fallible power is that they attribute a pikestaff simplicity to
international--as, in fact, to all questions. According to certain
superlatively well-intentioned people, some nations are wicked and
others virtuous; some nations love the clash of arms, some the ways of
peace; some nations are greedy, brutal and dishonourable, others are
generous, gentle and honourable. It is the absolute bad and the
impossible good of the melodrama, in which the human sheep and goats
are sundered by an obvious moral boundary line.

In point of fact, no nation is good or bad in this simple sense, but
all have a certain justice in their claims, however difficult it is to
square these claims with the moral philosophy of the neutral country.
The British had a certain justice in their conflict with the Transvaal
as had also the Dutch burghers who resisted them. Even in our brutal
attack upon Mexico in 1846 we had the justification arising from our
greater ability to use the conquered territory. It is easy to find
phrases to be used whenever we wish to interfere, but these phrases
sometimes conceal an ambiguous meaning and sometimes have no meaning at
all. Are we, for instance, to become the defenders of small
nationalities, ready to go to war whenever one is invaded? Has a small
nation a right to hold its present territory when that right conflicts
with the economic advance, let us say, of a whole continent? Should we
respect Canada's right to keep New York, had that city originally been
settled by Canadians? Should we compel Russia to treat her Poles and
Jews fairly and concede to Russia the right to compel us to treat our
Negroes fairly? Some extension of the right of interference in what
are now called the internal affairs of other nations must be admitted,
but it is a precipitous road to travel. The united powers may compel
Roumania or Greece to {233} behave, but the United States, acting
alone, would find it irksome to have to constrain or discipline Russia.

By this it is not meant that we should never intervene. It would be
futile to fix such a rule for conduct which, in the end, will be
determined by circumstances. In any question of interference, however,
the burden of proof should rest heavily upon the side which urges a
nation to slay in order to secure what it believes to be the eternal
principles of justice. The general development will be toward greater
interference, but this intervention will be increasingly intern