ex officio Trustee shall nominate as an arbitrator of the Inter-
national High Court of Arbitration. For this trustee and
arbitrator the ex officio Trustee shall also nominate a deputy.
The ex officio Trustees shall each fill vacancies in their own
body of four representatives at once as they occur.
3. These assessors shall at once determine by equitable
assessment the quota which each State shall pay at the equal
or equitable rate agreed upon to the Common Fund subscribed
by the several members of the Union, the several quotas
being equal in amount to such a percentage as shall be agreed
upon of the net revenue* of the respective States, with
equitable additions or deductions to adjust inequalities of
national credit. (For alternatives see page 12.)
4. Let the Trustees of the International Union collect
the several components of the Common Fund and invest
them in sound securities all over the world and pay regularly
as arranged the available dividend pro rata to the several
contributing States.
"â– Doductioii to be made for interest on and service of public
debts and for the expenses of Government trading {c-i^-, postal or
railway services).
24 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
III.
1. Let the members of the International Union
solemnly and publicly pledge themselves to refer every
dispute with other members of the said Union which cannot
be settled diplomatically to an Arbitration Court or
Commission selected or instituted by the Union, or, in default
of such reference to forfeit ipso facto the contributions or
part of the contributions to the Common Fund of the Union
as may be decided by the High Court or a Commission of
the Union. (See VI.) The decision that a State is to be
subject to forfeit is not to be considered as punitive or in
the nature of a fine, but as an arbitral assignment of damages
voluntarily incurred by disturbing the public peace and so
causing inconvenience and expense to fellow-members of the
Union. A decision of the High Court shall not impute
criminality or immorality to any State, but shall pronounce
whether or no its conduct is equitable according to Inter-
national Law and consonant with the interests of the
Union.
2. In the event of only one party to a dispute being
ready and willing to submit to Arbitration, th_^ High Court
or a Commission of the L^nion shall pronounce that party
exempt from forfeiture.
3. In the event of an act of war precipitating hostilities
without allowing opportunity for Arbitration, the High Court
or a Commission of the Union shall determine which State
or States by responsibihty for the outbreak of war may have
incurred ipso facto whole or partial forfeiture of their respective
contribution to the Common Fund of the Union.
4. Forfeited contributions or forfeited portions of
contributions to the Common Fund of the Union shall be
distributed pro rata among the rest of the members of the
Union other than the State or States against which a
decision of forfeiture has been pronounced. (See VI.)
5. In the event of such disruption of any State belonging
to the Union that there is no settled government or no minister
unquestionably entitled to receive the said State's dividend,
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE, 25
the Trustees shall suspend paj'ment of dividends and hold
them in trust pending restoration of order.
IV.
The States which are members of the Union shall
solemnly and publicly pledge themselves in advance to respect
adverse decisions of the International High Court or High
Commissions of the Union as to forfeiture of contributions
to the Common Fund of the Union ; but, with this proviso,
shall reserve their sovereign and independent right to go on
fighting if war has begun, or to appeal from the finding of
the High Court or Commission after Arbitration to the ultima
ratio of war with their opponents in any quarrel.
V.
In the event of enmity or war between members of
the Union the neutral members shall stand pledged by the
fundamental principles of the Union to prevent war or
terminate actual hostilities if possible by bringing all available
means of pacificatory pressure to bear upon the bellicose or
belligerent States.
VI.
Any State belonging to the Union shall be at liberty
to secede from the Union at any time, giving the Trustees two
years' notice* of the withdrawal of its share of the Common
Fund, which share shall be paid over at the expiration of
the said lerni, if the seceded state shall have been and shall
be then at peace. If otherwise the said share or a portion
thereof shall l)e forfeited, unless the High Court ])ronounce
the war to be waged justly by tlie seceding state.
* This or some other precautionary engagement of the kind is
necessary to prevent any State which may have determined
on aggression evacUng forfeit by timely secession and withdrawal
of its share of the Common Fund.
