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The Advocate of Peace.

THE FEDERATION OF THE WORLD. By Benjamin F. Trueblood, LL.D. A discussion of the grounds, both theoretic and historic, for believing in the Realization of the Brotherhood of Humanity, and the final Organization of the World into an International State. Second Edition. Cloth, 169 pages. Price, 75 cts.

149.25

VOL. LXIII.

The Thirteenth of April, Nineteen Hundred and One.

Another red letter day has been added to those in the calendar of the international peace movement. Hereafter the 13th of April, 1901, will, along with the 24th of August, 1898, and the 18th of May, 1899, rank as one of the great days in the history of civilization.

On the first of these dates the Russian government, through the late Count Mouravieff, Minister of Foreign Affairs, handed to each of the foreign diplomatic representatives at St. Petersburg a lithograph copy of the now famous Rescript proposing a conference in the interests of "the maintenance of general peace and a possible reduction of the excessive armaments" of the powers. On the second date the one hundred delegates appointed by twenty-six powers, the most distinguished assemblage of governmental representa tives in human history, met at The Hague and opened the Peace Conference, the chief result of whose ten weeks of deliberation was the convention providing for a permanent international court of arbitration.

Nearly two years have passed since the Hague Conference closed its labors. During that time one after another of the twenty-six powers has ratified the convention and appointed its members of the court, until now only China, Turkey and Luxemburg remain which have not ratified it.

No. 5.

On the 13th of April just passed, Dr. W. H. De Beaufort, the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Affairs, whom the convention makes the president of the administrative council of the court, sent official notice by telegraph and cable to all of the twenty-six powers informing them that the court was definitively constituted. This was the final act in the work of the HagueConference, as regards this particular convention.

This message, probably the most important one of a political nature ever sent over the wires, created no commotion; in fact, was entirely unnoticed by most people. Some of the newspapers gave an inch to it, with an additional inch or so of headlines. Many of them made no reference whatever to it. If it had had its deserts, according to its importance in the progress of civilization, the whole front page of every great newspaper in Christendom would have been devoted to the subject; the pictures of the members of the court, more than fifty of them already appointed, would have been given, with some account of their character and positions in their several countries; the importance of the court would have been set out in strong terms, and the interesting and many-sided movement which has led up to it would

have been described in its salient features.

But though not half the space usually devoted to the most contemptible prize-fight was given by the press to Mr. De Beaufort's announcement, the work has been done, and the world will in time have the incalculable benefits of the new institution which is henceforth to be the leading political instrument in the development of a sane and rational international life. In this there is abundant reason for rejoicing on the part of those who see beneath the surface the ceaseless activity of those silent, powerful forces, little disturbed by the surface commotions, which are steadily and surely bringing in the reign of goodwill and universal peace.

We begin the new century with another large and imperishable foundation-stone well laid beneath us. This should give us courage for larger and more tional court of arbitration, though now in actual exearnest efforts hereafter. The permanent internaistence, to continue, we believe, as long as human society lasts, has not yet done any service. One of these days we shall see the new invention tried. are eager to see how it will work; but, however successful the first trial may be, it will need the active and united support of all the friends of peace for

We

many years to come in order that it may be permanently and firmly established in the confidence of the nations and peoples of the earth. To this end let all our strength and influence be henceforth exerted.

War Morality.

Silent leges inter arma. The Latin author of this saying was not the first to notice the phenomenon which he has thus pithily described. Nor was he the last. No sentence of the Roman literature has

been oftener quoted than this,- quoted by men in every time before whom the fact stood in concrete, painful reality. Every century since, every generation, every day practically, has had its wars and battles, in which the clamorous fury of arms has silenced the laws and made it impossible for their still small voice, imperious and unchanging, to be heard.

The laws are silent in time of war, because the spirit out of which they spring is suppressed. This is the real significance of Cicero's expression. It would have been in him merely stupid commonplace to say that when war breaks out martial law takes

the place, for soldiers under arms, of the ordinary forms of civil law. What he had in mind was a deeper and more solemn thing. War, as this keen observer noticed, breaks down and tramples under foot all moral considerations. Might, passion, cunning become the only law. Conscience is turned out. Moral impulses and feelings are quenched. Men do openly and aboveboard, with songs of glorification on their lips, what in times of peace would bring them at once to the bar of judgment, and ostracize them from all public respect; and the world. looks on and says they are doing right!

One of the most conspicuous of the immoralities of war is the lying and deceit practiced and gloried in. In common civil life there is no one more detested and shunned than the liar. Society insistently demands truthfulness. Its whole structure and interests are dependent thereon. Nothing makes a man look meaner in his own eyes than deliberate falsehood. Our Christianity, out of which our civilization has sprung, includes liars among the lowest of men 66 - dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers," and the like. But in war all this civil morality of truthfulness is cast out and thrown to the winds. The fact is described in the oft-cited phrase, "All is fair in war."

