 against the opposition of governments 
 and rulers. And it is interesting to be 
 reminded by the Anglo-American mer- 
 chant, H. Gordon Selfridge, in his recent 
 book, "The Romance of Business," that 
 a member city that broke the trade laws 
 and rules of the League was punished by 
 
94 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 having the rights and privileges of the 
 League withdrawn. For example, Bre- 
 men in 1356 was expelled from the 
 League, because she failed to punish one 
 of her merchants who had broken a rule 
 of the League in regard to trading with 
 Flanders, and for thirty years she suffered 
 the loss of trade advantages — sufiFered 
 from economic pressure. At another time 
 Brunswick came under the ban because 
 of delinquency and for six years sufiFered 
 such great trade loss that her people 
 were brought to poverty. And before 
 the ban was raised two burgomasters 
 and eight important citizens of Bruns- 
 wick went to Lubeck, the head city of 
 the League, oflFered abject confession of 
 wrong-doing and craved for pardon in 
 bare feet and on bended knee. And the 
 League used economic pressure not only 
 on one of its members but even against 
 a strong outside nation. So powerful a 
 monarch as Henry IV of England was 
 forced to meet the demands of the League, 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 95 
 
 largely through an embargo by which it 
 closed the Baltic ports to English com- 
 merce. While the power of the League 
 waned as the power of nations grew, three 
 of the old Hanse cities, Lubeck, Ham- 
 burg and Bremen, were enabled, by the 
 treaty of Westphalia in 1648, to retain 
 certain privileges as "free cities" and 
 these were continued until so recent a 
 time as 1888, when Bismarck finally 
 forced their surrender. 
 
 This historical example, although not 
 applicable to the international conditions 
 that will follow the war, at least serves 
 the point of showing how strong the bond 
 of commerce is and how effective eco- 
 nomic pressure can be made. An inter- 
 national chamber of commerce, with all 
 the facilities for securing united action 
 now available and with the authority of 
 a league of nations behind it, could be 
 expected to do much toward removing 
 the causes of war, as well as toward 
 making a league of nations so strong in 
 
96 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 its economic power that wars which 
 threatened could, in many cases, be 
 blocked and wars which started, in other 
 cases, could be stopped; and, if the last 
 ditch was reached, and armed force was 
 required to overcome a recalcitrant na- 
 tion, such an organisation would greatly 
 strengthen military power by mobilising, 
 in support of it, the industry and com- 
 merce of the law-abiding nations. Against 
 such combined military and economic 
 might, arrayed in defense of international 
 law, any nation would have to strike its 
 colours. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE BIBLE WARRANT FOR A LEAGUE OP 
 NATIONS 
 
 DR. LYMAN ABBOTT, both seer and 
 editor, has seldom used his great 
 gifts of interpretation in a more illmni- 
 nating way than in one of his Knoll 
 papers, published in the Outlook in Sep- 
 tember, 1917, under the heading, * ' Christ's 
 League to Enforce Peace." With Dr. 
 Abbott's permission, this paper is pub- 
 lished here as a chapter of this book. It 
 gives a biblical background to the League 
 of Nations programme which had not been 
 presented until it became a subject for 
 the gifted pen of Dr. Abbott. The article 
 is as follows: 
 
 ** Jesus Christ compared his words to 
 seeds. They are the expressions of a 
 spirit which inspires life, and of the prin- 
 97 
 
98 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 ciples which guide that life in right chan- 
 nels. They are not rules to regulate con- 
 duct. If 'Lay not up for yourselves 
 treasures upon earth, where moth and 
 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
 break through and steal,' were a mere 
 rule to regulate conduct, it would be a 
 sufficient compliance to provide cedar 
 chests for our clothes and a safe de- 
 posit box for our money. They are not 
 substitutes for thought, they are incen- 
 tives to thinking. As seeds they were 
 intended to be developed by his disciples 
 and intelligently applied to the varying 
 circumstances and conditions of an ever- 
 varying life. This truth must be borne 
 in mind by the reader, if he is to under- 
 stand this paper. 
 
 "In the eighteenth chapter of Matthew 
 are recorded certain principles which 
 Christ recommended to his disciples for 
 the settlement of any controversies which 
 might arise among them. These prin- 
 ciples are embodied in a rather specific 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 99 
 
 prescription of the methods which he 
 instructed them to pursue. These prin- 
 ciples and methods appear to me to be 
 as appHcable to controversies between 
 nations as between individuals. They 
 are as follows: 
 
 Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass 
 against thee, go and tell him his fault between 
 thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou 
 hast gained thy brother. But if he will not 
 hear thee, then take with thee one or two 
 more, that in the mouth of two or three wit- 
 nesses every word may be established. And 
 if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto 
 the church; but if he neglects to hear the 
 church, let him be unto thee as an heathen 
 man and a publican. 
 
 *'Two remarks must be made in expla- 
 nation of this counsel. 
 
 *'When the counsel was given, the 
 Church did not exist. The word here 
 rendered ' Church ' is one used through- 
 out the Old Testament in the Greek ver- 
 sion, current in Christ's time, to designate 
 the popular assembly of the Hebrew 
 people, a body half-way between a mass- 
 
100 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 meeting and a representative congress, 
 probably sometimes one, sometimes the 
 other. It might be compared to a 'con- 
 stituent assembly. ' 
 
 * *To treat a man as a heathen man and 
 a publican or Roman tax-gatherer was 
 simply to have no dealings with him. 
 The heathen were not subjected to penal- 
 ties of any sort in Judea; the Jews sim- 
 ply had no intercourse with them. The 
 meaning, then, of Christ's ultimatum, as 
 it would have been imderstood bv his 
 disciples, would be: If your fellow-mem- 
 ber defies the public opinion of the Chris- 
 tian community to which you both be- 
 long, have nothing more to do with him. 
 
 **The great statesmen of the world, 
 horrified by this terrible world war, are 
 endeavouring to find some better method 
 for the settlement of international diflS- 
 culties than 'wager of battle,' and curi- 
 ously, and as it seems to me very signifi- 
 cantly, have hit upon the method which 
 Christ commended to his disciples nine- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 101 
 
 teen centuries ago. If I interpret Christ's 
 counsel correctly, these statesmen are 
 following Christ, whether they know it or 
 not. For, if we apply the spirit of his 
 counsel to international action, it would 
 mean, first. Diplomacy; second, Arbitra- 
 tion; third, Judicial Procedure; fourth, to 
 enforce such procedure. Non-intercourse. 
 To interpret and apply this counsel a 
 little more fully: 
 
 "I. If in the community of nations a 
 controversy arises between two or more of 
 them, the first step toward a settlement is 
 diplomacy — that is, personal negotiation 
 between the two nations. The object 
 of this negotiation should be to gain a 
 brother. Its spirit and its purpose should 
 be pacific; its aim, to find some common 
 ground on which the two nations can 
 agree. Austria had a complaint against 
 Serbia. The Austrian Crown Prince had 
 been assassinated, and the Austrian Gov- 
 ernment believed that the Serbian Gov- 
 ernment had been accessory to the assassi- 
 
102 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 nation. If the charge was true, the tres- 
 pass committed by the Serbian Govern- 
 ment was very great. But Austria showed 
 no desire in her negotiations to gain a 
 brother. She treated Serbia as a criminal. 
 She went with a demand in one hand and 
 a threat in the other. And the demand 
 was one to which no nation could accede 
 under threat, without, by that very act, 
 surrendering her independence. 
 
 * * Christ also advises that these negotia- 
 tions between the complainant and the 
 supposed transgressor be private. 'Go 
 and tell him his fault between thee and 
 him alone.' Recently there has been 
 in certain quarters a great outcry against 
 secret diplomacy. There has been in this 
 coimtry some demand, though not very 
 widespread or influential, for the abolition 
 of the secret sessions of the Senate. It is 
 said that secret negotiations have led to 
 wars, and that, if all negotiations were 
 conducted in the open, war would be 
 avoided. And it is probably true that 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 103 
 
 some wars have been prepared for, and 
 perhaps promoted, by secret negotiations. 
 ' ' But it is certain that wars have often 
 been prevented by secret negotiations. 
 There are many international questions 
 which cannot be discussed in the open 
 forum without arousing popular preju- 
 dices and exciting popular passions. There 
 is a strong popular feeling in this country 
 against unlimited Japanese immigration. 
 There is a strong popular feeling in Japan 
 hostile to American discrimination against 
 Japanese immigrants. Popular discus- 
 sion in the press of America excites race 
 prejudice against the Japanese. Popular 
 discussion in the press of Japan excites 
 race prejudice against the Americans. 
 There would be little danger of war be- 
 tween the two countries if we could 
 only unite our forces in a successful war 
 against the yellow press of both countries. 
 If the Japanese question could be taken 
 out of the public forum, there is little 
 doubt that, by friendly negotiations be- 
 
104 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 tween the Japanese mission now in this 
 country and our President representing 
 the Democratic party and EHhu Root 
 representing the Republican party, an 
 agreement could be reached which would 
 calm the excessive self-esteem of the one 
 people and the excessive fears of the 
 other. 
 
 '*II. If diplomacy quietly conducted 
 between the two parties in a spirit of mu- 
 tual brotherhood fails, arbitration is the 
 next step in Christ's league to enforce 
 peace. It is evident that the two or three 
 witnesses are to hear both sides of the 
 incipient quarrel. Their opinion is to be 
 listened to by both parties to the quarrel. 
 There is, indeed, no suggestion that they 
 possess authority to decide. Authorita- 
 tive decision is reserved for the third stage 
 in this proceeding toward peace. But 
 they are not partisans of the complainant 
 taken by him to overbear the accused. 
 They are witnesses, taken to hear the 
 story, to reach their conclusion upon 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 105 
 
 it, and, if no agreement can be reached 
 by their aid, to report to the constituent 
 assembly their judgment upon the un- 
 determined issue. My readers will re- 
 member how urgent were the entreaties 
 of England, France, Italy, and Russia 
 to Germany and Austria to submit the 
 issue between Austria and Serbia either 
 to the Hague Tribunal for decision or to a 
 conference of the Powers for amicable 
 settlement, and how emphatic and almost 
 contemptuous was the refusal. 
 
 * *III. This was as far as Christian civil- 
 isation had gone in 1914 in its prepara- 
 tions to avoid war. Reformers had urged 
 the constitution of a supreme court of 
 nations to which any nation might be 
 summoned to give account of its claims. 
 But no such court had been constituted. 
 The imperfectly organised Hague Trib- 
 unal could pass only on such questions 
 as were submitted to it by the consent of 
 both the parties to the controversy. 
 Christ recommended to his disciples a 
 
106 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 further step — the creation of some sort 
 of body — ^Pariiament, Congress, Supreme 
 Court, Constituent Assembly, Ecclesia — 
 to which either party could report its com- 
 plaint, a body which would have power 
 to declare an authoritative judgment. 
 
 ''And if the other party would not 
 accept the judgment, what then? — ^war to 
 enforce the decision? No! Non-inter- 
 
 course. 
 
 IV. If he will not hear the assembly, 
 let him be unto thee as an heathen man 
 and a publican. 
 
 ''Let us imagine that in 1914 the eight- 
 een nations now in alliance against the 
 Central Powers had constituted a com- 
 munity of nations ; that they had an inter- 
 national tribunal or assembly with power 
 to hear and decide international ques- 
 tions; and that when Germany and Aus- 
 tria refused to submit the issue between 
 Austria and Serbia to decision by that 
 tribunal, the Powers had instantly and 
 automatically pronounced a decree of 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 107 
 
 non-intercourse. What would have hap- 
 pened? Every foreign ambassador in 
 Germany and Austria would have been 
 called home. Every German and Aus- 
 trian ambassador would have been sent 
 home. The mails between other coun- 
 tries and Germany and Austria would 
 have been suspended. Telegrams of 
 every description would have ceased. The 
 world's ports would have been hermetical- 
 ly sealed against the offender. No exports 
 could have passed from the Central Powers 
 to other countries, no imports could have 
 passed from other countries into their 
 territories. Germany and Austria would 
 have been as effectually isolated as if 
 they had been transported bodily to 
 Mars. The present blockade, which is 
 threatening to bring Germany to her 
 knees, would be insignificant by the side 
 of such a world blockade. WTiat nation 
 would venture to defy it? What nation 
 defying it once would ever venture to defy 
 it a second time? 
 
