Great Britain -- Defenses; Great Britain -- Foreign relations; War
In the international sphere there is no parallel to the action either of
a civil or of a criminal court. Civil and criminal jurisdiction are
attributes of sovereignty, and over two independent States there is no
sovereign power. If, therefore, it is desired to institute between two
States a situation analogous to that by which the subjects of a single
Government are amenable to judicial tribunals, the proper way is to
bring the two States under one sovereignty. This can be effected, and is
constantly effected, by one of two methods. Either the two States
federate and form a united State, or one of them conquers and annexes
the other. The former process has been seen in modern times in the
formation of the United States of America: the latter formed the
substance of the history of civilisation during the first three
centuries before Christ, when the Roman State successively conquered,
annexed, and absorbed all the other then existing States surrounding the
basin of the Mediterranean.
The history of no State justifies the belief that order and justice can
successfully be maintained merely by the action of umpires and of
arbitrators. Every State worth the name has had to rely upon civil and
criminal courts and upon law enforced by its authority, that is, upon a
series of principles of right expressed in legislation and upon an
organisation of force for the purpose of carrying those principles into
practical effect.
It appears, then, that so far from the experience of States justifying
the view that it is wrong to employ force, the truth is that right or
law, unless supported by force, is ineffective, that the objection in
principle to any use of force involves anarchy, or the cessation of the
State, and that the wish to substitute judicial tribunals for war as a
means of settling disputes between State and State is a wish to
amalgamate under a single Government all those States which are to
benefit by the substitution.
The reasonable attitude with regard to arbitration is to accept it
whenever the other side will accept it. But if the adversary refuses
arbitration and insists upon using force, what course is open to any
State but that of resisting force by force?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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