Our presence in the Philippines, under a world system that constantly looks for war, is a standing obstacle to Japanese plans for a "Monroe Doctrine of Asia." An almost exact analogy would be the possession of Porto Rico by Germany. If the thought of war could be removed from international affairs, the possession of the Philippines would give us an ideal location to become the chief friendly rival of Japan in the commercial regeneration of China machinery to produce permanent peace; while the idea at Washington is to find, by conscious practice upon the problems of the present, a method of negotiation, so satisfactory to all nations that it will come in time to be used on all occasions, and that out of its operation will grow whatever machinery is needful to facilitate its use. The Paris Idea was that the delegates to the Peace Conference could write a Constitution of the World, after the manner in which the fathers of our country wrote the Constitution of the United States. The Washington Idea is that the World Constitution must be a growth, an evolution of the practice of government on a world scale, after the manner in which the British Constitution grew and evolved out of the practice of government in that one nation. This analogy is a sound illumination of the character of the late Paris Conference and of the character of the impending Washington Conference. It is worth while to pursue it a little further, as it will make this point still clearer. The purposes of the American Constitution and of the British Constitution are identical, namely, to achieve a representative government of the people, and to secure to all persons equality of treatment under just lawsthe ultimate purposes being the peace of the community and the happiness of the individual. But, observe how different are the two forms of government and the two methods of achieving the purpose. But the The American Constitution was the product of one intense act of creation, springing like Minerva, full-panoplied from the brain of Jove. Jove. Devised for the government of five million people living in thirteen states under the simple economic conditions of the Eighteenth Century, it has marvelously survived to govern one hundred million people living in forty-eight states under the complex economic conditions of the Twentieth Century. miracle of this survival needs constantly to be explained, if the Constitution itself is to be truly understood. The explanation is that the American Constitution has governed a people predominantly of one blood, one speech, and one political tradition, profoundly attached to the idea of lawful liberty, and long accustomed to practical political action. Above all, it must be remembered that only such a politically minded and practical race could have realized that their Constitution must only look inflexible, and must not be inflexible; or could have devised that practice of constant judicial interpretation of its meaning, which has adjusted it to the infinite fluctuations of practical political situations as they arose. Nor should it be forgotten that one such interpretation (the "constitutionality" of slavery) was taken out of the hands of the interpreting court (the Supreme Court) erected by the Constitution itself for the purpose, and was settled by the ultimate arbitrament of civil war. THE JUGULAR VEIN OF OUR WORLD POLICY This lock in the Panama Canal is the critical point in our position in the family of nations. The picture shows that it has reached its limit of usefulness in a military way, because no larger warship can pass through it than those already built. If naval strategy continues to dominate our policy, the Panama Canal must be enlarged and more heavily fortified, so that our fleets may pass safely from one ocean to the other |