challenge our attention and consideration. It is our duty to examine them, and either to support them or to state our reasons for opposing them when suitable opportunity is given. For myself, I wish to say that my objections are not based on any notion or belief that the use of force is not justifiable in any case. The experience of mankind has, I believe, abundantly proved that in some kinds of organization, the use of force is necessary, and therefore justifiable. Whether force ought to be used in a particular political organization depends upon whether it is possible to use it in that political society so as to effect the object of that society. In the society of nations, or in any League of nations, it seems to me that the use of force is impracticable, and therefore unjustifiable. I shall therefore attempt to base my objections on accepted principles of political science, and on considerations of practical politics.

The plan of constitution of the proposed League to Enforce Peace consists of a contracting clause and four articles. By the contracting clause, the United States and some other nations-evidently less than all-are to constitute themselves into a political union, described as a "League," the members binding themselves to the observance of the four articles. No object is stated, no fundamental principles of individual and national right and duty are declared, no constitutional prohibitions designed to safeguard these fundamental principles are to be accepted by the signatory nations, no legal limitations of any kind upon the processes and organs provided for in the four articles are established.

The first article obligates the signatories to use the process of judicial settlement as respects all "justifiable" questions, subject only to the limitations of treaties— that is to say, in conformity with particular or general

agreements and provides for the institution of an organ, or organs, of adjudication called a "judicial tribunal."

The second article obligates the signatories to use the process of conciliation as respects all other questions arising between them not settled by negotiation, and provides for the institution of an organ, or organs, of conciliation called "a council of conciliation."

The third article obligates the signatories jointly to use forthwith both their economic and military 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 provided in the foregoing two articles, but fails to institute any organ to determine, direct, and apply the force.

The fourth article provides for the process of formulation and codification of rules of international law, which formulations and codifications, unless some signatory shall signify its dissent within a stated period, shall thereafter govern the decisions of the organ or organs described in the first article as "a judicial tribunal." The fourth article also obligates the signatories to institute an organ or organs of formulation and codification of the rules of international law, described as "conferences."

Such being the provisions of the proposed constitution of the League of Nations to Enforce Peace, let us consider them briefly.

In the first place, it must be recognized that no criticism is made or intended of the first, second, and fourth articles of the constitution taken by themselves. These articles provide for a general treaty binding the signatory nations to use processes and establish organs of adjudication, conciliation, and law-formulation. These

processes and these organs are, as pointed out by Dr. John Bassett Moore, in his learned and inspiring address as the presiding officer of the last Mohonk Conference, the normal processes and organs of the cooperative and non-compulsive form of organization. This Conference incorporated in its platform of last year resolutions advocating the general application of these processes and the general establishment of these organs between nations. The League to Enforce Peace proposes to take the processes and organs which are peculiar to voluntary and cooperative organization and make them compulsive. The normal processes and organs of the compulsive form of organization are, of course, the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. The plan of the League to Enforce Peace is therefore an attempt to confuse two antithetical forms of organization.

The plan assumes that a league of nations could compel any member nation to submission in a manner comparable with that by which a nation compels its citizens and societies to submission. A war waged by a coalition of nations having five hundred millions of population against a nation having a hundred millions would doubtless not be able to effect the submission of the nation. It would, however, mean practically universal war, followed by universal bankruptcy and famine. In proposing a compulsion of nations, therefore, the plan seems to propose an impossibility in fact.

The constitution of the proposed League may be construed as providing that the League shall compel its members to submit to having their disputes with the members submitted to adjudication or conciliation or as providing that the League shall punish or abolish any nation refusing to submit to adjudication or conciliation. If it is to be construed as proposing to compel submission to conciliation, it proposes an impossibility

in the nature of things. Such use of force is negated by the definition of conciliation. The word "conciliation," is the one selected by the English-speaking part of the world to express a wholly voluntary and persuasive process by which a person brings the influence of religious belief, of experience, and of reason to bear upon the minds and consciences of other persons who are involved in a disagreement which is becoming, or has become, a dispute, and which may lead to violence. The sole purpose and end of conciliation is to induce the disagreeing or disputing parties voluntarily to agree. That force may be used in aid of conciliation is doubtless true, but the plan does not so limit the use of force. It provides for conquering a nation and forcing it to submit to the League's will when it has refused to submit to adjudication or conciliation. This is a compulsion placing a nation at the mercy of the other members of the League whenever they, after condemning it as a violator of the League's constitution, succeed in conquering it. Such provisions for conquering and punishing, or perhaps dividing and abolishing nations, are abhorrent to modern ideas.

The plan contains no provision for an executive to wield the force of the union, nor for a permanent legislature to determine how the force is to be used. The force used is to be joint force—that is, joint and several force not united force. The experience of mankind in the use of the compulsive form of organization warns us of the dangers of the use of any force in any organized society, or union of organized societies, except the united force of the society in aid of the powers which are conferred on it by the members and which are constitutionally and legally limited by a fundamental constitution. When the law and will of the society is constitutionally formulated, declared, and applied by its

legislative, judicial, and executive organs, the executive, when necessary, wields the force of the society so as to make its law effective in determining the actions and relationships of the members in their own and the common interest. An organized society or union wielding force without a definite legislative and executive organ to direct the force in execution of the legally limited judgment and will of the society, is a political anomaly of the kind aptly described by Jefferson as an “entangling alliance." It is an alliance, because it is an imperfect and defective union; it is entangling because it involves the members of the imperfect and defective union in a tangled mass of relationships and activities, for the disentanglement of which force is used without adequate determination, direction, and limitation, and without those arrangements for solving disagreements before they reach the acute stage of dispute, which is essential to the orderly, economical, and efficient use of force.

As illustrating the possibilities of entanglement, it is only necessary to consider some of the questions which each of the signatory nations in the proposed League would have to decide for itself in order that their economic and military forces might be used jointly. What "question" in a given case, is to be "submitted," of all the various questions which are possible to be regarded as the questions in dispute when great nations or great groups of nations stand threatening each other and on the verge of war? What is a “submission" of a dispute to adjudication, or to conciliation? What is an act of hostility? What is economic force? How shall it be used in a given case? What shall happen if both or all the nations between whom questions arise insist that they will not submit their dispute to adjudication or conciliation, and proceed to fight re