26 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
VII.
Each and very State belonging to the Union shall
make it illegal by enactment for its citizens and dependents
to hold or have an interest in any foreign war loans or for
any person or persons to deal in foreign war loans within its
territories, dependencies, protectorates, or spheres of influence.
VIII.
The States which belong to the Union shall solemnly
and publicly pledge themselves to put down effectually all
supply or conveyance of arms, war vessels, and munitions of
war (i) to dependencies or protectorates of foreign Powers ;
(2) to persons living in spheres of foreign influence ; (3) to
private companies or individuals who might transfer them
to dependencies or protectorates or spheres of influence of
foreign Powers ; (4) to petty States or tribes or to individual
members of the same ; (5) to private individuals, clubs,
associations, or companies belonging to foreign States.*
IX.
The States belonging to the Union shall instruct
their representatives constituting the International High
Court of Arbitration to endeavour by revision and codification
to secure uniformity in the theory and practice of International
Law throughout the Union and to reform and amplify the
said law and to frame regulations for the procedure of the
High Court of Arbitration aforesaid so as to secure uniformity
in the conduct and method of judges, advocates, witnesses,
and parties to any Inquiry.
X.
I. The Trustees shall meet and the High Court shall
sit in a building appropriated for their use in the territory of
the Netherlands.
* Who might be plotting revolution or civil war.
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 27
2. The High Court may, if convenient, appoint
Commissioners of Inquiry or Arbitration to sit wherever
it may be convenient.
3. The High Court may refer questions not involving
honour or vital interests to the Hague Court of Arbitration.
XL
The High Court of the Union shall be authorised
in extreme cases to advise the States belonging to the Union
to prevent war or outrage by uniting in an overwhelming
demonstration of military or naval force.
xn.
In cases involving honour or vital interests a majority of
three-fifths of the members of the High Court shall be required
to make a decision authoritative.
XIII.
The expenses of the High Court (over and above
the expenses of arbitral inquiry), and of service of the Common
Fund, and an annual sum to be set aside to form a reserve
fund, shall be charged upon the revenue produced by the
interest of the Trustees' investments. The expenses and
court fees pertaining to the several arbitral inquiries shall
be paid by the States at whose instance the several inquiries
are respectively instituted. The remuneration of the several
trustees shall be provided by the nominating States
respectively.
XIV.
Upon request from a State or States outside the
union, with an undertaking to pay fourfold court fees, the
High Court shall, if advisable, hold arbitral inquiries in which
one or some or all of the parties to the inquiry may be outside
the union, provided always that the parties to such inquiry
give satisfactory assurances of their intention to respect the
dignity of the High Court and to abide by its decision.
28 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE
XV.
The court fees of the International High Court of
Arbitration should be fixed on such a scale as to discourage
vexatious or trivial applications. A percentage of these
fees might go to the Reserve Fund.
XVI.
Each government at any time through its ex officio
Trustee or his or her Minister for Foreign Affairs may challenge,
giving specific reasons, the nomination of any trustee,
arbitrator, or deputy arbitrator. The International High
Court shall hear agents and counsel upon the case, and if
the Court uphold the challenge the place in the service of
the union held by the person challenged shall be declared
vacant by the Court, and shall be filled up (see II., 2) at once
by the nominator of the said person.
XVII.
Articles and ordinances of the International Peace
Union may be added to, amended, or annulled at a
special session of all the nominated Trustees, if four-fifths of
the total number agree upon an addition or alteration or
deletion.
I venture to compare these seventeen clauses to the rough
draft of a Bill drawn up by a member of the English
Parliament, which, before it can become an Act, has to be
subjected to alterations of many kinds at the hands of a
parliamentary draftsman and by amendments in both houses,
so that the introducer is fortunate if the Act ultimately
preserves an appreciable portion of the general idea embodied
in his rough draft.
Should my general idea hereafter be realised in some
degree by statesmen and nations, I shall indeed have my
reward.
