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CHAPTER III

ANTECEDENTS OF THE WORLD LEGISLATURE

Plausible reason can be given for predicting that the Hague conferences will prove to have been in the historic line of development of a true legislative body for all mankind. But the political unity of the world can come about only by the overthrow of some theories which are held very stoutly by the statesmen of the nations to-day. Men in politics to-day have a different attitude toward political truth from men's attitude in other fields of progress. In physics new truth is welcomed gladly; it is not received with resentment or hostility, if it is demonstrated reasonably to be truth; it is welcomed and obeyed, for it is known that penalty follows its violation. But with religion and world politics it is different. In the relations of men to each other the most fundamental truth is that mankind is one, and that already it is one organic body. Absolute national sovereignty is a theory which the foremost statesmen of the great nations have strenuously insisted upon; but the demonstration is very simple that the absoluteness does not prevail even within the boundaries of the nation. itself which claims to have absolute sovereignty, for it is a well-settled principle of international law that treaties are the supreme law of the land for any nation; that is, a people's obligations to other people of whom they claim to be independent are supreme over their relations to each other, and the obligation which grows out of the fact that the nation is a part of mankind is supreme over all claims of independence. Therefore the claim of any nation and the claims of all nations to absolute sovereignty are mere idle words, contradicted by the supreme obligations of every nation during every hour of its existence.

Sovereignty is an attribute of mankind as a whole. It is not an attribute of any of the parts of mankind. Below the status of sovereignty the relations of the parts to the central authority — whether much or little absolute control of national and local affairs shall be

left to national and local authority is purely a question of expediency as to the best system of maintaining national, local, and personal rights. Those rights are sacred, and to be guarded by law as sacredly in case of nations as in case of persons; but the nations have no sovereignty over against world sovereignty, any more than persons have sovereignty over against their national government. Sovereignty is one thing; rights are another. Sovereignty, in the true sense, inheres in nothing less than the whole of mankind. That sovereignty must maintain national and local rights.

The first practical step in getting the nations into their true world relations is thus to have them admit the truth that they are parts of a world whole, and that any contradictory doctrine cannot stand for a moment. Still further, every insistence upon the false doctrine carries a penalty with it, just as violation of physical law carries a penalty. One of the fascinating features in the history of the nations is their constant illustration of the unity of the human race and their tendency toward world centralization, in spite of all the facts and the follies which split up mankind into mutually destructive fragments. Take, for instance, the list of international documents which has been mentioned, the collection which bears the name of G. F. de Martens, and which finds its modern counterpart in the valuable tables of international events and documents which are published in several nations, in the United States in the American Journal of International Law. In thousands of cases there are recorded negotiations of two nations with each other, taking form in treaties and in a large variety of communications of less rank, all of which are based on and illustrate the unity of all and the impossibility of any one nation existing in either peace or war without complicated relations with almost every other nation on earth. But all of these may be passed over in order to reach the more significant and more fertile class, that in which three or more nations act in concert for the strengthening of bonds between them, for their mutual advantage in opposing conditions dangerous to both, and for the breaking down of obstacles to a closer union between them, whereby the masses of their people may tend to become assimilated and amalgamated either by trade or travel or intermarriage, or by all combined.

Alliances or leagues of independent political powers go back to the dim past, and there is no certainty when the most remote will be

discovered. But every reader who has a Bible will find in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, at a date which is given as about 1913 B.C., a combination of four kings in war against five; and the fact that their kingdoms were doubtless small does not weaken the illustration. Again, at a date given as 1451 B.C., the kings in the land of Canaan combined to resist the invading Israelites. The Ætolian League, from 320 to 189 B.C., and the Achæan League, from 280 to 146 B.C., in Greece, are later illustrations. In Europe in the Middle Ages we read of the Hanseatic league of 1140 A.D., of various combinations of the Grisons of Switzerland in 1396, and of their union in 1471. The dukes of Calabria, Brittany, and Bourbon made their "League for the Public Good" in 1464 against Louis XI of France, and from that time on occasionally in Europe there were combinations of more than two Powers for limited periods, while international relations between the nations in groups of twos showed increasing frequency. The world was moving all the time and was getting together, notwithstanding the frightfully destructive wars which annihilated large portions of the population.

