Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace AssociationIntercollegiate Peace Association
History
Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association
Intercollegiate Peace Association
Peace; War
This is the spirit of true national honor. This it is that
makes of a nation a real nation. The call to arms is but another
signal of the defeat of the underlying principles of civilization.
Only slowly will any large number of the people accept these new
conceptions. But there are already hopeful signs. The growing
sentiment is rapidly crystallizing. The developing code of
international equity as expressed by the establishment of such an
institution as the Hague Court is a step in the right direction. The
peaceful settlement of the Venezuelan boundary dispute was an honor to
the nations involved. And the work of the International Commission of
Inquiry in the Dogger Bank episode between Russia and England is
significant of the trend. Again, a modern innovation was wrought when
the International Conference in 1906 settled the conflicting interests
of Germany, France, and Spain in Morocco. Within the last century the
powers ratified over two hundred treaties, each providing for the
peaceful settlement by tribunals of specified international disputes.
It is true that most peace treaties have dealt almost exclusively with
legal questions. The nations have hesitated to submit all
international differences to a court of arbitration. But the spirit
for arbitral settlement is widening. And this spirit is not for a mere
avoidance of war, but seeks the substitution of a better method than
war for determining justice between nations. Each nation has its own
individual problems to deal with, and in this respect all cannot
proceed according to set rules. The movement does not mean the
extinction and obliteration of nationality and national rights. The
individual has not been minimized because he consents to submit his
differences with his fellow men to a court for settlement. And this
must be the ultimate attitude of nations whose honor we have a right
to guard jealously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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