d complex than any questions that affect merely
individuals. Almost every great nation has inherited certain questions,
either with other nations or with sections of its own people, which it
is quite impossible, in the present state of civilization, to decide
as matters between private individuals can be decided. During the last
century at least half of the wars that have been fought have been
civil and not foreign wars. There are big and powerful nations which
habitually commit, either upon other nations or upon sections of their
own people, wrongs so outrageous as to justify even the most peaceful
persons in going to war. There are also weak nations so utterly
incompetent either to protect the rights of foreigners against their own
citizens, or to protect their own citizens against foreigners, that it
becomes a matter of sheer duty for some outside power to interfere in
connection with them. As yet in neither case is there any efficient
method of getting international action; and if joint action by several
powers is secured, the result is usually considerably worse than if only
one Power interfered. The worst infamies of modern times--such affairs
as the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, for instance--have been
perpetrated in a time of nominally profound international peace, when
there has been a concert of big Powers to prevent the breaking of this
peace, although only by breaking it could the outrages be stopped. Be it
remembered that the peoples who suffered by these hideous massacres,
who saw their women violated and their children tortured, were actually
enjoying all the benefits of "disarmament." Otherwise they would not
have been massacred; for if the Jews in Russia and the Armenians in
Turkey had been armed, and had been efficient in the use of their arms,
no mob would have meddled with them.

Yet amiable but fatuous persons, with all these facts before their eyes,
pass resolutions demanding universal arbitration for everything, and the
disarmament of the free civilized powers and their abandonment of their
armed forces; or else they write well-meaning, solemn little books, or
pamphlets or editorials, and articles in magazines or newspapers, to
show that it is "an illusion" to believe that war ever pays, because it
is expensive. This is precisely like arguing that we should disband the
police and devote our sole attention to persuading criminals that it
is "an illusion" to suppose that burglary, highway