The Hague court has served a very limited, but a useful, purpose. Some, although only a small number, of the existing peace and arbitration treaties have served a useful purpose. But the purpose and the service have been strictly limited. Issues often arise between nations which are not of first-class importance, which do not affect their vital honor and interest, but which, if left unsettled, may eventually cause irritation that will have the worst possible results. The Hague court and the different treaties in question provide instrumentalities for settling such disputes, where the nations involved really wish to settle them but might be unable to do so if means were not supplied. This is a real service and one well worth rendering. These treaties and the Hague court have rendered such service again and again in time past. It has been a misfortune that some worthy people have anticipated too much and claimed too much in reference to them, for the failure of the excessive claims has blinded men to what they really have accomplished. To expect from them what they cannot give is merely short-sighted. To assert that they will give what they cannot give is mischievous. To promise that they will give what they cannot give is not only mischievous but hypocritical; and it is for this reason that such treaties as the thirty or forty all-inclusive arbitration or peace treaties recently negotiated at Washington, although unimportant, are slightly harmful. The Hague court has proved worthless in the present gigantic crisis. There is hardly a Hague treaty which in the present crisis has not in some respect been violated. However, a step toward the peaceful settlement of questions at issue between nations which are not vital and which do not mark a serious crisis has been accomplished on certain occasions in the past by the action of the Hague court and by rational and limited peace or arbitration treaties. Our business is to try to make this court of more effect and to enlarge the class of cases where its actions will be valuable. In order to do this, we must endeavor to put an international police force behind this international judiciary. At the same time we must refuse to do or say anything insincere. Above all, we must refuse to be misled into abandoning the policy of efficient self-defense, by any unfounded trust that the Hague court, as now constituted, and peace or arbitration treaties of the existing type, can in the smallest degree accomplish what they never have accomplished and never can accomplish. Neither the existing Hague court nor any peace treaties of the existing type will exert even the slightest influence in saving from disaster any nation that does not preserve the virile virtues and the long-sightedness that will enable it by its own might to guard its own honor, interest, and national life. CHAPTER IV THE CAUSES OF THE WAR