ing laboratories and
the massing of deadly germs? The men who will release the energy in an
atom will be able to destroy a world. If we look at facts we shall not
be drugged by oratory. 'Rhetoric,' said Theodore Roosevelt, 'is a poor
substitute for the habit of looking facts resolutely in the face.' The
facts confronting us are ominous enough. Twice recently one of the
greatest of nations has thrown over the signature of its Supreme Head
and its Secretary of State. The United States repudiated its President
and refused to ratify the League of Nations; and not only that, but
refused also to ratify the Agreement made with France and Britain to
secure France against future aggression. The present misery and unrest
in Europe are largely due to the failure of one hundred and ten
millions of the English-speaking race to honour the signature of their
Chief. The best of them bewail it, and say that it is the fault of
their political system. Under the worst system of European government
such events would be impossible.

But though the failure to ratify treaties be grievous, yet the failure
to observe treaties duly ratified is still more grievous. And the
history of our relations with the States is largely the history of
broken treaties. There was the famous Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850
regarding the Panama Canal; it was repudiated in 1880, and its history
since is a history of broken agreements. There have been so many
conferences, so many agreements, so many treaties since the days of the
Holy Alliance to the days of The Hague, and the end has always been the
same. In 1916 Mr. Elihu Root made a speech in the American Senate, the
echoes of which will ring round the world in the coming years. The
burden of his sorrow was shame for his country's repudiation of their
obligation to protect Belgium. Here are some sentences:--

'Wherever there was respect for law, it revolted against the wrong done
to Belgium. Wherever there was true passion for liberty, it blazed out
for Belgium. Wherever there was humanity it mourned for Belgium....
The law protecting Belgium was our law and the law of every civilised
country.... We had played our part, in conjunction with other
civilised nations, in making that law.... Moreover, that law was
written into a solemn and formal Convention, signed and ratified by
Germany, and Belgium and France, and the United States.... When
Belgium was invaded, that Agreement was binding, not onl