108 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 * * It is true that such a league as is here 
 foreshadowed would not absolutely pre- 
 vent war. Germany might have invaded 
 Holland, Belgium, France in the west, 
 and Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania 
 in the east, to get by her arms the supplies 
 which commerce refused to her. It might 
 have been necessary to unite the armies 
 of the world in defence of the right to de- 
 cree and enforce non-intercourse against 
 a defiant nation. But if such a league 
 had existed in 1914, it would not have 
 required three years of robbery on the 
 land and piracy on the sea to call it into 
 existence. 
 
 * ' If any ecclesiastical reader is inclined 
 to think that the counsels embodied in 
 the passage here interpreted and applied 
 to international affairs were intended by 
 Christ simply as a direction for Church 
 discipline, I must refer him to my Com- 
 mentary on Matthew for a statement of 
 the reasons why I cannot agree with him; 
 if any reader thinks they were intended 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 109 
 
 only for the settlement of private dis- 
 putes, I reply that the same principles 
 apply to the settlement of disputes be- 
 tween organisations as between indi- 
 viduals. If any one thinks it extraordi- 
 nary that the world should not have long 
 since discovered and adopted Christ's 
 league to enforce peace, if it is really sug- 
 gested by his teaching, I reply that he 
 who believes, as I do, that Jesus Christ 
 is the divine leader of mankind will not 
 think it extraordinary that he should still 
 be in advance of the age and waiting 
 patiently for his disciples to overtake 
 him." 
 
XIV 
 
 A COURT HOUSE FOR THE WORLD 
 
 IN every country in the world, if it is so 
 much as half civilised, there is some 
 form of court. And yet the world itself 
 is without one. There is, to be sure, the 
 Permanent Court of Arbitration, agreed 
 to at the Hague Conference of 1899, but 
 that is a piece of judicial machinery, in 
 form, without any force to give it effec- 
 tiveness. And the utter futiUty of this 
 Court to either stop or delay war was 
 demonstrated so completely in 1914 that 
 it doesn't seem possible that the world 
 will care to have another demonstration. 
 It is inconceivable that a league of na- 
 tions should establish a court and permit 
 it to be a mere shadow without any power 
 to give it substance. Too much blood 
 has been shed and debts too stupendous 
 110 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 111 
 
 piled up for future generations to pay, 
 to allow a peace conference to decide on 
 a court that would be but a hollow mock- 
 ery. As a distinguished jurist of the 
 Netherlands, M. Asser, said in the Hague 
 Conference of 1907, in speaking of the 
 Permanent Court of Arbitration, ' ' Instead 
 of a Permanent Court the Convention 
 of 1899 gave only the phantom of a court, 
 an impalpable spectre, or, to speak more 
 precisely, it gave a secretarial and a list. 
 And when two Powers having a diflFerence 
 to settle demand that the doors at The 
 Hague be opened to them, the Secretary- 
 General, thanks to the munificence of Mr. 
 Carnegie, can show them a splendid hall, 
 but instead of a court he can only present 
 to them a list on which they may find 
 a large number of persons of a recog- 
 nised competence, etc." 
 
 The Supreme Court of Arbitral Justice, 
 which engaged so much of the attention 
 of the Second Hague Conference in 1907, 
 was not agreed upon, but if it had been. 
 
112 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 there is small ground to believe that it 
 would have been more than a "" phantom 
 of a court," for no provision was made 
 that hearings before it should be enforced. 
 And the World Court, proposed and sup- 
 ported by a considerable group in this 
 country, had the same inherent weakness, 
 which undoubtedly explained its failure 
 to obtain any broad popular endorse- 
 ment either in the United States or in 
 Europe. 
 
 Fully realising the fatal weakness in 
 these plans for international courts, the 
 League to Enforce Peace made economic 
 and military force the sanction that should 
 compel signatory nations to present their 
 differences for hearing. And from the 
 moment the League was organised in 
 Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on June 
 17th, 1915, it has steadily gained support 
 for its programme. The reason is manifest. 
 In a world at war the doctrine was pro- 
 claimed that peace when it came could 
 only be maintained if it rested on ulti- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 113 
 
 mate force. Instead of beating swords 
 into ploughshares it was proposed, in ef- 
 fect, that they be kept in their scabbards 
 ready to be drawn in defence of law. This 
 seemed strangely like a paraphrase from 
 the Bible in grounding belief in the bring- 
 ing of peace with the sword. It was seen 
 at once that this was not militarism, 
 against which democratic nations have 
 fought, but simply placing effective power 
 behind courts so that they would be re- 
 spected and used. 
 
 Such a sane and practical plan won 
 support from the responsible statesmen of 
 the world — ^from men charged with the 
 leadership of their nations in the great 
 war. Above the battle smoke they saw 
 arise, courts, envisaging the reign of law, 
 supported and enforced by economic and 
 military power. "The best security for 
 peace," said Mr. Lloyd George in Janu- 
 ary, 1917, "will be that nations band 
 themselves together to punish the peace- 
 breaker. In the armouries of Europe 
 
114 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 every weapon will be a sword of justice. 
 In the government of men every army 
 will be the constabulary of peace, ' ' And 
 M. Ribot in June, 1917, while the Premier 
 of France, said in an address before the 
 Chamber of Deputies, '*We echo the 
 noble desire of the President of the United 
 States. Henceforth justice must have 
 as a guarantee the League of Nations 
 which is organising before our eyes, and 
 which tomorrow will be mistress of the 
 world." Mr. Asquith in an authorised 
 statement in November, 1917, said, ''We 
 must aim at something more than the 
 negative functions of policing the world 
 and preventing breaches of the peace; 
 at nothing less than a partnership of the 
 nations in the joint piu*suit of a freer and 
 fuller life for the countless miUions who, 
 by their efforts and their sacrifices, gene- 
 ration after generation, maintain the prog- 
 ress and enrich the inheritance of hu- 
 manity. Nor must our reconstruction 
 concern Europe alone. We must aim at 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 115 
 
 setting up a world-wide peace partner- 
 ship, of which all the civilised commu- 
 nities will be members on a level footing, 
 with equal rights and reciprocal duties." 
 In the United States ex-President Taf t 
 and hundreds of the leading public men 
 of the country and thousands of important 
 journals have supported the League of 
 Nations programme. The repeated en- 
 dorsements from President Wilson have 
 been read in all parts of the world. And 
 it can be safely stated that the President 
 has expressed the sentiment of his coun- 
 trymen in all of these endorsements, of 
 which the following is typical of many 
 others: ''So sincerely do we believe in 
 these things, that I am sure I speak the 
 mind and wish of the people of America, 
 when I say that the United States is will- 
 ing to become a partner in any feasible 
 association formed in order to realise these 
 objects, and to make them secure against 
 violation. ... I am sure the United 
 States would wish their Government to 
 
116 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 move along the line of ... a universal 
 association of nations to maintain invio- 
 late the security of the highway of the 
 seas for the common, unhindered use of 
 all the nations of the world, and to pre- 
 vent any war begun, either contrary to 
 treaty covenants or without warning and 
 full submission of the cause to the opinion 
 of the world — a, virtual guarantee of terri- 
 torial integrity and political independ- 
 ence. ... I feel confident that the world 
 is even now upon the eve of a great con- 
 summation, when some common force 
 will be brought into existence which shall 
 safeguard right as the first and most 
 fundamental interest of all peoples and 
 all governments, when coercion shall be 
 summoned not to the service of political 
 ambition or selfish hostility, but to the 
 service of common order, common jus- 
 tice, and common peace." 
 
 The court house for the world, in view 
 of the innumerable expressions of strong 
 support from statesmen of all the belliger- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 117 
 
 ent countries, including those of Germany 
 and Austria-Hungary, seems to have been 
 long in coming to nations in sore need of 
 it. For war, that has been given up as a 
 means in settling differences within na- 
 tions, has continued as a final arbiter be- 
 tween nations. The world has groped 
 blindly toward a sane internationalism 
 that wo\ild gather up and use the tested 
 experience from nations, without seeking 
 to destroy them. It has depended too 
 much on other international forces, failing 
 to perceive the essential place and power 
 of justice. Among the fighting nations 
 are seen the church, the temple or the 
 mosque, but religion has not ended war. 
 In the libraries of all the warring nations 
 are the works of Goethe and Schiller, 
 of Hugo and Balzac, of Shakespeare and 
 Milton, of Tolstoi and Turgenieff — all 
 imperishable contributions to the world's 
 intellectual life, but still they have not 
 ended war. The orchestras of Paris, Ber- 
 lin, London and New York play the 
 
118 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 music of Beethoven, Tschaikowsky, Ber- 
 lioz and Haydn, and music is one of the 
 most spiritual of the arts, but it has not 
 ended war. Painting and sculpture are 
 part of the common heritage of mankind 
 but they have not ended war. The world 
 has had churches and schools and libraries 
 and galleries — ^but the world like every 
 other city and country needs a Comi: 
 House. That Court is within our grasp. 
 What is needed is to give it force through 
 economic pressure and military power 
 that will compel its use and it will become 
 a bulwark of civilisation, protecting the 
 world from the waste and futility and 
 the utter tragedy of war. 
 
XV 
 
 THE SWORD AS FINAL ARBITER 
 
 THERE were few illusions among the 
 two hundred and fifty thoughtful 
 people who gathered from nearly all parts 
 of the United States, at Independence 
 Hall in Philadelphia in June, 1915, to 
 consider proposals and plans for lessening 
 the dangers of war. For ten months the 
 great war, steadily becoming greater, had 
 been in progress. By general agreement, 
 even more impressive because scarcely 
 spoken, being in the minds of all present, 
 the four proposals formulated for the pro- 
 gramme of the League to Enforce Peace, 
 there organised, were for international 
 adoption when the war was over. That 
 agreement was interpretative of the sane 
 and practical spirit which pervaded this 
 short but historic conference. Not only 
 119 
 
120 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 was there no illusion about stopping the 
 war abeady on, there was no illusion 
 in regard to preventing future wars by the 
 pacifist formula of optional arbitration or 
 sanctionless courts. Of course the doc- 
 trine of non-resistance, even in a city 
 whose hall of government bore the bronze 
 eflSgy of W^illiam Penn, was not so much 
 as mentioned. Instead of that, this great 
 peace conference drew the sword, and in 
 a noble preamble to its platform pointed 
 to it as the final arbiter in any league of 
 nations that might hope to supplant war 
 by law in settling disputes between gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 The founder of the University of Vir- 
 ginia, Thomas Jefferson, when he pre- 
 sented the Declaration of Independence 
 in the same Hall, one hundred and thirty- 
 nine years before, had concluded it with 
 the martial words of ultimate and com- 
 plete sacrifice: ''To this declaration we 
 pledge our lives, our fortunes and our 
 sacred honour.'* The President of Har- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 121 
 
 vard University, A. Lawrence Lowell, 
 placed in the forefront of the platform 
 of the League to Enforce Peace, reported 
 by the Committee of which he was the 
 Chairman, words that implied the same 
 supreme pledge: ** Throughout five thou- 
 sand years of recorded history peace, here 
 and there established, has been kept, and 
 its area has been widened, in one way 
 only. Individuals have combined their 
 efforts to suppress violence in the local 
 community. Communities have co-oper- 
 ated to maintain the authoritative state 
 and to preserve peace within its borders. 
 States have formed leagues or confedera- 
 tions or have otherwise co-operated to 
 establish peace among themselves. Al- 
 ways peace has been made and kept, 
 when made and kept at all, by the supe- 
 rior power of superior numbers acting in 
 unity for the common good. Mindful of 
 this teaching of experience, we believe 
 and solemnly urge that the time has come 
 to devise and to create a working union 
 
122 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 of sovereign nations to establish peace 
 among themselves and to guarantee it by 
 all known and available sanctions at their 
 command, to the end that civilisation 
 may be conserved, and the progress of 
 mankind in comfort, enlightenment and 
 happiness may continue." 
 
 Then followed these four short pro- 
 posals: 
 
 First: All justiciable questions arising be- 
 tween the signatory powers, not settled by 
 negotiation, shall, subject to the limitations 
 of treaties, be submitted to a judicial tribunal 
 for hearing and judgment, both upon the 
 merits and upon any issue as to its jurisdic- 
 tion of the question. 
 
