Page:Armistice Day.djvu/339

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UNITED STATES OF EUROPE
317

international legal procedure. Special arbitral tribunals have tended to merge and grow into the international court at The Hague, and that, in turn, will develop until it becomes a real supreme judicial tribunal.

"Of course the analogy with the federated State fails at some points, but I believe the time will come when each nation will deposit in a world federation some portion of its sovereignty.

"When this occurs we shall be able to establish an international executive and an international police, both devised for the especial purpose of enforcing the decisions of the international court.

"Here, again, we offer a perfect object lesson. Our central Government is one of limited and defined powers. Our history can show Europe how such limitations and definitions can be established and interpreted, and how they can be modified and amended when necessary to meet new conditions.

"My colleague, Prof. John Bassett Moore, is now preparing and publishing a series of annotated reports of the decisions of the several international arbitration tribunals, in order that the Governments and jurists of the world may have at hand, as they have in the United States Supreme Court reports, a record of decided cases, which, when the time comes, may be referred to as precedents.