In the early part of the eighteenth century some multiple combinations of nations are to be noticed. In 1703 Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal made an alliance at Lisbon. In 1718 there was a quadruple alliance of Great Britain, France, Austria, and Spain, to which Sardinia was admitted in 1720. But the illustrations are few till we cross into the nineteenth century and in 1806 note the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, which in 1807 had come to include thirty-four independent states. In 1815 came the Congress of Vienna, following the Napoleonic wars, attended by eight Powers, which established the so-called Concert of Europe and was attended by an alliance of Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, which France was invited to join through a note sent by the four Powers to the Duc de Richelieu, November 4, 1818. The theory of the balance of power in Europe was first recognized in the peace conferences of Münster and Osnabrück in 1648. In 1821 ten states joined in establishing the free navigation of the Elbe. In 1830 Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia joined in decreeing the separation of Belgium from Holland. In 1854 Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia took joint action regarding Turkey.

But after the Crimean War, with its horrors, after the liberation of

Italy, after the Civil War in the United States, when all civilization must have had its fill of blood, came the rush of the nations into their modern world relations. The word "rush" is used in retrospect. At the time it did not seem to be a rush. Certainly the principal participants in the events did not realize their vital historic relations, but as we look back we see things in a clearer light than that in which the actors saw them, and the years seem nearer together as they recede in perspective.

In 1864 came the convention of Geneva, a humanitarian movement which grew out of the sufferings of the sick and the wounded in the Crimean War, in the main. It resulted in the establishment of the Red Cross Society, now a world institution; and the Geneva convention has become world legislation, to be given its due standing in history.

In 1863 was held an international conference in Paris to consider the subject of a postal union, and it was the lineal predecessor of the famous meeting at Berne in 1874 which resulted in the establishment of the Universal Postal Union, of which every nation on earth is now a member if it is sufficiently organized to have a government by which it can be represented.

From that date of 1874 onward, international conferences and congresses, held by official delegates of more or fewer nations, have met in large number and for various purposes in the advancement of the welfare of mankind. Many of these conferences formulated propositions which were ratified by the home governments and thus became official statements of so many nations that they are now the formal will of the world, or world law, the expressed will of mankind taken as an organized whole.

The climax was reached in the second peace conference at The Hague in 1907, when practically all the nations were participants, and when the self-consciousness of all mankind, as a single organic body, came into being and found expression in the adoption of the recommendation that a third conference be held, that recommendation growing out of a proposition that the Hague conference be made a permanent body, with regular sittings, from which it was expected that a true world legislature would develop in due time.

In the American Journal of International Law for January, 1908 (p. 27), Professor James Brown Scott, who was officially listed among

the delegates from the United States to the second peace conference as "solicitor of the department of state, technical delegate," says: "The friends of peace and arbitration had wished to make the conference at The Hague a permanent institution, meeting at regular and stated intervals, known in advance. The American delegation had the honor to urge the adoption of such a resolution or recommendation and succeeded in substance, although the language is not so clear and crisp as one would like to see it." Then follows the official recommendation for a third conference; and there can be no doubt that a series of official world gatherings of delegates for the expression of the will of the world has begun. It promises to lead to a true world legislature. When this shall have come, then world law will enter upon a new stage of development.

Attention is called to the imperative form of the language, with full imperative meaning, which occurs repeatedly in the world legislation; and the mandate is only veiled in many other cases where it is not positively expressed. Consider a few citations: "Each government shall"; "the governments shall only apply"; "the government of each country is obliged"; "the government shall make known"; "each signatory Power shall select"; "a Power desiring to adhere shall make its intention known"; "the contracting Powers shall furnish." Authority is here put upon each and every nation. It matters not whether the Power to obey is Germany with its mighty army, or Great Britain with its formidable navy, or the United States with its aggressive confidence of ability to overcome any earthly opposition, or Russia spreading itself over a vast area of the habitable globe, each and all, equally with puny Panama and tiny Montenegro, is in that position where a supreme authority commands it: "Thou shalt"; and "Thou shalt not."

This authority, fearless before a mighty army, indifferent to a formidable navy, serene in the presence of aggressive confidence, unwearied by thousands of miles of distance, impartial between mighty empires and tiny republics, in striking contrast to the material forces which it dominates, is the imperial power of truth and justice, revealed to and expressed by the united mind of the human race as a political unit. Mankind commands; great and small Powers equally obey.

By the status of to-day each and every Power, by its own will, makes itself a part of the whole which puts compulsion upon itself.

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