 Second: All other questions arising be- 
 tween the signatories and not settled by nego- 
 tiation, shall be submitted to a council of con- 
 ciliation for hearing, consideration and recom- 
 mendation. 
 
 Third: The signatory powers shall jointly 
 use forthwith both their economic and mili- 
 tary forces against any one of their number 
 that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, 
 against another of the signatories before any 
 question arising shall be submitted as pro- . 
 vided in the foregoing. 
 
 Fourth: Conferences between the signatory 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 1£3 
 
 powers shall be held from time to time to 
 formulate and codify rules of international 
 law, which, unless some signatory shall 
 signify its dissent within a stated period, shall 
 thereafter govern in the decisions of the judi- 
 cial tribunal mentioned in Article One. 
 
 The distinguishing thing in these pro- 
 posals, of course, and the thing which 
 definitely separates them from the pro- 
 posals of other peace organisations is the 
 placing of force behind a world court, 
 compelling it to be used. And why not? 
 Surely the world, after the devastation 
 and destruction of the present war, will 
 come to the place where peace will seem 
 so much to be desired that it is even worth 
 fighting for. Many will say, this is war 
 itself, the very thing we seek to prevent. 
 But let it be stated in rejoinder with 
 overwhelming emphasis, that such a war, 
 if it should be required as a last resort, 
 would be war to enforce peace. It would 
 be war to establish the integrity and 
 authority of world courts that the nations 
 had joined in setting up and had joined 
 
124 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 in agreeing to use. In a word such a war 
 would be simply the use of power to en- 
 force the due processes of international 
 law and justice. If a court set up by the 
 people is flouted, the State, through its 
 constitutional oflScers and, if necessary, 
 through its armed forces, asserts the sov- 
 ereign power of the people and commands 
 and compels respect for the court. That is 
 not war — it is the State maintaining 
 peace. So it is with the use of armed 
 force to compel a recalcitrant nation to 
 take its international diflFerences to a court 
 instead of to a battlefield. That would 
 not be war but the exercise of military 
 power to enforce peace. And it would 
 frequently happen that the use of the 
 great power of international commerce, 
 applied as economic pressure, would be 
 suflScient to sober a nation and bring it to 
 the World Court, without resort to mili- 
 tary force. 
 
XVI 
 
 BUSINESS THE PROTECTOR OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 IN all countries the development of com- 
 merce has been accompanied by a 
 gradual but inevitable development of 
 democracy. So general is this that the 
 deduction is sound that between the two 
 there is a relation of effect and cause. 
 The reason for this is not obscure for it 
 inheres in the very nature of both com- 
 merce and democracy. They both stand 
 for co-operation in human relationships. 
 As commerce grew it became a constantly 
 increasing source of revenue to govern- 
 ments and secured a constantly increasing 
 number of rights and privileges. Many 
 of these came after long struggle but they 
 always bore witness to the growing power 
 of commerce, which won them. In time, 
 especially in English-speaking countries, 
 125 
 
126 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 commerce became included in the encom- 
 passing word business, which stood for 
 the whole range and field of commercial 
 enterprise. Today business is practically 
 the organised life of the world. It in- 
 cludes in every country countless in- 
 dividual concerns and corporations. These 
 are often grouped in associations repre- 
 senting their respective branches of busi- 
 ness. The whole amazing network of re- 
 lations and inter-relations is the result of 
 co-operation and co-operation is the essen- 
 tial principle of applied democracy. 
 
 One of the most significant conse- 
 quences of the commercial organisation of 
 the modern world has been the stimulus 
 it has given to the democratic idea. WTien 
 men meet on a plane of equality in busi- 
 ness and develop both the philosophy and 
 the practice of democracy it becomes in- 
 evitable that their relations with their 
 governments should work surely toward 
 democratic ideals and principles. And 
 that fact explains much of the democratic 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 127 
 
 progress that has been going on all over 
 the world. Even in autocratic nations 
 where government has continued to be 
 largely in control of the hereditary nobil- 
 ity there has grown up a great commercial 
 class, grounded in the democratic idea of 
 individual worth, opportunity and initia- 
 tive and from this class the government 
 service in every country has been con- 
 stantly recruited. As a result there has 
 been a steady democratic infusion from 
 business that has profoundly aflFected 
 political thought everywhere, because 
 men who have climbed up from the ranks 
 seldom lose *'the common touch," how- 
 ever influential in government affairs they 
 may become, and whatever the titles they 
 may be invested with. It is these men 
 who are a material part of the leaven of 
 constructive liberalism in every country 
 against irresponsible autocracy on one 
 hand and irresponsible democracy, rep- 
 resenting the rule of the mob, on the other. 
 In the international reconstruction toward 
 
128 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 which the world is fast moving they may 
 be expected to bear an important part. 
 And it is a cheering fact to recall at such 
 a time that their training and their views 
 are not only largely democratic but, to a 
 considerable degree, international. In 
 business within, they have been schooled 
 in the democratic practice of equality; in 
 business without, in the field of world 
 trade, they have learned something of 
 international forces and relationships. 
 
 During the war a striking illustration 
 of the stabilising influence in interna- 
 tional affairs of business men has been 
 offered in the work of the International 
 Sugar Committee. This Committee was 
 composed of three members from the 
 United States, Mr. Earl D. Babst, Presi- 
 dent of the American Sugar Refining Co. ; 
 Mr. George M. Ralph, Head of the Sugar 
 Division of the Food Administration, and 
 Mr. William A. Jamison of Arbuckle 
 Brothers, and there were two members 
 from the Allied Governments, Sir Joseph 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 129 
 
 White-Todd and Mr. J. Ramsay Drake, 
 both of England. These five men in the 
 fall and winter of 1917-18, by co-operative 
 buying and control of distribution, suc- 
 ceeded in overcoming an almost panic 
 condition, due to threatened famine, 
 stabilised conditions that bordered on 
 demoralisation and established an equi- 
 table balance between the rights of pro- 
 ducers and consumers in all of the Allied 
 countries. This result in a single in- 
 dustry is indicative of what business men 
 may accomplish in the new international 
 conditions that will come with a league 
 of nations. 
 
 Another illustration that is even more 
 important is that of the pooling of all 
 shipping interests among the Entente 
 Allies. An International Shipping Board 
 was formed with Mr. P. A. S. Franklin, 
 President of the International Mercantile 
 Marine, as Chairman, and Mr. H. H. 
 Raymond, the Shipping Controller of the 
 Food Administration, as the American 
 
ISO BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 members, and with Sir Connop Guthrie 
 as the EngUsh member. And this Board 
 took under control the unification and di- 
 rection of all the shipping services of the 
 Allies. So conservative a newspaper as 
 the New York Times, in commenting on 
 this radical departure, said: ''This war is 
 different from other wars in that its re- 
 sults will be economic rather than terri- 
 torial or dynastic. There will be terri- 
 torial readjustments with peace. There 
 have been dynastic and political revolu- 
 tions, and there will be more. It was not 
 intended to minimise them when it was 
 suggested that they were rivalled by the 
 passage of the world from a past of eco- 
 nomic nationalism into a future of eco- 
 nomic internationalism. ' ' 
 
 The truth is the league of nations that 
 has been fighting the war for democracy 
 has been learning how to apply economic 
 internationalism as a force to maintain 
 peace when a greater league of nations 
 is formed. 
 
XVII 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 DEMOCRACY in its advance has 
 kept step with the progress of 
 knowledge. Not until the war was recog- 
 nised as a crucial struggle for the pres- 
 ervation of individual liberty did it set 
 up the fundamental issue that united the 
 democratic nations of the Old and New 
 Worlds. The full support of free and in- 
 dependent men came only through a 
 realisation and understanding of the cause 
 for which they were called to sacrifice 
 and die. The United States did not enter 
 the war until its people had given unmis- 
 takable proof of their conviction and will. 
 How was this proof presented.'^ Through 
 the great democratic organ of public 
 opinion, the press. The history of those 
 anxious days of oiu- neutrality shows 
 131 
 
132 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the touchstone was appHed to the sover- 
 eign force of pubUc opinion. The succes- 
 sive pubHc addresses of President Wilson 
 prior to April 6, 1917, trace the emergence 
 of the United States from its traditional 
 policy of national isolation. Editorial 
 comment in more than 2,000 daily news- 
 papers assured the President that the 
 people were with him at each step toward 
 the final call to arms. How carefully the 
 head of the nation studied the popular 
 effect of these messages was demonstrated 
 by the fact that summaries of editorial 
 opinion embracing extracts from several 
 hundred leading newspapers in every part 
 of the country were laid before him within 
 twenty-four hours after the publication 
 of an address or message. These sum- 
 maries, made by the Associated Press, not 
 only kept the President informed of the 
 state of the public mind but mobilised 
 opinion throughout the nation. 
 
 Having agreed to fight, after free and 
 open discussion through the press, the 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 133 
 
 people of the United States utilised the 
 same agency in mobilising for war. The 
 campaigns to conserve our resources and 
 to finance the war owed their success 
 principally to the support of the news- 
 papers. Printers' ink accomplished for 
 America what was possible in Germany 
 and Austria only through imperial decree 
 and the fear of armed authority. 
 
 Through their newspapers the people 
 of the United States became familiar 
 with the principle that the only kind of 
 peace worth fighting for is a permanent 
 peace, based upon international cove- 
 nants. The ideal of international recon- 
 struction was launched by the League to 
 Enforce Peace. Before it attained con- 
 crete form in the platform adopted at 
 Philadelphia, in June, 1915, the concep- 
 tion had gained little attention outside 
 the circle of political economists and ad- 
 vanced political thinkers. A nation 
 trained for generations to cherish the 
 tradition of isolation and non-interference 
 
134 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 with European affairs might well have re- 
 garded the proposal as heresy. As a 
 thesis it appealed to both mind and imagi- 
 nation; from the outset it had the support 
 of men of international reputation; but 
 these advantages alone could not have 
 intrenched the idea as firmly as it stands 
 today without the aid of the press. 
 
 A careful survey of editorial opinion 
 at the time this book is written indicates 
 that, while there are differences of opinion 
 as to method, the general plan of a league 
 of nations is favoured by the newspapers 
 in overwhelming majority. 
 
 The attitude of the press is significant 
 because upon this great clearing house of 
 public opinion will rest much of the re- 
 sponsibility for the success of the plan 
 once it is adopted. All the nations are 
 gaining greater respect for the views of 
 their neighbours . The telegraph, the sub- 
 marine cable and the telephone rank with 
 the railroad, the steamship, the automo- 
 bile and the airplane as agencies drawing 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 135 
 
 mankind into one great family. If a citi- 
 zen with a quarrel on his hands knew that 
 his neighbours sided with his opponent, 
 he might think twice before venturing to 
 gain his ends by force. In the same way 
 a .nation, however aggressive and ruth- 
 less, would hesitate to attack another if 
 it believed the other nations of the world 
 would net support its quarrel. 
 
 Here is where the machinery of an inter- 
 national court and forced arbitration 
 would serve to block an outbreak of hos- 
 tilities until the questions at issue could 
 be laid before an international jury. 
 Since the proceedings of such a tribunal 
 would be public, long before the court had 
 handed down its decision the issue would 
 have gained a popular verdict. The press 
 of the world would act as unofficial advo- 
 cates and the case would be tried first 
 at the bar of public opinion. 
 
 If the quarrel reached the stage where 
 the united nations decided to use the 
 trade boycott against an offending mem- 
 
136 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 ber of the league, either with or without 
 military force, such a boycott could not 
 be successful unless it were backed by the 
 people. 
 
 In fact, public sentiment alone, without 
 official action, might be strong enough to 
 exert effective economic pressure if mo- 
 bilised and directed by the united efforts 
 of the press. This is the idea back of the 
 1918 referendum of the United States 
 Chamber of Commerce. A boycott such 
 as this plan proposes would be purely 
 popular and without government sanc- 
 tion. 
 
