arise between nations as between persons, and just as the person appeals to a court, so international law now provides a legal appeal for the nations.

Suggestions for study

How did law grow up among early peoples? What is the object of law? How did international law grow up? Who was the father of international law? When did the modern period of international law begin? What were its foundations? Who conducts the business of nations with each other? How is it conducted? How are disputes settled, if they arise?

On Grotius, see introduction to The Rights of War and Peace, Old South Leaflets, No. 101. Directors of Old South Work, Old South Meeting House, Boston. For literature on pacific settlement of international disputes, write to American School Peace League, Boston.

APRIL: AGREEMENTS BETWEEN

NATIONS

War will eliminate itself. By the next centennial, arbitration will rule the world. GENERAL SHERIDAN, in 1876.

With the calling of the First Hague Conference, in 1899, the people of the world began to consider more carefully than they had ever done before the desirability of settling disputes by pacific methods; and since the organization of a Permanent Court of Arbitration, established by the Conference, the nations have made agreements or treaties providing that differences which

may arise between them shall be referred to this Court. Those who desire to secure peace and avoid the possibility of war have done all that they could to encourage the negotiation of such treaties, and at present there are well over one hundred and fifty of them in existence.

The treaties are by no means alike, but the principal ones exclude questions affecting vital interests, independence, and national honor. Great efforts have been made by those interested in international friendliness to have these exceptions omitted from treaties, but the effort has not been successful among those nations known as the "Great Powers." The exceptions, however, are admittedly indefinite. They indicate things which a nation must decide for itself. "It is true," wrote Senator Elihu Root, "that there are some questions of national policy and conduct which no nation can submit to the decision of any one else, just as there are some questions of personal conduct which every man must decide for himself." As a matter of fact, however, the exceptions have worked well in practice, for arbitration, like all other public business between nations, depends mostly for its success upon the spirit of fairness of the parties. Countries that are friendly to each other are not likely to stand on a strict interpretation of such excluding phrases, and instances have occurred where matters involving national honor or vital interests have been arbitrated.

The value of arbitration lies in its ability to allay public feeling. The arbitration treaty puts the commonsense view of a dispute into writing, and if a dispute does occur, the existence of the contract makes it easier and surer that the question will be settled in a friendly way. Most of the arbitration treaties in existence have never been used and will never need to be. In one case the

United States and Great Britain settled the centuryold dispute concerning rights to fish on the coast of Newfoundland, and Russia and Turkey solved a money question originating in their war of 1877, after they had disputed over it for nearly thirty-five years.

In international affairs, just as in national, new problems are always arising. Some nations may have problems peculiar to themselves, and even where many nations have the same problem, conditions are sure to vary among them. How to have as many and as definite rules as possible to cover the ordinary routine of public business is therefore a problem confronted by all nations, and it is solved by the negotiation of treaties. These are of two kinds, those to which many nations are parties, and those to which only two nations are parties. The former are really parts of international law, but the two-party treaties are not of that character, though they are law for the countries which make the agreements. These are made on any subject upon which two nations find it useful or desirable to have an agreement or a contract or even an understanding. They are negotiated upon all sorts of subjects, but most of them relate to the intercourse between countries, being intended to make communications or business with each other easier. Commercial relations, the rights of consuls and their privileges, naturalization, emigration, and extradition are the principal subjects of such treaties, though most geographical boundaries are determined by treaty. There are so many of these treaties in the world that it would take over one hundred thousand pages to print them all, and the characteristic of all of them is that they constitute agreements on anything upon which the parties desire to agree.

Most of the treaties are simple, even if the questions with which they deal are themselves complicated. Often controversies that have been discussed in dispatches hundreds of pages long are settled by treaties as easy to understand as a nursery rhyme. All really good treaties are simple, for, if they cannot be understood, the diplomats know that something may occur that will cause a dispute over them, and this they always try to avoid.

Since the United States began as a nation, over six hundred and fifty different treaties have been made, but about two hundred of them are no longer in force. Sometimes it has been advantageous to write a new treaty on the same subject, the newer one taking the place of the older. Many treaties have provided for the accomplishment of a single act and were of no importance after the act was accomplished, while we have made many treaties with States that no longer exist. When, for example, the United States began its existence as a nation, the country that we now know as Germany was not a single nation, but many independent states. When, however, in 1870, modern Germany was organized from all these separate states, we began, of course, to make treaties with the German Empire.

One of the most important treaties made by this nation is that with Great Britain, which established an unfortified boundary of over three thousand miles between the two countries, the United States and Canada. This treaty has been kept for a hundred years and offers to the world a practical example of disarmament between two great nations.

Suggestions for study

What do arbitration treaties accomplish? What international disputes are settled by arbitration? What disputes are not? Do the exceptions make much difference if countries desire to settle the dispute? Do arbitration treaties help nations to keep friendly? What are agreements between nations called? On what subjects do nations make agreements? Why should treaties be easily understood? How many treaties has the United States made? Why do they cease to exist in some cases? What is an Arbitration Treaty? What questions are usually excepted from arbitration? Do you think such questions should be excepted? How did the General Arbitration Treaties prepared by President Taft with Great Britain and France differ from other Arbitration Treaties? In your opinion would it be wise for the United States to make such a treaty with England, France, and other countries?

For references on arbitration, read International Arbitration, Robert C. Morris (Yale University Press). The New Peace Movement, pp. 151-64, William I. Hull (World Peace Foundation).

For references on treaties, read The Practice of Diplomacy, chaps. XII-XVI; chaps. XVII-XVIII, "Arbitration and its Procedure," and "International Claims," John W. Foster (Houghton Mifflin Co.).

"Disarmament on the Great Lakes," address of Charles Henry Butler at the Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, May 18, 1910 (World Peace Foundation).