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 29
Certain theoretical objections or criticisms ought to be
anticipated and discussed.
The scheme does not propose any interference with the
sovereign majesty or complete independence of any Common-
wealth. It allows for cases in which gross insult or outrage
make war actually or virtually inevitable, and leaves each
State free to declare war or commit acts of war if it be so
disposed. Any forfeit by way of damages for breach of the
public peace is virtually self-inflicted, because it is voluntarily
incurred in accordance with the losers' own previous agreement
and is assigned by a Court of Arbitral Inquiry in which the
forfeiting State is fully represented, possibly with the assent
of its own representative.
The right of challenge (Clause XVI.) is designed to lessen
the chance of elements of prejudice or extravagance of opinion
or excessive self-assertion impairing the authority of the
Court, arid, moreover, enhances its representative character
by conferring on every Commonwealth belonging to the union
the privilege of tacit approval of all the trustees and arbitrators
nominated by other States. Thus the Court would represent
each Commonwealth equally, and its decisions would not have
power to demand submission, l)ut would be allowed by pre-
arrangement to assume prospective acquiescence. It is
obvious that challenging by way of protest against a decision
would be futile, and would be merely an undignified display
of irritation.
By communicating the names of intended nominees to
the Foreign Offices reciprocally, some questions of objection
to any individuals might be settled diplomatically before
actual nomination. And in case of grounds for challenge
arising after nomination an arrangement might be contrived
similarly.
It might be judged advisable to refer all disputes to High
Commissions of Arbitration in the first instance, and to make
the International High Court a Court of First Appeal.
In Constitutional Governments the Head of the State
would, of course, nominate trustees and arbitrators according
to the advice of his Ministers or Councillors.
30 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
Observe that by forfeiture of all its contribution a State
ceases to be a member of the union — at least until a second
contribution be accepted.
The scheme does not interfere with the right and
power of members of the International Peace Union
(i) to make war on States which are not members of the
said Union ; (2) to establish colonies wherever the rights
and interests of members of the Union are not infringed by
such colonisation ; (3) to extend their territories or occupy
and acquire new territory with the same sort of reservation ;
(4) to assume the protectorate of weak or disorganised States
with the same sort of reservation ; (5) to adopt spheres of
influence with similar reservation.
The International Peace Union should be in no sense and
by no means an offensive or defensive alliance against any
State or States outside the Union.
The International Peace Union need not interfere with any
international society already acknowledged as such by experts
in International Law,* or with existent alliances. Any one
party to an existent alliance might join the Union with such
reservations as prior obligations might necessitate, provided
that the objects of the alliance were not in direct conflict
with the object of the Peace Union. If it be true that the
real motive of the Triple Alliance and of the alliance between
France and Russia was to lessen the probability of any one
or more of the five Powers attacking any one or more of the
rest of the five Powers, then it seems possible for each and all
of these powers to join an International Peace Union.
Great Powers may object to lesser Powers being represented
equally, and may claim that their nominees should have
voting power in proportion to the nominators' contribution ;
but such ideas involve the implicit assumption that a common-
wealth's nominees will only consider the material interests
of their country without regard to truth and justice, or the less
* e.g., That which comprises all European and American States
and a few Christian States in other parts of the world (Westlake), to
which Japan ought now to be added, and the Moral Heptarchy in
Europe founded by the Convention of May 24th, 1881.
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 3 I
immoral but equally untenable assumption that the nominees
of greater Powers are better qualified by intellect and education
to appreciate truth and form just decisions than the nominees
of lesser Powers, Lord Alverstone's support of certain points
of the American case as to the Alaskan boundary constitutes
a recent and striking instance of an arbitrator's judicial
acumen and probity triumphing over patriotic prejudice.
Such rigid attention to points at issue, irrespective of any
consequences involved in plain statements of fact, ought only
to be expected from trained advocates and judges. History
again does not credit great Powers with a monopoly of eminent
publicists and expounders of law. Were not Grotius and
Bynkershoek Dutchmen, and was not Pufendorff a native of
Saxony ?