 Under the domination of an autocratic 
 government a national press can become 
 a powerful instrument to advance the in- 
 terests of selfish despotism. But the free 
 press of America, uncensored and respon- 
 sible only to the people upon whom it 
 depends for support, has proved itself 
 one of the most effective weapons in the 
 arsenal of democracy. 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE NEW DAY AFTER THE WAR 
 
 THE great war is in its fourth devas- 
 tating year as this book is pubHshed. 
 What will follow it in the way of world 
 reorganisation no one can clearly foresee. 
 But that great changes are impending is 
 no longer looked upon as prophecy, for 
 their necessity and inevitability are every- 
 where understood and conceded. 
 
 There are three forms which these 
 changes could conceivably take. 
 
 1, Increased imperialism in the world 
 — hy that is meant increased militarism and 
 increased territorial empire under the con- 
 trol or sovereignty of a single nation. 
 
 This change seems to be impossible, 
 for to bring it about would require com- 
 plete Germany victory. Unless that is 
 achieved imperialism cannot have a place 
 187 
 
1S8 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 in the world any larger after the war than 
 it had before the war, for the allied nations 
 have made their fight for the underlying 
 principles of democracy. Their govern- 
 ments have stated in the most definite 
 form that they were agreed in favor of 
 equality among nations, small and great, 
 in favor of each country determining its 
 own government and in favor of a policy 
 of no annexations. 
 
 If these principles should suffer defeat 
 in this war it can be but a temporary de- 
 feat, for these principles are eternal and 
 must ultimately prevail. And they must 
 prevail in Germany and Austria and Tur- 
 key, quite as much as in France, England, 
 America and throughout the world. To 
 hold to any other view is to deny progress 
 and to shut out the light of history. 
 
 A change that would represent the 
 farthest possible extreme from imperial- 
 ism would be: 
 
 2, Radicalism in the extreme form it has 
 taken in Russia under the rule of the Bolshevi- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 139 
 
 ki or in the form represented by the British 
 Labour Party. 
 
 This is a result that is not impossible 
 in the sense that the imperialistic result 
 appears to be, but it is highly improbable. 
 Representative democracy, before the war 
 came, had gained the day in England, 
 in France, Italy and America and it will 
 not surrender all it has won, in a thousand 
 years of steady progress, to the red flag of 
 socialistic revolution. But this is not said 
 in denial of the profound effect which the 
 Russian revolution is having and will 
 continue to have on the democracy of 
 every country in the world. The full 
 measure of that effect is not apparent — 
 will not be for generations — ^but among 
 events that have been influenced, to some 
 degree at least, are the great strikes in 
 Germany and Austria in favour of a demo- 
 cratic peace and the formation of an inde- 
 pendent Labour Party in England, with 
 so strong a demand for a statement of 
 war aims that Lloyd George was com- 
 
140 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 pelled to heed it. About the time Lloyd 
 George spoke. President Wilson gave to 
 the world a statement of America's war 
 aims and these were at once taken up by 
 English Labour and claimed as their own. 
 And as these declarations were being 
 made, Trotzky, the Russian Foreign Min- 
 ister in the Bolsheviki Government, pub- 
 lished a book, *'The Bolsheviki and 
 World Peace." In it he gave this for- 
 mula for peace — ^''The peace of the peoples 
 themselves and not the reconciliation of 
 the diplomats. No contributions. The 
 right of every nation to self-determina- 
 tion. The United States of Europe — 
 without monarchies, without standing 
 armies, without ruling feudal castes, with- 
 out secret diplomacy. ' ' 
 
 This was written, evidently, a short 
 time before Lenine and Trotzky came to 
 power and, in substance, it was the for- 
 mula presented by the Russian delegates 
 at the council table at Brest-Litovsk, 
 although they failed utterly in securing 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 141 
 
 its adoption. Of course the Allies have 
 the deep conviction that Russia in making 
 a separate peace with Germany was guilty 
 of an act of the basest treachery. It is 
 clear that it released great armies for an- 
 other drive toward Paris, and was fol- 
 lowed by a new drive for conquests in 
 Russia. But it released, also, great 
 armies erf radical ideas that have made an 
 insidious and powerful attack on the 
 morale of the German people. Which 
 groups of armies, those operating outside 
 Germany or those operating inside, would 
 do the greater destruction was not deter- 
 mined when this was written. But they 
 were engaged in accomplishing results 
 that were violently contradictory. 
 
 And in Russia there has been some reac- 
 tion from the radical influences that have 
 been in full swing. To what degree the 
 Bolsheviki have been affected by more 
 moderate democratic influences is not 
 clear but it can be safely believed that 
 they have been much affected and that, 
 
142 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 ultimately, either their views will be in- 
 fluenced from without, in as large measure 
 as they have themselves influenced the 
 views of other democracies, or the Bolshe- 
 viki will be supplanted by those repre- 
 senting more conservative ideas. This 
 is but stating the fact that as a rule 
 human reactions, in time, establish an 
 equilibrium. No gift of prophecy, there- 
 fore, is needed to foresee that the world, 
 after the war, will not go all the way to 
 the international socialism that is ac- 
 cepted and proclaimed by the Bolsheviki. 
 The able report on reconstruction by 
 the subcommittee of the British Labour 
 Party presents the farthest swing which 
 the pendulum of radical liberalism can be 
 expected to make. As the proposals in 
 this report will unquestionably be advo- 
 cated for adoption by an important sec- 
 tion of the British Parliament — ^it is not 
 impossible that the next general election 
 in England will show that that section 
 represents a majority — ^they must claim 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 14S 
 
 at once the serious attention of all think- 
 ing people. Count Okuma is credited, 
 in this report, with having expressed the 
 view, from his vantage point of perspec- 
 tive in Japan, that the present conflict 
 would result in the death of European 
 civilisation. '*We of the Labour Party 
 can so far agree in this estimate, ' ' says the 
 report, *'a» to recognise in the present 
 world catastrophe, if not the death, in 
 Europe, of civilisation itself, at any rate 
 the culmination and collapse of a dis- 
 tinctive industrial civilisation, which the 
 workers will not seek to reconstruct. At 
 such times of crisis it is easier to slip into 
 ruin than to progress into higher forms of 
 organisation. That is the problem as 
 it presents itself to the Labour Party. 
 
 *'WTiat this war is consuming is not 
 merely the security, the homes, the liveli- 
 hood and the lives of millions of innocent 
 families, and an enormous proportion of all 
 the accumulated wealth of the world, but 
 also the very basis of the peculiar social 
 
144 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 order in which it has arisen. The in- 
 dividualist system of capitalist produc- 
 tion, based on the private ownership and 
 competitive administration of land and 
 capital, with its reckless 'profiteering' 
 and wage-slavery, we shall do our utmost 
 to see that it is buried with the millions 
 whom it has done to death. If we in 
 Britain are to escape from the decay of 
 civilisation itself, which the Japanese 
 statesman foresees, we must ensure that 
 what is presently to be built up is a new 
 social order, based not on fighting but 
 on fraternity — ^not on the competitive 
 struggle for the means of bare life, but on 
 a deliberately planned co-operation in pro- 
 duction and distribution for the benefit 
 of all who participate by hand or by brain 
 — ^not on the utmost possible inequality 
 of riches, but on a systematic approach 
 towards a healthy equality of material 
 circumstances for every person born into 
 the world — not on an enforced dominion 
 over subject nations, subject races, sub- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 145 
 
 ject colonies, subject classes, or a subject 
 sex, but, in industry as well as in govern- 
 ment, on that equal freedom, that general 
 consciousness of consent, and that widest 
 possible participation in power, both eco- 
 nomic and political, which is characteristic 
 of democracy. We do not, of course, pre- 
 tend that it is possible even after the 
 drastic clearing away that is now going 
 on, to build society anew in a year or two 
 of feverish reconstruction. What the 
 Labour Party intends to satisfy itself about 
 is that each brick that it helps to lay shall 
 go to erect the structure that it intends, 
 and no other. 
 
 **The four pillars of the house that we 
 propose to erect, resting upon the com- 
 mon foundation of the democratic control 
 of society in all its activities, may be 
 termed : 
 
 * * (a) The Universal Enforcement of the 
 National Minimum Wage; 
 
 **(b) The Democratic Control of In- 
 dustry; 
 
146 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 *'(c) The Revolution in National Fi- 
 nance ; and 
 
 ' ' (d) The Surplus Wealth for the Com- 
 mon Good. ' ' 
 
 After presenting arguments in favour of 
 these proposals the report gives this un- 
 qualified endorsement to the league of 
 nations : 
 
 "We stand for the immediate estab- 
 lishment, actually as a part of the treaty 
 of peace with which the present war will 
 end, of a universal league or society of 
 nations, a supernational authority, with 
 an international high court to try all 
 justiciable issues between nations; an 
 international legislature to enact such 
 common laws as can be mutually agreed 
 upon, and an international council of 
 mediation to endeavour to settle without 
 ultimate conflict even those disputes 
 which are not justiciable. W^e would 
 have all the nations of the world most 
 solemnly undertake and promise to make 
 common cause against any one of them 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 147 
 
 that broke away from this fundamental 
 agreement. The world has suffered too 
 much from war for the Labour Party to 
 have any other poHcy than that of last- 
 ing peace. ' ' 
 
 This leaves the third change that may 
 follow the war to be examined. And 
 that stands midway between the two ex- 
 tremes of imperialism and radicalism. 
 It can be stated, broadly, in this fashion : 
 
 3. Representative democracy existing in 
 nations and serving as a bond of union in a 
 league of nations. 
 
 This is an approximately accurate de- 
 scription of the political principles of the 
 Entente Allies in the war. With the ex- 
 ception of Japan, whose government has 
 been steadily becoming more democratic 
 since 1868, each of them has a govern- 
 ment directly responsive and responsible 
 to the people. And this fact has been a 
 controlling factor in bringing them to- 
 gether and in holding them together in a 
 league. It has made sharp and clear- 
 
148 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 cut the battle line between democracy 
 and autocracy and thus has determined 
 the decisive purpose of the war. Now 
 democracy is not socialism. It stands for 
 the individual, for his initiative, for his 
 rights, for his freedom. Democracy is 
 the creed of the Gospel, for it interprets 
 the underlying and unescapable obliga- 
 tion in personal responsibility. Germany 
 forgot her Luther or she could never have 
 forged such a thunderbolt as Prussian 
 militarism. But the printing press which 
 her Gutenberg set up in Mainz has served 
 as a mighty instrument of democracy. 
 It made possible the spread of knowledge, 
 which has been both the cause and the 
 hope of modern civilisation. The print- 
 ing press has been the screw of Archimedes 
 that everywhere has been lifting men into 
 a consciousness of their manhood. Serf- 
 dom has had to go, slavery has had to go, 
 feudaUsm has had to go — ^and democracy, 
 based on the rights of man, had to come. 
 And in all the centuries it has been com- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 149 
 
 ing, slowly, oh very slowly at times, but 
 coming, surely coming. It has been com- 
 ing in Germany through the growing rise 
 of the people's power; in England, through 
 the revolution in which the inherited 
 power of the lords has been shattered 
 and the supreme power of the people rec- 
 ognised; in all modem Europe it has 
 been coming; in Turkey, in Persia, in 
 China it has been coming; in America it 
 has been coming. 
 
 Vested power will entrench itself in 
 many strong positions in the generations 
 to come, as it has in the past, but it must 
 lose them because its fight is against men 
 and women who are being raised by the 
 democratic power of the printing press 
 into reliant, strong, conscious individual- 
 ism. When the printing press gave knowl- 
 edge to the world it gave the power to the 
 world that was to make- it democratic. 
 Learning was no longer the privilege of the 
 few but the possession of the many. The 
 Bible was no longer chained to cathedral 
 
150 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 pulpits but found its way into the hum- 
 blest home. Government was no longer 
 vested in kings, and though thrones 
 might remain, they have become merely 
 symbols of a power transferred in increas- 
 ing measure to the people. The world had 
 to be democratised. 
 
 The great war itself has been an agency 
 of democracy. It is unbelievable that the 
 millions who have fought it, on the firing 
 lines and behind them, can be brought 
 under subjection to autocracy. It may 
 be believable, but it doesn't appear to be 
 probable, that they will carry democracy 
 to the point of extreme radicalism. In- 
 stead, it is more reasonable to look for- 
 ward to a world after the war in which 
 democracy will be truly representative, 
 controlling governments within nations 
 and serving as a bond of understanding 
 and union between nations in a League to 
 Enforce a just and durable Peace. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 There are reprinted in the Appendix 
 the proposals of the League to Enforce 
 Peace and Referendum Number Eleven 
 and Referendum Number Twenty-three of 
 the Chamber of Commerce of the United 
 States, to all of which frequent references 
 have been made. 
 