Aguinaldo; the seventy or more savage and cruel Macabebe scouts employed by our government palming themselves off as loyal followers of the Filipino leader; a trusted officer of Aguinaldo acting as his betrayer; the whole party starved almost to death accepting food of Aguinaldo's hand in order to have strength to carry out their lying and treacherous scheme! What we are saying of this occurrence is not said for the purpose of praising Aguinaldo, for he and his men would have done the same thing to capture Funston or MacArthur. It is said in condemnation of the whole system of war.

Such an action as this in common life would con

sign to everlasting infamy every person connected with it. But what do we see? The exploit has given "uncommon pleasure" at Washington. The government has done everything in its power to encourage just such lying and treachery in any future war. General Funston has been immediately promoted to a brigadier-generalship in the regular army. The newspapers, with some exceptions, have spoken of it as a glorious bit of daring heroism, of which all Americans ought to be forever proud! A few of speak the truth about it; but most of them, particu the religious papers-precious few!- have dared to larly those which have been loudest in support of the government's Philippine policy, have unflinchingly justified it as perfectly consistent with the laws of war and therefore right.

For the Outlook, the boldest and most untiring of the great religious weeklies supporting the government's course, Funston's exploit was almost too much. Its conscience found this many-sided piece of deception hard to swallow; but it finally took it heroically down. Here is its comment:

"It unquestionably shows in General Funston originality in device, fertility in resource, and great vigor and courage in execution, all of which are highly praiseworthy military qualities. But the capture was accomplished by deception, falsehood and what in commercial life would be called forgery. It is this fact which arouses the indignation of some critics. The most serious objection to war is not the suffering which it entails, but the change in moral standards which it involves. As in detective service deception and falsehood are deemed legitimate for the capture of criminals, so in war for the capture of an enemy. Without discussing here whether it is legitimate to depart from the ethical standards which control in civil life, it must suffice to say that the code of war was not violated by the capture of Aguinaldo.”

Suffice to say! This great teacher of public morals ought to have told us whether this lying exploit was right or not, not whether it was in harmony with the code of war, which the veriest innocent already knows. No one not acquainted with the Outlook's general position could possibly tell what it means to say in this double-faced, hedging passage. We are left to infer what it would have said had it ventured

to discuss the real point in the matter. The Outlook believes in and upholds war with its present code; hence it believes in and justifies this monstrous piece of deception, falsehood and forgery.

The comment of the Independent, the other of our two great independent religious weeklies, is amazing beyond almost anything we have ever read in a Christian journal :

"Did General Funston do right? Was he justified in deceiving Aguinaldo and capturing him by this deception? We see it asked whether we are not humiliated by Aguinaldo's orders that the American prisoners be treated humanely, when they were on their way to capture him by lies. The answer is simply the answer of war. It is wrong to lie, and wrong to steal, and wrong to kill. But in war men must lie and steal and kill. Then is war wrong? Certainly, wrong for somebody - for the party that is in the wrong, and whose act involves both parties in all these wrong acts. War is an accursed thing; 'war is hell;' but all is fair in war and hell. There was no violation of the laws of war in General Funston's conduct."

The Independent, in spite of its reckless daring in the face of the common principles of Christian morality, shrinks at last from answering categorically its own questions. It puts its statement in a roundabout, involved form, as if ashamed to say out squarely before its constituency of readers its real sentiment. The answers would run thus: General Funston did right. He was justified in deceiving He was justified in deceiving Aguinaldo. War is wrong, for the party that is in the wrong. War is right, for the party that is in the right. The accursed, hellish thing is right, for those whose cause is right! Lying, stealing, killing are wrong. Lying, stealing, killing are right, for those whose cause is right! For these, these detestable immoralities are sacred, heavenly things! Accursed hell is for them transformed into glorious heaven! "All is fair in war and hell"! Wrong is right, whenever it is used for right ends! "The answer of war"! A pitiable answer it is.

It is useless to attempt to describe, with any English adjective, the shamefulness of such a doctrine. It crushes to dust the last stone of the foundations of morals. It turns morality into a thing of mere temporary, shifting, baseless pediency. If lying, stealing and killing are right under the circumstances and for the reasons given by the Independent, then any other immorality is right under similar conditions. And if these iniquities the whole category of sins are right and justifiable in accomplishing the purposes of war, they are right in private and social life wherever they are employed for just and righteous ends. Not a single reason can be adduced to the contrary. The Outlook is right in saying that the most serious objection to war is the change in moral standards which it involves. But the most serious part of

this change is not that which occurs in the stress of the campaign and the battlefield; it is the impairment of moral standards which spreads everywhere through private life and civil society into the home, the school, the pulpit, the editorial office. The pollution of these sources of the public life and morals, especially of the pulpit and the editorial chair, is the saddest and most irreparable of the evil effects of war.

The corrupting influence of the lying and treachery of General Funston and his band of associates is bad enough, but it is insignificant in comparison with the far-reaching insidious effect of what has been written about the exploit-in plain language or in the most tangled casuistry-in the greater and smaller religious and other papers of the country.

Annual Meeting of the American
Peace Society.

