The task of converting so feeble a structure of government into an effective instrument of international peace and progress is evidently one of great magnitude and difficulty. But it is the task which lies persistently before us, and upon its performance the safety of civilization itself depends. It is, therefore, well not to exaggerate its difficulties, but to measure them as closely as we can. This can best be done by means of a brief survey of the principal lines of advance which have been proposed. In this country, in America, in Holland, and elsewhere, the air is thickening with schemes for obtaining better international relations after the war. All of them have this, I think, in common, that they concern themselves primarily not with ideal or practical plans for the general co-operation of nations in advancing the welfare of the world, but with methods of preventing future wars and securing relief against the burden of armaments. All agree that some general formal arrangements between nations must be substituted for 'the clash of competing ambitions, of groupings and alliances and a precarious equipoise', and that only by such stable agreement can disarmament be got and peace rendered secure. All agree that the instrument of this international government must be a general treaty to which a number of states must be parties and that the terms of this treaty must require them to submit all forms of disputes to some pacific mode of settlement. Nearly all, moreover, accept the distinction drawn between justiciable issues, relating to the application or interpretation of laws or to the ascertainment of facts by means of legal evidence, which are suitable for settlement by a judicial or arbitral process, and those which, not being capable of such settlement, are better suited for a looser process of inquiry and conciliation.