PROPOSALS OF THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE 
 PEACE 
 
 WE believe it to be desirable for 
 the United States to join a league 
 of nations binding the signatories to the 
 following: 
 
 First: All justiciable questions arising 
 between the signatory powers, not settled 
 by negotiation, shall, subject to the limi- 
 tations of treaties, be submitted to a judi- 
 cial tribunal for hearing and judgment, 
 both upon the merits and upon any issue 
 as to its jurisdiction of the question. 
 
 Second: All other questions arising be- 
 tween the signatories and not settled by 
 negotiation, shall be submitted to a coun- 
 cil of conciliation for hearing, considera- 
 tion and recommendation. 
 
 Third: The signatory powers shall 
 153 
 
154 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 jointly use forthwith both their economic 
 and mihtary forces against any one of 
 their number that goes to war, or commits 
 acts of hostiUty, against another of the 
 signatories before any question arising 
 shall be submitted as provided in the 
 foregomg.* 
 
 Fourth: Conferences between the sig- 
 natory powers shall be held from time to 
 time to formulate and codify rules of inter- 
 national law, which, unless some signa- 
 tory shall signify its dissent within a 
 stated period, shall thereafter govern in 
 the decisions of the Judicial Tribunal 
 mentioned in Article One. 
 
 *The folloicing interpretation of Article 3 has been authorised 
 by the Executive Committee: 
 
 "The signatory powers shall jointly employ diplomatic and 
 economic pressure against any one of their number that 
 threatens war against a fellow signatory without having first 
 submitted its dispute for international inquiry, conciliation, 
 arbitration or judicial hearing, and awaited a conclusion, or 
 without having in good faith offered so to submit it. They 
 shall follow this forthwith by the joint use of their military 
 forces against that nation if it actually goes to war, or com- 
 mits acts of hostility, against another of the signatories before 
 any question arising shall be dealt with as provided in the 
 foregoing.'* 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 155 
 
 II 
 
 Referendum Number Eleven 
 report of the special committee on 
 results of the war and american 
 business 
 
 September 2, 1915. 
 
 To the Board of Directors of the Cham- 
 ber of Commerce of the United 
 States : 
 
 All Americans are profoundly moved by 
 the war, whether viewed from its moral or 
 material aspects. Especially is this true 
 of American business men who, through 
 their business relations, are closely in 
 touch with the actual conditions in Eu- 
 rope. Moreover, the knowledge that war 
 fundamentally injures the business struc- 
 ture and the trained power of the success- 
 ful business men to accomplish results 
 has created in them the will for more last- 
 ing peace. 
 
156 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 This will is not the creation of this war 
 alone. United States business men had 
 put such strength and efficiency into an 
 International Chamber of Commerce 
 that, in June, 1914, at Paris, the Inter- 
 national Chamber of Commerce voted to 
 submit a business question of interna- 
 tional interest to a referendum, thus be- 
 ginning the movement to develop a world- 
 wide consensus of matured business opin- 
 ion and to secure international agreement 
 and legislation on disputed, wrongly 
 settled, or unsettled commercial ques- 
 tions. As the membership reached in this 
 interchange of views included the repre- 
 sentatives of almost every business men's 
 association in every important commer- 
 cial country in the world, and as commerce 
 and markets underlie many of the more 
 talked of ' ' causes of the war, " it is clear 
 that the business men of the United 
 States were, before the present war, work- 
 ing in the right direction for more lasting 
 peace. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 157 
 
 HISTORICAL STATEMENT 
 
 At the last convention of the Chamber 
 of Commerce of the United States, in 
 Washington, in January, 1915, a resolution 
 was offered by a delegate — ^the represent- 
 ative of the Advertising Clubs of Amer- 
 ica — ^urging that the power of inter- 
 national commerce and finance, applied 
 as economic pressure, be employed to 
 compel nations to bring their differences 
 before an international tribunal before 
 going to war. 
 
 In 1907, at the Hague International 
 Conference, forty-four of the civilised na- 
 tions of the world agreed on the necessity 
 of an international tribunal to deal with 
 international differences. 
 
 In 1912 the International Congress of 
 Chambers of Commerce, made up of 
 delegates representing the principal organ- 
 isations of business men of all the civilised 
 countries of the world, voted unanimously 
 in favour of arbitration for the settlement 
 of international disputes. 
 
158 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 In the spring of 1915 your committee 
 was appointed by the Directors of the 
 Chamber of Commerce of the United 
 States to examine into the relations be- 
 tween the present war and business and 
 submit suggestions as to the future. 
 
 Accordingly your committee has stud- 
 ied the question carefully and canvassed 
 many of the best minds in this country 
 and in Europe. Early in June of this 
 year a large number of representative 
 business men and leaders in professional 
 life met in Cleveland in a W^orld's Court 
 Congress. Some of your committee at- 
 tended this meeting. Its sentiment was 
 unanimous in recognition of the need of 
 developing more definite law in inter- 
 national relations. To that end it de- 
 clared strongly in favour of an interna- 
 tional tribunal, with the support of inter- 
 national police power. 
 
 On June 17 your committee met in 
 Philadelphia, concurrently with a meet- 
 ing of distinguished Americans in Inde- 
 
BLOCKCNG NEW WARS 159 
 
 pendence Hall, and participated as in- 
 dividuals in the meetings of the League 
 to Enforce Peace. Here again the senti- 
 ment was overwhelming for the suprem- 
 acy of law in the relations between na- 
 tions, and the following resolutions were 
 adopted : 
 
 First: All justiciable questions arising 
 between the signatory powers, not settled 
 by negotiation, shall, subject to the limita- 
 tions of treaties, be submitted to a judi- 
 cial tribunal for hearing and judgment, 
 both upon the merits and upon any issue 
 as to its jurisdiction of the question. 
 
 Second: All other questions arising be- 
 tween the signatories and not settled by 
 negotiation shall be submitted to a Coun- 
 cil of Conciliation for hearing, considera- 
 tion and recommendation. 
 
 Third: The signatory powers shall 
 jointly use forthwith both their economic 
 and military forces against any one of 
 their number that goes to war, or com- 
 mits acts of hostility, against another of 
 
160 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the signatories before any question arising 
 shall be submitted as provided in the fore- 
 going. 
 
 Fourth: Conferences between the sig- 
 natory powers shall be held from time to 
 time to formulate and codify rules of inter- 
 national law, which, unless some signa- 
 tory shall signify its dissent within a 
 stated period, shall thereafter govern in 
 the decisions of the Judicial Tribunal 
 mentioned in Article One. 
 
 From a number of other countries come 
 reports of similar meetings with similar 
 expressions of opinions. Thus it became 
 evident to your committee that the best 
 thought of the world was nearing agree- 
 ment on what should be done better to 
 safeguard the interests now subject to 
 injury by war. This consensus of opin- 
 ion was well expressed in a statement 
 issued from a conservative source last 
 June — one of our largest and most success- 
 ful banks — ^which reads in part as follows: 
 
 "The occasion (of the sinking of the 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 161 
 
 Lusitania) illustrates the want of the 
 civilised world for a duly constituted 
 authority for determining and defining 
 international law under all the changing 
 conditions of modern life and warfare. 
 It may be that it is too much to hope 
 for, that in this or near generations war 
 can be altogether prevented; it may be 
 that for a long time to come great racial 
 and national impulses will occasionally 
 break through all restraints that may be 
 contrived and all agreements that in- 
 dividuals of passing authority may formu- 
 late and insist upon fighting out mat- 
 ters of fundamental concern. . . . The 
 United States has always stood, as a mat- 
 ter of principle, for the broadest possible 
 interpretation of the rights of neutrals 
 and non-combatants in time of war. This 
 policy has been determined upon the 
 theory that it is in the interest of civil- 
 isation and for the good of mankind that 
 the area of war operations shall be cir- 
 cumscribed as much as possible, and the 
 
162 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 rights of neutrals and non-combatants 
 protected and enlarged. In time of peace 
 this principle must command general ap- 
 proval, but in time of war, when nations 
 are fighting, as they believe, for their 
 existence, any change of conditions that 
 may be held to affect the application of 
 international law is seized upon by the 
 combatants. The trouble then is that 
 international law rests upon common con- 
 sent, and there is not even a recognised 
 authority to say what it is with relation 
 to new conditions that arise. Private 
 war, the settlement of property disputes 
 by force, and of questions of honour by the 
 duel, have been done away with by the 
 creation of a body of law and the estab- 
 lishment of tribunals to try the causes 
 that may arise. There is no humiliation 
 or disgrace in submitting to the determi- 
 nation of a duly constituted court, even 
 though the defeated party feels that jus- 
 tice in his case has not been done. The 
 essential thing is that order shall be main- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 163 
 
 tained and that rights shall be determined, 
 not by the power of force, but by rules 
 of equity impartially administered. 
 
 '*In the international field there re- 
 mains the risk that the parties to a dis- 
 pute, jealous of their rights, fearful of 
 the results of precedent, sensitive as to 
 national honour, swayed by the emotions 
 or interests of the hour, may take posi- 
 tions from which retreat upon either side 
 seems to be impossible, and so drift into 
 war, although neither side desires it. The 
 civilised world is supremely interested in 
 the maintenance of order; the first condi- 
 tion of this is good understanding, and 
 nothing will contribute so much to it as 
 an agreed method of determining what is 
 right in cases of dispute according to 
 principles accepted and defined so far as 
 possible in time of peace. ' ' 
 
 As business men, we cannot fail to fore- 
 see that, if this war is settled as all pre- 
 vious wars have been, without providing 
 for the *'duly constituted authority," 
 
164 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 there will be added to its enormous 
 charges the still greater continuous 
 charges due to rivalry in armaments and 
 other preparations for the ''next settle- 
 ment." Under such conditions, we are 
 forced to believe that the European na- 
 tions, after the war, will be faced with the 
 insistent need for re-establishing their in- 
 dustries at almost any sacrifice in order 
 to keep up in the race for armaments 
 and to obtain means of settling their 
 debts so as to keep their credit good for 
 the next war. Predictions by students of 
 affairs abeady abound that these necessi- 
 ties will cause them to make sacrifices of 
 natural profits, lower their scale of living, 
 and so create competition of unexampled 
 severity — ^a competition which also would 
 be particularly ominous for our higher- 
 wage market, that so far has suffered least. 
 
 FACTORS TO BE FACED 
 
 Whether this reasoning be sound or not, 
 the certain factors that we have to face 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 165 
 
 in the event of an unsatisfactory settle- 
 ment in Europe will be: 
 
 1. A reduction of purchasing power in 
 Europe and indirect reduction thereby of 
 purchasing power in other countries; for 
 instance, if Brazil cannot sell as much 
 cofifee to Europe her purchasing power in 
 other countries will be proportionally 
 limited. <^ 
 
 2. A shortage of the world's available 
 capital due, (a) to sheer destruction, (b) 
 to the great uncertainty as to the future, 
 (c) to the need for settling certain of the 
 war debts, and (d) preparing for further 
 war — ^the whole tending to raise the price 
 of capital the world over and limit notably 
 its employment in the newer countries. 
 
 3. A decline in the European standard 
 of living and perhaps of wages, rendering 
 possible a low-priced production, which 
 will create a costly world-wide disturb- 
 ance of industrial conditions. 
 
 4. Increasing hostile protective tariffs 
 on the part of the fighting countries. 
 
166 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 due, first to a desire to find a source of 
 taxation, and secondly to the desire to 
 make the country imposing it as self- 
 sufficing as possible in manufactures and 
 food, as a military measure. 
 
 Should a period of unrest and uncer- 
 tainty follow an unsettling ' ' settlement, ' ' 
 the United States will not be free to de- 
 termine what increase, if any, she will 
 I make in her armaments, but may be 
 forced into an abnormally great increase, 
 with correspondingly abnormal tax and 
 / other burdens. 
 
 The possibility of a growing revolution- 
 ary spirit in Europe, due to very seriously 
 increased burdens on the masses, with 
 reactions on certain sections of American 
 labour, is not to be disregarded. 
 