The position of various Powers in a scale of estimated
magnitude is occasionally precarious and often difficult to
determine, so that formal comparisons would prove odious
and fraught with danger to the harmony which should prevail
in an association founded for the maintenance of peace and
goodwill. An International Peace Union would be constituted
and maintained on a basis of law, namely, of pre-existent
international law, supplemented with a view to extension
and improvement by its own laws and ordinances. Con-
sequently the Union collectively must recognise that each of
the constituent powers and Independent States has in relation
to it a definite legal status. Now it is a fact " which
the student of International Law is bound to note " that
political inequality is compatible in the European system,
and therefore universally, " with legal equality." From
this fact Professor Westlake, who is quoted,* deduces the
eventual possibility of a " Euroi)can Government," which
appears to involve the possibility of International Government
shared by any number of States, no matter in what part of
the world they may be situated. Tlie existing society of
States, "possessing little organisation and no officers, never
indeed performing a collective act," labours under disabilities
which a Peace Union would seek to remove or minimise,
* Chapters on Ititernational Law, Chapter VII., p]). loo-ioi.
32 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE.
thus making itself competent to support justly offended
States more effectively and immediately than the international
society. The latter, however, even now " is far from lacking
that other mode of enforcing its rules which consists in the
support given by the members to one of their number who has
been injured by a breach of them. Often, it is true, a justly
offended State is left in the particular case to fight its own
battle, but it receives a moral support from the general
recognition that its resort to arms was the exercise of a right,
and the interests of States meet and cross each other at so
many points that there is generally, before long, some point
at which the offender is made to feel the loss of sympathy
which his conduct has occasioned."
Some practical objections or criticisms which might be
directed against the financial proposals of the scheme remain
to be considered.
Of course members of any International Peace Union
provided with an effective organisation must incur a certain
amount of annual expense in remunerating those officials
of the Union who are nominated by the several Governments,
and possibly also a share of the annual cost of managing the
fund, and of maintaining a suitable establishment for carrying
on the business of the Union.
The earnest desire among nations for the maintenance of
peace assumed at the outset to be prevalent or imminent
presupposes also a readiness to make substantial sacrifices
for so profitable and sacred a cause. Now supposing Great
Britain's contribution to the Common Fund of the International
Peace Union were £30,000,000 sterling out of a Common
Fund of £240,000,000. The other contributors, who on
the average pay more interest on loans than Great Britain
in the proportion of 3 to 2, would have their £210,000,000
cash reckoned as £315,000,000 stock, so that Great Britain
would hold £30,000,000 stock out of £345,000,000, for which,
if the Fund in cash, £240,000,000, only brought in 3 per cent.
Great Britain would get a little over 2 per cent., having
borrowed at a little under 3 per cent., making a loss of nearly
£300,000 a year. The loss of the other contributors would
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 33
liear about the same ratio to the interest they pay on loans,
namely, ij per cent, (on an average) per annum on the cash
contributed to the Fund. It does not then seem over-
sanguine to estimate at the highest the annual cost of the
Union to Great Britain, if assessed at thirty millions, to
be under ;^36o,ooo a year, after the first year ; that is to say,
if an extra million were borrowed to cover initial loss and
costs, under £400,000 per annum, or about half the cost of
one warship. On the other hand, if the cash of the fund earned
a dividend of 4^ per cent. Great Britain would gain about
;^40,ooo per annum in interest, and the rest on the average
would neither lose nor gain. The formation of an influential
Peace Union might strengthen national credit all round,
and so diminish the chance of any loss. The rate of interest
paid to contributors might be expected to rise gradually in
course of time. Even if Great Britain paid full £400,000
per annum for half a century, or a total of ;^20,ooo,ooo, and
through the agency of the Peace Union avoided one year of
warfare, the money saved would amount to at least three
times that amount, not to mention savings by the gradual
checking of competitive increase in armaments.
