essentially different from that of England, one of the parties to the treaty of 1839.'

Since 1914, however, various proposals, inspired by the horrors attending the great conflict which broke out in Europe in that year, have been put forward for the formation of leagues or alliances with the design of preventing the recurrence of such a calamity. These proposals differ in their statement of details, but are to a great extent alike in suggesting an international combination for the use of force for the accomplishment of the end in view. This conception is enlarged in President Wilson's peace proposal of December 18, 1916, in which he suggests "the formation of a league of nations to

1 While declaring that, when Belgium was invaded, "every circumstance of national honor and interest forced England to act precisely as she did act," and quoting in this relation passages referring to England's position as a party to the neutralization of Belgium under the treaty of 1839, Colonel Roosevelt said:

"A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. What action our government can or will take I know not. It has been announced that no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality. It is certainly eminently desirable that we should remain entirely neutral, and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. . . . We have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her (Belgium), and I am sure that the sympathy of this country for the suffering of the men, women, and children of Belgium is very real. Nevertheless, this sympathy is compatible with full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of official protest unless we are prepared to make that protest effective; and only the clearest and most urgent national duty would ever justify us in deviating from our rule of neutrality and non-interference" ("The World War: its Tragedies and its Lessons," The Outlook, Sept. 23, 1914, pp. 169–170, 173).

insure peace and justice throughout the world"; and in his address to the Senate of January 22, 1917, in which he declares that the people of the United States desire and are in honor bound to render a "service" to mankind, "nothing less than this, to add their authority and their power to the authority and force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice throughout the world."1

The plans and proposals put forward since 1914, like those published from time to time in previous years, present, so far as concerns their central thought, nothing to surprise the student of such subjects. The assurance of peace by means of a concert of nations, designed to moderate or to control the propensity of men in the mass to gain their ends by violence, has stimulated the speculations of philosophers and baffled the skill of statesmen since the dawn of international relations. The general statement of such a design offers no difficulties; but the definite formulation of a plan to render the design effective would involve, no less than heretofore, the consideration of questions both numerous and varied, concerning which it would be as unsafe to count upon a ready unanimity of sentiment and of opinion as to presuppose the sudden cessation of the human wants and human passions in which wars have immemorially originated. The extent to which divisions of sentiment and of opinion would occur probably would bear an appreciable relation 1 Supra, pp. 83-86.

to the extent to which it was proposed to deal with questions of a contentious nature, such as national and racial groupings and other political arrangements, and above all that prolific and continuing source of strife-commercial and industrial competition. Moreover, when we remember that force and its effective exercise are subject to physical limitations, and that proximity and remoteness, by which all human relations are so profoundly affected, have often been recognized as furnishing the test and the measure of political and other interests, it is not strange that the readiness to assume and even more to perform responsibilities, or to admit others to share them, has not infrequently been found to depend upon considerations of that character, as well as upon other conceptions, in regard to which habits of thought have more or less been formed and preserved. Even in the United States, where "society" is sometimes slightingly said to "lack traditions," such habits are not unknown in public affairs. We have seen that when the Executive Council of France, during the turbulent aftermath of the great revolution, proposed through Genet to replace the then existing alliance with the United States with an agreement "to defend the empire of liberty wherever it may be embraced," and "to guaranty the sovereignty of the people," the proposal was not entertained. In the circumstances the proposal was not inexplicable. In making it 1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, folio, I, 705, 708-709.

the Executive Council frankly stated that, besides "the advantages which humanity in general" would draw from such a measure, France had a "particular interest" in preparing to act against England and Spain, who were believed to be about to attack her, because of what Gouverneur Morris called "those general declarations against all kings, under the name of tyrants," which the National Assembly had enunciated. Nor did the Executive Council lose sight of the restrictions to which the then prevailing system of colonial monopoly subjected the foreign trade of both countries, when, in order to reënforce its proposal, it included in it the suggestion that France and the United States, by excluding from their ports the ships of powers that still maintained "an exclusive colonial and commercial system,' would "quickly contribute to the general emancipation of the new world," even though it coupled with the suggestion an appeal to the United States to make "common cause" with France in taking such steps as exigencies might require "to serve the cause of liberty and the freedom of the people."

The attitude of the United States towards questions of this character, as expressed by successive administrations, assumed in the popular as well as in the official mind the form of an established rule of policy. Especially was this the case in regard to the political arrangements of Europe, which, as we have seen, were treated as belonging to what was called the European system, while those of the

independent nations of America were jealously guarded as belonging to the "American system." This distinction the United States, as its author, proponent, and champion, sought not to efface, but to impress upon the world as a derivative of the principle of political non-intervention and a pledge of its consistent observance. No other principle has so distinguished the foreign policy of the United States; and while policies are proverbially subject to mutation, it is probable that the ramifications of that principle will not be wholly overlooked in the consideration of any future plan of concert.

References:

Bacourt's Souvenirs d'un Diplomate;

As to etiquette, "uniform," etc., see

Moore's Digest of International Law, IV, 430-678. As to the question of a League for Peace, see Goldsmith's (Robert) A League to Enforce Peace; Phillips's (W. A.) Confederation of Europe;

Phillips's (W. A.) President Wilson's Peace Programme and the British Empire (The Edinburgh Review, April, 1917); National Federations and World Federation (Id., July, 1917); Articles by Sir Herbert Stephen, Bart., and Sir Francis Piggott, in The Nineteenth Century, April, 1917;

Chabrun (César), Kant et M. Wilson (Revue des Deux Mondes, Feb., 1917, p. 53);

The Peace Problem (Columbia University Quarterly, June, 1916; reprinted in North American Review, July, 1916).