 FIVE SPECIFIC PROPOSALS 
 
 In any case it is obvious that America 
 will be very seriously affected by the char- 
 acter of the settlement arrived at in Eu- 
 rope. Your committee, therefore, favours 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 167 
 
 calling upon Congress and the President 
 to do all in their power to promote the 
 establismentof: 
 
 1. A More Comprehensive and Better^ 
 Defined Sea Law, 
 
 £. An International Com*t, 
 
 3. A Council of Conciliation, 
 
 4. Liternational Conferences for the 
 better .establishment and progressive 
 amendment of international law. 
 
 5. The organisation of a System of 
 Commercial and Financial Non-Inter- 
 course to be followed by military force if 
 necessary, to be applied to those nations 
 entering into the foregoing arrangements 
 and then going to war without first sub- 
 mitting their differences to an agreed- 
 upon tribunal. 
 
 RECOMMENDATION ONE 
 
 A More Comprehensive and Better-Defined 
 Sea Law 
 At best, sea law during war has always 
 been poorly defined. Many of the causes 
 
168 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 of friction between belligerents and neu- 
 trals have been due not so much to wilful 
 disregard by belligerents of neutral rights 
 as to honest differences in appraising 
 them. The understandings of one period 
 have become confused by new inventions, 
 new conditions. The international con- 
 ferences which from time to time have 
 undertaken more clearly to bring the na- 
 tions into agreement respecting the rights 
 of persons and property at sea have met 
 irregularly, and their recommendations 
 have had no binding force. There is 
 need of a legislative body to frame agree- 
 ments on such law; there is need of just 
 interpretation of this sea law, which 
 means an international court; and there 
 is need of a method of compelling respect 
 for the court's decision, which means find- 
 ing something better as a way of enforc- 
 ing international law than taking sides in 
 a war in which both sides may be violat- 
 ing the law. The present war with the 
 losses of lives and property of Americans 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 169 
 
 has fundamentally emphasised these 
 needs. 
 
 RECOMMENDATION TWO 
 
 An International Court 
 
 When citizens disagree, the state pro- 
 vides courts to mete out justice. When 
 two or more of our states or of citizens 
 in different states disagree, the United 
 States maintains courts for the same pur- 
 pose. It is no more logical or right for 
 nations with differences to resort at once 
 to war than it would be for two men who 
 have failed to settle a private difference 
 to draw pistols and begin to shoot. 
 
 The problem of securing peace and jus- 
 tice among nations is simply an extension 
 of what we have successfully solved in the 
 national and municipal realms. It is not 
 without significance in this connection 
 that forty-four of the principal nations 
 of the world had, seven years before the 
 war, agreed in principle to the establish- 
 
170 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 ment <rf a W'orld's G)urt of Arbitral 
 Justice, diflFering only over details. 
 Since 1907, however, there has been much 
 study erf details, and with the compul- 
 skm of the experience of this war added 
 it is now beheved that the difficulties 
 they presented can more readily be over- 
 
 RECOMMENDATION THREE 
 
 A Council of Conciliation 
 
 There are questions that cannot be de- 
 cided by the strict rule of law. Among 
 nations questions of honour and questions 
 of policy are usually reserved from arbi- 
 tration. We should not, for example, 
 arbitrate the Monroe Doctrine or submit 
 to a court our right to say whether or not 
 we might exclude or restrict immigration. 
 But before nations shall fight over such 
 questions, bringing damage on all, it is 
 fair to neutrals that they should be given 
 a chance to ascertain the facts and, if 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 171 
 
 possible, help to a peaceful solution. The 
 delay incident to such efforts toward con- 
 ciliation may serve as a preventive of 
 war. 
 
 RECOMMENDATION FOUR 
 
 International Conferences for the Better 
 Establishment and Progressive Amend- 
 ment of International Law 
 
 Along many lines already world forces 
 have been working for many years 
 through international conferences to pro- 
 mote a better understanding among na- 
 tions, establish more firmly enlightened 
 standards to govern their inter-relations 
 and furnish a body of international law. 
 
 A number of general conferences were 
 started by international meetings before 
 the nineteenth century, but more regular 
 meetings were organised since then. Those 
 conferences met at Vienna (1815), Paris 
 (1856), Berlin (1878 and 1885), Algeciras 
 (1906), London (1912). Successively m- 
 
17« BLOCKING NT^^ ^^AKS 
 
 tematiniMJ conferences na\ e condemned 
 afatvety, regulated iia\ngatioii on intar* 
 national riv<»s, sopisressed privatemiig» 
 prodaimed the right of men to their lan- 
 guage and religion in nations composed 
 of pec^le of diff^^^it natioDalities, a|^>lied 
 the {H-incipIe of opca door to the Congo 
 Basin and Morocco, guaranteed the ri^t 
 of badcward peoples. 
 
 Besides these conferences which had 
 spedfinaQy a more European character, 
 except those of Berlin (18S5) and Alge- 
 dras (1906), in whidi the United States of 
 America also participwited, numerous offi- 
 ce oonf«rcaices with a more technical 
 aim have been held mainly during the 
 last fifty years. About sixty difl[er»it 
 m att ers ba^e be« discussed by the most 
 ocHnpetent men of the world in the most 
 varied domains of human acti\'ity. Nine* 
 teen permanent bureaus and offices have 
 been organised of which two at least, the 
 International Postal Office at Berne and 
 the International Institute of Agriailturc 
 
BLOCKING NEW WABS 178 
 
 at Rome, are supported by all the civil- 
 ised states of the world. 
 
 An enumeration of the main questions 
 considered will show how far-reaching is 
 the work already performed. They are in 
 part: publication of customs tariffs, sugar 
 production and exportation, contraband 
 of arms to backward peoples, importation 
 of alcohol into Africa, slave trade, white- 
 slave traffic, preservation of animal s Tseal, 
 fishes, birds, etc.), suppression of opium 
 traffic, propagation of phylloxera, imifi- 
 cation of weights and measures, railroad 
 transportation, postal, telegraphic and 
 radiotel^raphic relations, protection of 
 submarine cables, regulation of maritime 
 signals and roads, workingmen's protec- 
 tion, exchange <rf scientific and public 
 pubUcations and of artistic reproductions, 
 unification of private and commercial leg- 
 islation, protection of patents and trade- 
 marks, unification of commercial statis- 
 tics, geodetic and seismologic researches, 
 exploration of the seas, pubUcation erf the 
 
174 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 map of the world. This movement to- 
 ward international agreement and law 
 was gaining in strength each year. Stop- 
 ped by the war, there is little doubt that 
 it will revive stronger and pursue its 
 course in a more regular and systematic 
 way when the war is over. Business men 
 perhaps more than others should be anx- 
 ious to support such endeavours for a bet- 
 ter understanding among nations estab- 
 lishing more firmly enlightened standards 
 to govern their inter-relations and fur- 
 nishing a more elaborate and organic 
 body of international public and adminis- 
 trative law. The present war has again 
 incontrovertibly shown the fundamental 
 need for this. The problem is, then, not 
 new or novel, but needs only to be broad- 
 ened and organised to yield all the desired 
 benefits. 
 
 RECOMMENDATION FIVE 
 
 The organisation of a System of Com- 
 mercial and Financial Non-Inter- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 175 
 
 course, to be followed by military force 
 if necessary, to be applied to those na- 
 tions entering into the foregoing ar- 
 rangements and then going to war with- 
 out first submitting their differences to 
 
 an agreed upon tribunal. 
 There is a difference of opinion as to the 
 employment of force to compel any signa- 
 tory nation to submit its cause to an inter- 
 national tribunal before going to war. 
 Your committee, however, believes that 
 the great majority of the practical men 
 of the United States who hold themselves 
 responsible for reasonable progress see the 
 necessity of the employment of an ade- 
 quate pressure or force to compel signa- 
 tory nations to bring their cause before 
 an International Court or Council of 
 Conciliation before going to war; because, 
 however desirable it may be theoretically 
 not to use force, yet the history of the 
 last one hundred years, the many wars 
 during that time and the events of the 
 present war have made apparent the 
 
176 BLOCKGSTG NEW WARS 
 
 fundamental need of an international 
 power to enforce the submission of inter- 
 national disputes to a court. The alter- 
 native is constantly recurring wars and, 
 in the interval between these wars, the 
 increasing absorption in preparations for 
 war of the resources of the principal na- 
 tions of the world. 
 
 Your committee does not suggest that 
 the world can do without armies. We do 
 not think that it can, at the present stage 
 of civilisation, any more than we can do 
 without a militia. But just as, within 
 the state, there are many things we use, 
 besides the militia and before we use the 
 state militia or call upon Federal troops 
 for the enforcement of a law or the execu- 
 tion of a court's judgment, so there are 
 forces we can use internationally before 
 we employ our armies and navies. 
 
 These forces can be summarised in the 
 term economic pressure, by which we 
 mean the commercial and financial boy- 
 cott of any nation that goes to war with- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 177 
 
 out submitting its dispute to judgment or 
 inquiry. Our plea is that in the first 
 instance the use of economic force is 
 clearly indicated, and that military force 
 should be resorted to only if economic 
 pressure prove ineffective. 
 
 In considering such a use of economic 
 pressure, it should be borne in mind that 
 it already, comes to pass automatically 
 within a more limited area when nations 
 go to war. Warring nations promptly 
 boycott each other. This is important to 
 keep in mind because confusion on this 
 point sometimes prompts the argument 
 that ** non-intercourse would be a more 
 expensive weapon than war," as though 
 the fact of going to war in some way 
 avoided non-intercourse. What your 
 committee really means by its recommen- 
 dation is that, in the future, arrangements 
 for international enforcement of the eco- 
 nomic boycott should be organised on a 
 world-wide scale, and that in these world- 
 wide arrangements nations better fitted 
 
178 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 to co-operate with economic than with 
 military power could also have a part in 
 the application of the pressure needed to 
 preserve the world's prosperity and prog- 
 ress. 
 
 The boycott could be of progressive 
 severity. In the first, and what would 
 probably usually be the eflPective stage, 
 the signatory nations would refuse to buy 
 from or sell to the offending nation. If 
 the offenses, however, were aggravated 
 and persistent, all intercourse could be 
 suspended, and if that proved insufficient, 
 then, as the last step, recourse could be 
 taken to military force. 
 
 It is the deterrent effect of organised 
 non-intercourse which would make war 
 less likely, since it would be a terrible 
 penalty to incur and one more difficult in 
 a sense to fight against than military 
 measures. Further, its systematic organ- 
 isation would tend to make any subse- 
 quent military action by the co-operating 
 nations more effective. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 179 
 
 Many states that, for various reasons, 
 might not be able to co-operate with mili- 
 tary force could co-operate by their eco- 
 nomic force, and so render the action 
 against the offending state more effective, 
 and that, in the end, would be more hu- 
 mane. 
 
 It is argued that this plan is a two-edged 
 weapon Jikely to injure ourselves as much 
 as the nation at which it is aimed. In 
 other words, it is costly, but is not all 
 punishment costly .^^ War, too, is costly, 
 and self -injurious to the nation which 
 essays it. Is not the whole system of 
 peace within the state based on the prin- 
 ciple that we are prepared to pay for the 
 prevention of law-breaking.^ In a choice 
 of costs, the policy of wisdom is to choose 
 that which, for the least outlay, promises 
 the greatest return. Our proposition im- 
 plies that the coercing members shall out- 
 weigh the members to be coerced. In 
 that case the cost would be distributed 
 and the mutual markets conserved. And 
 
180 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 if the war would finally prove inevitable, 
 the expense of the boycott could be re- 
 garded merely as a part of its necessary 
 preparation, by shortening the strictly 
 military stage just so much. 
 
 It may be contended that it would be 
 to locate the responsibility of an oflfend- 
 ing nation soon and clearly enough to 
 insure a just and probably effective use 
 of economic pressure before war had be- 
 gun. But in dealing with individuals the 
 police power leaves decisions to the court. 
 Nations submitting their differences to an 
 established tribunal for conciliation or 
 judgment before going to war would not 
 come under the proposed plan of pressure. 
 It would apply automatically to all other 
 signatory nations. 
 