If expert financiers condemn the idea of a great Inter-
national Fund, each Power might contribute bonds to the
amount of their assessment (Clause II., Section 3) negotiable
and entitling holders to interest only when countersigned by
certain officials of the High Court of Arbitration, upon a
decision of the Court that the whole or part of the sum
represented by the said bonds was according to agreement
to be realised for distribution pro rata among the other
members of the Union.
The agreement that those members of the Union who took
the initiative in disturbing the peace of the world should not
do so without a serious sacrifice of money, the sinews of war,
could hardly fail to act as a deterrent from contentiousness
and aggression, while the pacific would find in it a method of
insurance against the losses and inconveniences brought
upon neutrals by hostilities. The Union would tend to check
the war parties and decrease their influence over governments
D
34 SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACK.
and the masses in the several States. The decisions of the
High Court would direct, focus, and give weight to public
opinion, which may be perplexed and misled by the
exaggerations of rival papers and orators.
The importance which Statesmen, even of autocratic
proclivities, attach to public opinion is demonstrated by the
pains bestowed by antagonists in recent wars on endeavouring
to evade responsibility for the outbreak.
It might reasonably be anticipated that before long the
existence of a great Peace Union would by degrees lessen,
as has already been suggested, the progressive increase of
armaments, which is already a grievous burden, and seems
likely to become ruinous. The organised advocacy of general
peace would eventually lead to a general reduction of armies
and navies, and possibly even to a system of International
Control, whereby moderate contingents from each Common-
wealth, according to their respective capacities, would secure
world-wide peace, and enforce the decisions of Courts of
Arbitration without much risk of actual conflict.
The affectation or adoption of a conciliatory policy by
Governments on the verge of hostilities may be ascribed
by some to the hope of thereby facilitating the flotation of
war loans ; but it m.ust be remembered that money markets
are neither moral nor sentimental, though liable to accesses of
superstition, and that an initial advantage in the field would
win them over far more effectually than a correct attitude
at the Foreign Ofhce.
Far more potent inducements are the natural desire of
public men, whether ambitious or high-minded, to stand well
before the world and earn honourable mention in history,
and also the necessity of reducing to a minimum the
opportunities and influence of the home peace party, and
keeping it as quiet as possible. The sympathy of foreign
public opinion stimulates and strengthens this party, which
cannot assert itself in time of war without encouraging its
country's enemies. The prohibition then of foreign war
loans would not affect appreciably the inclination of
belligerents to justify their resort to arms before the public
SAFEGUARDS FOR PEACE. 35
opinion of neutral states. Clause VII., suggesting this
])rohibition, is perhaps irrelevant to the main purpose of the
scheme, and the same may be said of Clause VIII., regulating
supply of war material ; but it would be very inconsistent
for members of a Peace Union to go on providing war material
and instruments of rebellion. A loan to a foreign combatant
is an unfriendly act to the other side. Moreover, earnest
advocates of peace ought not to neglect such an effective
means of discouraging war as a policy which would check
the practice of leaving some of the cost of war to be paid
by posterity. As a general principle it is good that commerce
and finance should be left as free as possible by Governments ;
but they have been left too free, as is proved by the temporary
permission to exist afforded to the American Beef Trust,
and by the Board of Trade allowing the inauguration of the
Nelson Tea Pension system, though a competent actuary could
have arrived beforehand near the figures exposed in the
Bankruptcy Court. No doubt money for warlike purposes
could be borrowed from foreigners by indirect methods,
but not so freely as at present, and neutral Governments
would keep themselves above reproach by making such
investments difficult and disreputable.
The only conditions under which foreign war loans are
not manifestly iniquitous arc if a weak vState is driven by a
strong State to defend itself and requires a loan or loans for
that purpose. It is possible that a Peace Union, by intimating
that in such a case it would sanction exceptionally the
flotation of loans for the weak State, might turn the scale
against the threatened aggression. Recent events seem to
exemplify the })arific effect of withholding war loans.