The seventy-third annual business meeting of the American Peace Society will be held in Social Hall, Tremont Temple, Boston, Friday, May 17, at 2 p. m. The business will be the election of officers, the reading of the treasurer's annual account, the report of the board of directors on the work and events of the year, and the transaction of other any business that may be presented. A discussion by the members will follow the reading of the annual report. In view of the commemorative meetings held in January, no public meeting will be held at the time of the annual meeting this year. All members of the Society who are within reach of Boston are urged to be present at the annual meeting, and those who cannot come are invited to send any suggestions that may occur to them as to the interests of the work. We would also remind our friends again of the urgent need of funds with which to maintain and further extend the influence of the Society's work. It has been impossible as yet to provide permanent means of preventing the annual deficit which we have had to meet for the last three or four years, on account of the decline in interest rates and rent values. Our friends have generously met these deficits in the past, and we are sure they will not fail to do so now, at this most important juncture in the history of the peace movement. Contributions of any amount will be most gratefully received.

upon

the present time, is that of the "mailed fist," and as arbitration wears no armor, the secret of its power escapes them. The point of view is set forth by G. von Verdy du Vernois in an article on " War and Peace," in a recent number of the Deutsche Rundschau. He argues that a permanent court of arbitration in any form is doomed to failure. Its findings could not be enforced in any way which he can discover. If either of the parties should refuse to accept the award, that would end the matter, and the result would be bad. If the other powers should unite to compel the unwilling nation to accept the judgment, that would start a new war. A commercial boycott would, he thinks, be impossible because of its injurious effect the nation or nations starting it. The writer does not show any acquaintance with the remarkable history of arbitration during the past century, during which the sense of national honor and the power of national and international public opinion have secured obedience to the awards of arbitral tribunals in more than a hundred important instances. A record like this takes the life entirely out of the hypothetical obstacles which du Vernois sets up. It stands to reason that the decisions of a regularly organized and permanent court, set up by the joint action of the nations, would be even more sure, if possible, to secure the acceptance of the arbitrating parties than those of the temporary tribunals of the past. Every one of the objections raised by this German writer, and by German statesmen in general, arises either out of the failure to understand the compelling power of certain moral forces, or out of the love of brute force and the unwillingness to see it discarded.

"No court indeed can extend its hand to compel a foreign nation to obey its judgments; but its moral force in declaring what is right and just,- what is established. by common consent of mankind as the true rule of international conduct, this is far weightier than anything attaching to the utterances of kings or parliaments. A court is an arbiter before which contending parties state their claims upon an equal footing-erected for this end, because all men agree that thus can justice be best secured. What speaks for justice speaks with a voice which no nation, however powerful, can afford to disregard. It is, as one of our associates has finely said, l'expression souveraine du principe du bien coordonné avec les exigences de l'utilité individuelle ou collective? The power which should go before an international

tribunal, and then decline to respect the decree which it had invoked, based upon the jurisprudence of the world, would forfeit the good opinion of mankind. And hardly less endurable is now the state of that nation which has avowedly violated any rule of international law which is generally held to have been established by judicial decision. It goes against the moral sense of civilization. Its punishment is none the less severe because it is simply the natural, unwritten consequence of its acts. Nations live long; they may suffer long. Men may escape remorse for earth, at least, by suicide; after earth, it may be, by pardon. But no divine mercy awaits the nation. that has proved itself unworthy, and its perpetuity of existence keeps it forever at the bar of public opinion. History is the judge, and it is the history of the world of which the greatest power forms so small a part. The record of conviction is not hastily made up, but, once registered, it can never be effaced.”

Want of Observation.

The tendency of military discipline to destroy independence in the soldier and to reduce him to a will-less and mechanical instrument shows itself in many ways. Its effect in weakening the power of observation has recently been brought to the public notice by a scathing criticism of the English soldier's obtuseness in this regard, made by Sir Frederick Maurice, the commander of the Woolwich military district. The want of observation of common surrounding objects is bad enough in ordinary life, but General Maurice shows that it is much worse among soldiers, buckets and other objects hanging about the walls of their quarters being often entirely unnoticed by them, even by the non-commissioned officers. The Lancet wishes Sir Frederick well in his efforts to prevent this atrophy of the soldier's power of observation, but thinks that he will not have an easy time of it, as the nature of military discipline is responsible for it. The Lancet's comment runs thus:

"To a great extent the facility of observation, like other forms of independent thought, is destroyed by military discipline in our army. In the barrack yard a soldier must keep his eyes to the front unless ordered to direct them elsewhere, and the soldier in garrison towns performs most of his exercises in the barrack yard. As a result, the ease with which soldiers of the mother country could lose themselves was a constant cause of comment and ridicule by colonials during the early part of the present war, while one of the stories published of DeWet tells how that elusive leader one night led his men straight through a British camp which barred his way, answering questions in English, and having no objection raised to his progress except by an officers' mess, the members of which grumbled because their meal was suffering from the dust raised by the fugitive Boers. Such a story, if true, affords a good instance of want of observation, when to observe would have implied an interference by the observer in that which apparently did not concern him."