effective instrument of international peace and progress is evidently
one of great magnitude and difficulty. But it is the task which lies
persistently before us, and upon its performance the safety of
civilization itself depends. It is, therefore, well not to exaggerate
its difficulties, but to measure them as closely as we can. This can
best be done by means of a brief survey of the principal lines of
advance which have been proposed. In this country, in America, in
Holland, and elsewhere, the air is thickening with schemes for obtaining
better international relations after the war. All of them have this, I
think, in common, that they concern themselves primarily not with ideal
or practical plans for the general co-operation of nations in advancing
the welfare of the world, but with methods of preventing future wars and
securing relief against the burden of armaments. All agree that some
general formal arrangements between nations must be substituted for 'the
clash of competing ambitions, of groupings and alliances and a
precarious equipoise', and that only by such stable agreement can
disarmament be got and peace rendered secure. All agree that the
instrument of this international government must be a general treaty to
which a number of states must be parties and that the terms of this
treaty must require them to submit all forms of disputes to some pacific
mode of settlement. Nearly all, moreover, accept the distinction drawn
between justiciable issues, relating to the application or
interpretation of laws or to the ascertainment of facts by means of
legal evidence, which are suitable for settlement by a judicial or
arbitral process, and those which, not being capable of such settlement,
are better suited for a looser process of inquiry and conciliation.

But the proposals differ widely, both as regards the scope they assign
to the work of preventing war, and as regards the measures they advocate
for securing the fulfilment of international agreement. They may be