science. In the controversial atmosphere which surrounds so ^ economic problems to-day, this is not an ideal easily achieved ; bu if it can be realized, the presentation of the facts upon which future policies must be founded from an international and unprejudicec standpoint will be of real service to honest seekers after truth.
Internationalism. There is one other task which lies upon the International Labour Organization and which goes to the rooi of its existence the creation of an international spirit. Unless that spirit can be born and fostered, neither the League of Na- tions nor any institution connected with it can hope to survive. It is not a question of paying lip-service to catch-words, ol realizing " the brotherhood of man," of reviving in the zoth century the picturesque but shadowy idealism of Rousseau. To create a true international spirit it is necessary to begin practically and prosaically at the bottom instead of presumptu- ously and poetically at the top. The first and most elementary lesson consists of the inculcation of the fact that there are more links, economic, social and human, which bind nations together than there are divergent interests and antagonistic aims which pull them asunder. It is not an easy lesson to learn. The nationalistic impulse in a people is almost as deep-rooted and instinctive as the egoistic impulse in the individual. But just as men cannot live without working with and for their fellow-men in society, so nations cannot exist without cooperating with other nations. Because, however, the nation, being the larger unit, is more nearly self-sufficient than the individual, national public opinion is slow to realize its dependence on others and is apt to believe its national self-sufficiency far more complete than in the modern world it can possibly be. Internationalism is not the antithesis of nationalism, but its complement. Properly under- stood, it does not mean the emasculation of the national spirit, which represents the embodiment of the ideals, the traditions and the virtues built up during many generations of common national effort. On the contrary, it means the pooling of the spiritual resources of all nations in order to make their intercourse more fruitful and to bring the society of which they are all members to a higher level of prosperity and civilization. To achieve such a result public opinion needs to possess an international as well as a national consciousness. It must acquire a world point-of-view, a Weltanschauung, as a corrective and an enlargement of its national standpoint. Instead of regarding the foreigner with instinctive mistrust, if not with sub-conscious aversion, it will then realize that in most respects he is remarkably similar, that he is grappling with similar problems, faced by similar needs, the victim of similar economic disabilities, which everyone can meet more successfully by working together to find the right solution than by working alone without each other's experience.
Perhaps the principal work of the International Labour Organ- ization is to bring about such collaboration in the industrial field, and so to contribute towards the formation of a practical inter- national spirit. In the present state of economic interdependence which the world has reached, to hunt in isolation for the solution of economic problems, which are in a large measure common to all countries, is hunting deliberately in the dark. When the delegates of the 48 states comprising the League meet at the annual conferences, they not only discover an unsuspected community of ideas and sentiments, but also an astonishing identity in the difficulties which preoccupy them. The labour question, which is largely a psycholog- ical cjuestion, is essentially the same in Japan as in Great Britain, despite all the variations of mentality, historical evolution and national tradition which go to make up its setting. The mere meeting of the International Labour Conferences does much to promote a sense of common interest and an understanding of the value of cooperation. For its everyday work the International Labour Office attempts to reach the same end by making known to every country what is being thought and done in others through the medium of its publications ana of its correspondents. In Lon- don, Paris, Washington, Rome and Berlin, regular correspondents are established. Their business is partly to collect first-hand and complete information about the industrial developments in their own country and to keep the office in touch with its government and its great organizations of employers and workers. But an even more important part of their duties is to make known the work of the organization, and so to educate public opinion to see things through international eyes. The value, indeed the indispensability, of such a system of contact for an international organization is shown by the frequent demands which have been received for its extension to other countries. Such a network of international connexions can only be gradually and carefully built up, but it is the surest method of fostering the sense of international community, which is essential to the life of the League of Nations and its allied institutions. Like all other institutions, they are liable to feel the effects of the actions and re- actions which affect the current of human progress. The vault- ing idealism which marked the close of the World War has given ground before a wave of more materialistic sentiment bred of dis- couragement and disillusionment, because the new world is as yet apparently no better and certainly less prosperous than the old world we remember before the war. But the ideas embodied in the labour part of the Peace Treaty have already obtained a sufficient hold to justify the bdief that their survival and develop- ment are as certain as those of any movement can be in an age when all things are in flux and nothing can claim finality. (H. B. B.)
INTERNATIONAL LAW (see 14.694*). The World War led a certain number of " practical " people to the length of declaring international law to be extinct; and, no doubt, in practice during the war the breaches of its principles were more familiar than the cases of its observance. Yet the belligerents never ceased to appeal to it against one another, and to make propagandist capital out of violation of its teachings. In spite, therefore, of there being ground for discouragement, international law has never ceased to be the usage which had grown up as the legitimate practice of civilized mankind, and the violations and deviations only leave it on a more solid foundation of principle than ever. The offences committed by different belligerents against it, moreover, have served to intensify the feeling that safety in the future from international intrigue and hatreds, fomented by leaders of great material interests among ignorant or degenerate masses, lies rather in the diffusion of the spirit of law, its codification, and the creation of agencies for its enforcement against those who disregard it.
i. General. The framers of the treaties of peace evidently felt that public opinion throughout the world demanded some- thing higher than the rule of force, and the preamble sets out among the four purposes of the Covenant of the League of Nations " the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among govern- ments." The whole preamble reads as follows:
In order to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security, by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just and honour- able relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among governments, and by the maintenance of justice and scrupu- lous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another."
In further recognition of the demand of the world for law in the place of force, Article XIV. of the Covenant sets out that the Council of the League of Nations " shall formulate and sub- mit to the members of the League for adoption plans for the establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice," and that " the Court shall be competent to hear and determine any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it"; and it goes still further in providing 'or its obtaining a sort of moral influence over the League tself in that " it may also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly."
The framers of the Covenant unfortunately had inserted Article X., which resulted in the United States refusing to oin the League.
Yet the article at first sight seemed harmless. It provides that " the members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the league," and that " in case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulilled." Closer examination showed that it lent itself to inter-relations inconsistent with the objects of a League of Peace. To the undertaking to respect the territorial integrity and existing political independence of the members of the League there could be no objection, but the " obligation " " to preserve hem against external aggression " or a " threat of aggression " practically constituted the League an agent for defence of the
- These figures indicate the volume and page number of the previous article.