 To the contention that the plan would 
 bear with undue hardship upon indi- 
 viduals of special trades and industries, 
 it may be replied that so does war. Your 
 committee thinks it would be easier to 
 prevent that special distress during non- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 181 
 
 intercourse than in the event of war. 
 The experience of the combatants of this 
 war is particularly enlightening on this 
 point. On the morrow of the declaration 
 of war, many credit institutions in Eng- 
 land (the same thing was true of Ger- 
 many) found themselves threatened with 
 what would have been, in the absence of 
 special- measures, absolute ruin. But 
 special measures were taken, and the 
 government successfully used its power to 
 prevent all the effects of the war falling 
 upon any one class of the community. 
 
 The objection that past embargoes were 
 ineffective, notably the Berlin and Milan 
 decrees of the Napoleonic wars, over- 
 looks the immense difference in the char- 
 acter and importance of international in- 
 tercourse in those times and now. If, a 
 hundred years ago, a capital were isolated 
 for weeks, business elsewhere went on 
 either unaware or almost unconcerned, 
 but the sudden isolation of the capitals of 
 Europe in August, 1914, compelled prac- 
 
182 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 tically every government in the world in- 
 stantly to take extraordinary measures to 
 reorganise its whole commercial and finan- 
 cial life. The swiftness and intricacy of 
 modern interrelations give to their inter- 
 ruption a drastic and far-reaching eflfect 
 formerly unknown. 
 
 Had such a plan to put compulsion 
 automatically into effect been in existence 
 during the tense weeks just prior to last 
 summer's declarations of war, your' com- 
 mittee believes delay might have been 
 secured for a conference, and the war per- 
 haps averted. 
 
 If military force is to be used between 
 nations, it is incomparably preferable that 
 it shall be used for the enforcement of 
 recognised international law, which ulti- 
 mately would, by this means, replace war. 
 
 Your committee has studied sympa- 
 thetically the arguments of those who 
 on principle oppose all force, even to en- 
 force law instead of war; likewise the 
 argument of those who respect the tradi- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 183 
 
 tion that the United States should ''keep 
 free of entangHng aUiances. ' ' It must be 
 conceded that the latter describes a past 
 policy under which our nation has grown 
 in prosperity and happiness. But your 
 committee is forced to see that our coun- 
 try is already directly involved in the 
 present war, because the lives and pros- 
 perity of American citizens have been 
 involved, and because the future peace 
 and prosperity of our country will be in- 
 volved in the settlement of the war. 
 
 Your committee believes that American 
 citizens, realising the world's imperative 
 need of the substitution of law for war, if 
 militarism is not to dominate, are ready, 
 nay, fael it the clear call of duty, to take 
 their share of the work and responsibility 
 necessary to establish this substitution. 
 We cannot escape if we would. We would 
 not if we could. The call of women and 
 children, of the helpless and the weak, 
 suffering indescribably from needless war, 
 is an irresistible compulsion to all Amer- 
 
184 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 icans, and not least to American business 
 men. 
 
 Knowing that civilisation is made up of 
 the work and suffering and martyrdoms 
 of the past, we are willing, yes, anxious, 
 to ' *pay back ' ' in kind, if necessary, what 
 we are enjoying, if thereby we can help 
 on this greatest forward step of civilisa- 
 tion — ^the substitution of law for war. 
 
 OPPORTUNITY FOR UNITED STATES TO 
 INFLUENCE SETTLEMENT 
 
 Your committee believes that the time 
 is ripe as never before for the fundamental 
 advance in civilisation that the establish- 
 ing of an International Court and Council 
 represents. We know that the hope and 
 the best and sanest thiuking of the world 
 have been in that direction. It is the 
 inevitable road forward as shown by the 
 agreement of forty-four nations. But 
 never before has the will for it been made 
 so powerful as it has been made by the 
 present war. Not only in the neutral na- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 185 
 
 tions, but also in some of the fighting 
 nations, the will for more permanent 
 peace after this war has been greatly 
 strengthened. The most important of the 
 fighting nations are reiterating that they 
 are fighting for it as a chief purpose. 
 
 Moreover, even the selfish interests of 
 the fighting nations will compel them, at 
 the close of the war, to favour the greatest 
 practical substitution of law for war by 
 the creation of international tribunals. 
 For the alternative will be the constant 
 danger that existing alliances may be 
 undermined even by differences over the 
 terms of settlement themselves with re- 
 sults similar to those that caused the sec- 
 ond Balkan war, or undermined by con- 
 flicting national interests and purposes in 
 the years succeeding the war. The time 
 must inevitably come when the world 
 will provide some better method than 
 war for dealing with the questions that 
 arise between nations. Your committee 
 believe that it is practically possible that 
 
186 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 the time has arrived, if the United States 
 will but do its share of the work. There 
 is little real hope for success if the United 
 States is not a part of it. For it is being 
 demonstrated by this war that success 
 in modern war depends largely on ade- 
 quate supplies of ammunition and other 
 war materials. Of these, the United 
 States is capable of the largest and least 
 interrupted production. If, at the close 
 of the war, there exists the legalised pur- 
 pose of the United States to join in the 
 work needed to enforce peace, there will 
 be a most practical reason to expect suc- 
 cess for this so necessary step forward. In 
 fact the beginning of the necessary organ- 
 isation may be in existence at that time 
 by reason of agreements between the 
 United States and some of the neutral 
 nations of South America and Europe. 
 It is a great opportunity, perhaps the 
 greatest that has ever come to any na- 
 tion. It is a great adventure, practically 
 within our power to promote — an enter- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 187 
 
 prise that appeals to all that is best in 
 us — an opportunity we will not miss. 
 
 Edward A. Filene, Chairman. 
 P. H. Gadsden, 
 Edward Hidden, 
 Herbert S. Houston, 
 H. A. Meldrum, 
 George E. Roberts, 
 
 Paul H. Saunders. 
 
 ■ ■' ^ 
 
 Arguments Against Certain Committee 
 Recommendations 
 
 October 20, 1915. 
 To the Board of Directors of the Chamber 
 of Commerce of the United States : 
 
 In obedience to the resolution of your 
 Board, by which the report of the Special 
 Committee on Economic Results of the 
 War and American Business was ordered 
 submitted to a referendum vote, to be 
 accompanied with arguments against 
 recommendations involved, and by which 
 the undersigned were appointed a com- 
 
188 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 mittee of your Board with power to ap- 
 prove the report and arguments for such 
 submission, we now have the honour to 
 submit the following: 
 
 First, The Special Committee's report 
 itself contains the arguments in favour of 
 the recommendations, and we have 
 thought it unwise to attempt to add any- 
 thing further. 
 
 Second, Some considerations in opposi- 
 tion which may be deserving of attention 
 are contained in the following statement: 
 
 (a) It is assumed that the first four 
 proposals of the Committee are directed 
 to conditions so well understood, and that 
 the agreement about the answers to them 
 is so nearly universal, as to render unneces- 
 sary any attempt to formulate objec- 
 tions to them. 
 
 (b) Doubt will probably arise with re- 
 spect to the fifth proposal, which involves 
 the adoption of a new principle, and which, 
 however moderate in its immediate form, 
 may be regarded as a departure from ac- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 189 
 
 cepted rules of conduct in international 
 law. 
 
 In connection with this last proposal, 
 the following objections may be deserving 
 of attention: 
 
 1. Doubt is entertained as to the wis- 
 dom of having the Chamber of Commerce 
 of the United States take any action upon 
 this question at this time. While this 
 question is now the subject of quite gen- 
 eral discussion in this country, it does not 
 follow that in view of prevailing condi- 
 tions it is advisable to take action with 
 respect to it. 
 
 2. Opponents to the employment of 
 force under any and all circumstances will 
 need no suggestions. The recommenda- 
 tion simply invites the application of a 
 general principle to a particular situation. 
 
 3. Altogether different is the attitude of 
 those of our citizens who adhere to the 
 traditional policy that we should avoid 
 foreign entanglements, who look with dis- 
 favour upon any unnecessary enlargement 
 
190 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 of our army and navy, and who feel that 
 we could not recommend to other nations 
 what we hesitate, or are unwilling, to 
 undertake ourselves. 
 
 An affirmative answer to this proposal 
 necessarily involves a readiness on our 
 part to assume the full responsibility of 
 active participation with economic and 
 military force in compelling submission of 
 questions. Inasmuch as a league without 
 the membership of at least several of the 
 other first-class nations can hardly be con- 
 templated, an affirmative answer would 
 mean a state of constant preparedness for 
 military action in foreign countries, which 
 has so far been unknown in our country. 
 
 4. The proposed agreement to resort 
 to commercial and financial non-inter- 
 course with an ofifending nation is subject 
 to a peculiar difficulty. In an undertak- 
 ing to employ military force, it may be 
 assumed that an approximate apportion- 
 ment of responsibility betw^een the several 
 members of a league may be provided for. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 191 
 
 Even here the difficulties may be great 
 when it comes to consider questions of 
 command, and, more particularly, to de- 
 termine the elements of cost and effec- 
 tiveness, owing to varying geographical 
 conditions and different branches of serv- 
 ice represented by armies and navies. 
 
 No such basis for apportionment is to 
 be found when it comes to the employ- 
 ment of economic force expressed in com- 
 mercial non-intercourse. When such a 
 measure is employed, it is not inconceiv- 
 able that a single nation may be compelled 
 to bear substantially the entire cost of the 
 undertaking. And it is beyond the possi- 
 bility of chance that the commercial rela- 
 tions between the several members of a 
 league and the offending nation would be 
 such as to furnish the basis for their pro- 
 portionate contribution to the enforce- 
 ment of their order. In other words, 
 every nation — ^party to such a league — 
 would have to be prepared to risk, or 
 sacrifice for the time, its entire trade with 
 
192 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 an oflfending nation, even though other 
 members of the league suffered no corre- 
 sponding loss. 
 
 This very inequality invites considera- 
 tion of self-interest and consequent an- 
 tagonisms, which it is impossible to antic- 
 ipate beyond mere suggestion. 
 
 5. Finally, the recommendation as- 
 sumes the possibility of having the deci- 
 sions and conduct of such a league regu- 
 lated by equitable rules, impartially and 
 disinterestedly carried out. It is true 
 that the proposal contemplates nothing 
 more than the insistence that every mem- 
 ber of the league before going to war shall 
 submit its questions to a council for hear- 
 ing, consideration and recommendation. 
 In its purpose the recommendation is ex- 
 tremely moderate. Will it rest there .'^ 
 
 Power to coerce by economic or military 
 force once created is apt to be employed. 
 The proposed league is almost sure to 
 have within itself the elements of separate 
 combinations based upon distinct inter- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 193 
 
 ests and aims. The opportunities for the 
 exercise of such power are innumerable. 
 They may find occasion in the circum- 
 stances under which controversies be- 
 tween nations arise or are induced, in the 
 manner in which disputes are submitted 
 and determined, and, above all, in the 
 effect that will be given by a majority 
 of a league to a council's recommenda- 
 tion, however arrived at. It is not clear 
 that a powerful league would rest con- 
 tent with the moral influence of the pro- 
 posed council's advice. 
 
 In other words, the question is whether 
 the proposed employment of force for 
 peace is not more apt to increase than to 
 decrease disorder — ^not unlike so many 
 of our more modern legislative enact- 
 ments. 
 
 Joseph H. Defrees, Chairman. 
 Howell Cheney, 
 John Joy Edson, 
 Charles Nagel, 
 R. G. Rhett. 
 
Referendum Number Eleven 
 
 ECONOMIC results OF THE WAR AND 
 AMERICAN BUSINESS 
 
 n 
 
 Early in 1915 the Board of Directors 
 of the Chamber authorised the President 
 to appoint a special Committee to prepare 
 a report on the economic results of the 
 war and American business. Such a 
 Committee was at once named and after 
 careful study and investigation submitted 
 a report which, pursuant to direction 
 from the Board of Directors, was sub- 
 mitted to referendum on November 15, 
 1915. 
 
 Six recommendations were placed be- 
 fore the membership of the Chamber. 
 Under the By-laws the vote closed at 
 midnight on December 30, 1915, when 282 
 organisations had filed ballots. These 
 194 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 195 
 
 organisations are situated in 40 states, 
 the District of Columbia and Hawaii. 
 The American Chambers of Commerce 
 in BerHn and Milan were among those 
 which voted. 
 
