The Administration and International Justice able it may be that the principle be adopted, goes without saying. It is a visionary project. The fact that there will be some controversies which one of the parties will hold not to be arbi trable is, however, recognized. How such a decision can be reached by a party which has pledged itself to arbitrate all disputes is not explained, and the plan could be strengthened by giving it more logical consistency. The Commission of Inquiry idea, taken from The Hague conventions, is not a new one, and it has received strong indorsement. In the Dogger Bank case, arising from the seizure by Russia of British ships in the Russo-Japanese war, the Commission of Inquiry was the means of securing a prompt payment of indemnity without recourse to arbitration. Many disputes can be conceived of such a nature that after impartial investigation and report, restitution would voluntarily be ten dered by the party at fault. That Mr. Bryan's plan, for which the Adminis tration stands sponsor, would tend to avert war is indisputable; that it would entirely prevent war is not to be sup posed. There is more of the doctrinaire than of the practical statesman in the proposal of this scheme as a panacea for war, yet through this fact alone it may kindle a moral enthusiasm which a soberer project could not arouse. At all events it springs from a temperamental
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tendency which justifies high expecta tions of the future of the present Administration. Thus the Administration approaches the coming observance of the centenary at Ghent under favorable auspices, with a clean record. If the deeper signifi cance of the occasion is appreciated, and the greater nations join in the celebra tion not as an Anglo-American ob servance solely but as a world event, only then will the Ghent celebration fully express the spirit of international justice which seems to animate the Administration, rather than the spirit of an exclusive Anglo-Saxon justice maintained by costly imperial arma ments in derogation of the rights of other countries. If all the nations are to co-operate for the maintenance of world peace, the relative size of their arma ments is an insignificant consideration, for their peace must be the peace of the law, not the peace of the sword. If the Anglo-American side of the cele bration is not given undue prominence the nations will be the better able to prepare themselves for earnest, equal co-operation in the labors of the third Hague Conference, and more may be accomplished if the Ghent cele bration leaves pleasant memories in the minds of all the nations, great and small, on which it depends for its success.
