r by
whatever other means it thought fit. They could as conveniently be
elected by a legislature or a nation. And such a body would not only be
of enormous authority in the statement, interpretation, and enforcement
of treaties, but it could also discharge a hundred useful functions in
relation to world hygiene, international trade and travel, the control
of the ocean, the exploration and conservation of the world's supplies
of raw material and food supply. It would be, in fact, a World Council.

Today this is an entirely practicable and hopeful proposal if only we
can overcome the opposition of those who cling to the belief that it is
possible for a country to be at the same time entirely pacific and
entirely unresponsible to and detached from the rest of mankind.

Given such a body, such a great alliance of world powers, much else in
the direction of world pacification becomes possible. Without it we may
perhaps expect a certain benefit from the improved good feeling of
mankind and the salutary overthrow of the German military culture, but
we cannot hope for any real organized establishment of peace.

I believe that a powerful support for the assembly and continuance of
such a world congress as this could be easily and rapidly developed in
North and South America, in Britain and the British Empire generally, in
France and Italy, in all the smaller States of northern, central, and
western Europe. It would probably have the personal support of the Czar,
unless he has profoundly changed the opinions with which he opened his
reign, the warm accordance of educated China and Japan, and the good
will of a renascent Germany. It would open a new era for mankind.

III.

Now, this idea of a congress of the belligerents to arrange the peace
settlements after this war, expanding by the accession of neutral powers
into a permanent world congress for the enforcement of international law
and the maintenance of the peace of mankind, is so reasonable and
attractive and desirable that if it were properly explained it would
probably receive the support of nineteen out of every twenty intelligent
persons.

Nevertheless, its realization is, on the whole, improbable. A mere
universal disgust with war is no more likely to end war than the
universal dislike for dying has ended death. And though war, unlike
dying, seems to be an avoidable fate, it does not follow that its
present extreme unpopularity will end it unless people not only