 In the balloting each organisation 
 casts as many votes as it may have dele- 
 gates at an annual meeting of the Cham- 
 ber. The number of delegates an organ- 
 isation may have depends upon the num- 
 ber of its members, but in no case falls 
 below one or exceeds ten. 
 
 The recommendations of the Commit- 
 tee and the results of the balloting on each 
 recommendation were as follows: 
 
 I. The Committee recommended ac- 
 tion to secure conferences among neutral 
 countries, on the initiative of the United 
 States, for the purpose of defining and 
 enunciating rules which will at all times 
 give due protection to life and property 
 upon the high seas. 
 
 763 votes in favour, 29 votes opposed 
 
196 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 II. The Committee recommended that 
 for the decision of questions which arise 
 between nations and which can be re- 
 solved upon the appHcation of established 
 rules or upon a determination of facts the 
 United States should take the initiative in 
 joining with other nations in establishing 
 an International Court. 
 
 7 58 votes in favour , 21 votes opposed 
 
 III. The Committee recommended that 
 for consideration of questions which arise 
 between nations and which do not depend 
 upon established rules or upon facts which 
 can be determined by an International 
 Court the United States should take the 
 initiative in joining with other nations 
 in establishing a Council of Conciliation. 
 
 74-4 votes in favour^ 28 votes opposed 
 
 IV. The Committee recommended that 
 the United States should take the initia- 
 tive in joining with other nations in agree- 
 ing to bring concerted economic pressure 
 to bear upon any nation or nations which 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 197 
 
 resort to military measures without sub- 
 mitting their differences to an Interna- 
 tional Court or a Council of Conciliation, 
 and awaiting the decision of the Court or 
 the recommendation of the Council, as 
 circumstances make the more appropriate. 
 556 votes in favour, 157 votes opposed 
 
 V. The Committee recommended that 
 the United States take the initiative in 
 joining with other nations in agreeing 
 to use concerted military force in the 
 event that concerted economic pressure 
 exercised by the signatory nations is not 
 sufficient to compel nations which have 
 proceeded to war to desist from military 
 operations and submit the questions at 
 issue to an International Court or a Coun- 
 cil of Conciliation, as circumstances make 
 the more appropriate. 
 
 Jlf52 votes in favour, 2It9 votes opposed 
 
 VI. The Committee recommended that 
 the United States should take the initia- 
 tive in establishing the principle of fre- 
 
198 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 quent international conferences at ex- 
 pressly stated intervals for the progressive 
 amendment of international law. 
 768 votes in favour, 13 votes opposed 
 
 The attitude of the Chamber, under the 
 provisions of the By-laws, can be j&xed 
 only by two-thirds of the votes cast, con- 
 sequently Referendum No. 11 has defined 
 the attitude of the Chamber in favor of all 
 the recommendations of the Committee 
 except Number 5, on the use of military 
 force in the event that concerted eco- 
 nomic pressure should not be suflficient. 
 Less than two-thirds of the total number 
 of votes cast were in favour of this recom- 
 mendation. 
 
m 
 
 Referendum Number Twenty-three 
 
 on a proposal to discriminate against 
 
 germany in trade after the war 
 
 if necessary for self-defence 
 
 statement of question 
 
 In accordance with Article X of the 
 By-laws of the Chamber, the Boston 
 Chamber of Commerce of Boston, Mass., 
 has presented for the consideration of 
 the National Chamber through refer- 
 endum vote of its members the question 
 of preventing excessive rearmament after 
 the war through discrimination against 
 Germany in export trade if necessary 
 to self-defence. The question is pre- 
 sented in the form of preambles and 
 resolution reading as follows : 
 199 
 
200 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 Whereas, The size of Germany's pres- 
 ent armament and her militaristic atti- 
 tude have been due to the fact that her 
 government is a miUtary autocracy, not 
 responsible to the German people; and 
 
 Whereas, The size of the German ar- 
 mament after the war will be the measure 
 of the greatness of the armament forced 
 on all nations; and 
 
 Whereas, Careful analysis of economic 
 conditions shows that the size of Ger- 
 many's future armament will fundamen- 
 tally depend on her after- war receipts of 
 raw materials and profits from her for- 
 eign trade; and 
 
 W^hereas, In our opinion the American 
 people for the purpose of preventing an 
 excessive armament will assuredly enter 
 an economic combination against Ger- 
 many if governmental conditions in Ger- 
 many make it necessary for self-defence; 
 and 
 
 W^hereas, We believe the American 
 people will not join in discrimination 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 201 
 
 against German goods after the war if 
 the danger of excessive armament has 
 been removed by the fact that the Ger- 
 man Government has in reahty become a 
 responsible instrument controlled by the 
 German people; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That the Chamber of Com- 
 merce of the United States of America 
 earnestly calls the attention of the busi- 
 ness men of Germany to these conditions 
 and urges them also to study this situa- 
 tion and to co-operate to the end that a 
 disastrous economic war may be averted 
 and that a lasting peace may be made 
 more certain. 
 
 The Board of Directors, meeting in 
 Washington, D. C, November 15, 1917, 
 held the question to be one of national 
 character and importance. The Boston 
 Chamber was, therefore, requested to 
 prepare the statement which an organisa- 
 tion member proposing a question for 
 referendum vote is entitled to submit. 
 
 This statement, entitled *' Affirmative 
 
202 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 Outline Presented by the Boston Cham- 
 ber of Commerce," is printed in the pam- 
 phlet issued by the Chamber of Com- 
 merce of the United States, and is fol- 
 lowed by an Appendix containing ex- 
 cerpts from the President's Address to 
 Congress, December 4, 1917. 
 
 Affirmative Outline 
 presented by 
 
 THE BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 
 
 The business men of the United States 
 know that, should the war end leaving the 
 present form of government in Germany, 
 a large part of every dollar given in trade 
 to Germany after the war would be used 
 again by the government to further im- 
 perial and military ends, just as the Ger- 
 man prosperity of the past has been used 
 in preparation for the present war. 
 
 Germany's ability to maintain and in- 
 crease her armaments after the war will 
 depend upon her success in getting raw 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 20S 
 
 materials and in re-establishing her for- 
 eign trade. Extensive armament on the 
 part of Germany would force the rest of 
 the world into the most burdensome 
 period of war preparation known in his- 
 tory. The United States, in common with 
 other nations, could not afford to do any- 
 thing which would advance Germany's 
 commercial success so long as a military 
 autocracy had the power to turn that 
 business success into a weapon against 
 them. 
 
 If the German Government remains 
 autocratic, self-preservation will force the 
 business men of the world to discriminate 
 against German business. It cannot be 
 otherwise, unless they are to be content 
 to see the whole fruits of industry and 
 toil absorbed by the maintenance of arma- 
 ments. We are convinced that the facts 
 of the situation prove this proposal to be 
 not only a sound, but an inevitable policy 
 on the part of the United States. 
 
«0I BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 WHY SUCH PRONOUNCEMENT AS IS CON- 
 TAINED IN THE RESOLUTION WILL 
 HAVE EFFECT^ IN GERMANY 
 
 There is direct evidence that the busi- 
 ness men of Germany are today thinking 
 of this war not only in terms of present 
 mihtary results, but in terms of future 
 business success as well. Recent dis- 
 patches, and information from other 
 sources, indicate that increasing attention 
 is being paid by the German newspapers 
 to the growing difficulties of re-establish- 
 ing German foreign trade after the war. 
 Evidence is increasing that German busi- 
 ness men are regarding with apprehension 
 the possibility that German goods will 
 find no market after the war in the ports 
 of her present enemies. They know that 
 no treaty provisions can give Germany 
 the willing custom of free men, without 
 which there can be no commercial suc- 
 cess. If a statement of future business 
 policy towards Germany can be made, 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 205 
 
 showing that the one thing that will go 
 farthest toward consolidating the rest 
 of the world in business opposition to 
 Germany after the war will be distrust 
 of any military autocracy, one of the most 
 powerful arguments will be placed in the 
 hands of German business men to join in 
 the demand for a greater share in the 
 control of their government. 
 
 The United States is one of the most 
 fruitful markets to which Germany can 
 look after the war. German business 
 men know that there will have been gene- 
 rated so much hatred and distrust in 
 England, France, and the nearby enemy 
 countries, that her trade with them will 
 be difficult for some time to come, what- 
 ever the settlement of the war may be. 
 But they may be thinking that our dis- 
 tance from the war zone, and our late 
 entrance into the war, will mean a less 
 intense feeling on our part. For this 
 reason they are looking with greater hope 
 toward re-establishing commercial rela- 
 
206 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 tions with us. If, therefore, American 
 business, in an authoritative way, makes 
 it clear that America, also, will be com- 
 pelled to join in business opposition to 
 an autocratic Germany, and if American 
 business makes it equally clear that 
 America will not wage a business war 
 against a Germany whose government is 
 responsible to the people, German busi- 
 ness men will have a strong motive for 
 urging a democratisation of the German 
 Government, as the only road to a success- 
 ful commercial future. 
 
 HOW SUCH A POLICY DIFFERS FROM A POL- 
 ICY OF REVENGE 
 
 This proposal must not be confused 
 with the numerous suggestions that have 
 been made for an economic combination 
 against Germany as a policy of revenge. 
 If the nations allied against Germany 
 say flatly and without qualification that 
 after the war they are going to unite to 
 prevent Germany from securing raw ma- 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS 207 
 
 terials and to hamper her trade, the log- 
 ical results will be a stiffening of the Ger- 
 man war spirit, and an increasing convic- 
 tion among Germans that, for them, this 
 is a war of defense. 
 
 The distinctive feature in the proposal 
 of this referendum is a recognition that, 
 under normal circumstances, business 
 boycotts and other artificial interference 
 with economic laws are unsound and in 
 the long run unprofitable to all concerned; 
 and a recognition that, if the German 
 Government is made responsible to the 
 German people, the rest of the world can 
 be measurably sure that German pros- 
 perity will not be used by German mili- 
 tary ambition. Sound business consider- 
 ation will then dictate a determined oppo- 
 sition to an economic war against Ger- 
 many purely as a matter of revenge. 
 
 This proposal is concerned only in mak- 
 ing clear to the business men of Germany 
 that a continuance of the present Ger- 
 man military autocracy will compel the 
 
208 BLOCKING NEW WARS 
 
 rest of the world to unite in a business 
 opposition to Germany as an act of self- 
 preservation. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL POSSIBILITIES OF GETTING 
 
 SUCH A STATEMENT INTO THE HANDS OF 
 
 GERMAN BUSINESS MEN 
 
 The difficulty of getting such a report 
 into the hands of German business men is 
 real but not insuperable. The following 
 possibilities are clear: 
 
 1. In spite of rigid censorship, a great deal 
 of news is getting into Germany from the 
 nearby neutral press. The papers of Switzer- 
 land, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, and other 
 neutral countries are getting into Germany 
 constantly. With this resolution published 
 in Switzerland alone, we could be practically 
 sure of its getting into the hands of German 
 business men. 
 
 2. There are throughout the neutral coun- 
 tries business men, members of the Inter- 
 national Congress of Chambers of Com- 
 merce and otherwise, who, if this resolution 
 were placed in their hands, would have many 
 opp>ortunities to discuss the matter with in- 
 dividual business men of Germany upon their 
 frequent visits to these neutraJ countries. 
 
BLOCKING NEW WARS £09 
 
 German business men are visiting Switzerland, 
 Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and other neu- 
 tral countries constantly. This word-of- 
 mouth communication of the report would 
 spread the idea widely. Our personal corre- 
 spondence with these neutral business men 
 would help greatly. 
 
 The business men of the United States 
 are effectively organising their collective 
 forces behind the army, but have not 
 yet made their after-the-war ideas clear 
 to the German business interests. A clear 
 statement of what the attitude of the 
 business men of the United States to- 
 ward Germany must be until the govern- 
 ment becomes responsible to its people, 
 will add yet another argument in the 
 case for a democratised Germany. We 
 believe with President Wilson that **the 
 world must be made safe for democracy, ' * 
 and we feel that in the future om* busi- 
 ness men cannot safely tolerate free com- 
 mercial intercourse with people who 
 choose to maintain a military autocracy. 
 December 20, 1917. 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 :^iOV 18 1935 
 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY