An objection has been raised to the proposal for a league to enforce peace on the ground that it has in the past often proved difficult, if not impossible, to determine which of two belligerents began a war. The criticism is serious, and presents a practical difficulty, grave but probably not insurmountable. The proposal merely lays down a general principle, and if adopted the details would have to be worked out very fully and carefully in a treaty, which would specify the acts that would constitute the waging of war by one member upon another. These would naturally be, not the mere creating of apprehension, but specific acts, such as a declaration of war, invasion of territory, the use of force at sea not disowned within forty-eight hours, or an advance into a region in dispute. This last is an especially difficult point, but those portions of the earth’s surface in which different nations have conflicting claims are growing less decade by decade. It must be remembered that the cases which would arise are not like those which have arisen in the past, where one nation is determined to go to war and merely seeks to throw the moral responsibility on the other while getting the advantage of actually beginning hostilities. It is a case where each will strive to avoid the specific acts of war that may involve the penalty. The reader may have seen, in a country where personal violence is severely punished, two men shaking their fists in each other’s faces, each trying to provoke the other to strike the first blow; and no fight after all. There are many agreements in private business which are not easy to embody in formal contracts; agreements where, as in this case, the execution of the terms calls for immediate action, and where redress after an elaborate trial of the facts affords no real reparation. But if the object sought is good, men do not condemn it on account of the difficulty in devising provisions that will accomplish the result desired; certainly not until they have tried to devise them. It may, indeed, prove impossible to draft a code of specific acts that will cover the ground; it may be impracticable to draft it so as to avoid issues of fact that can be determined only after a long sifting of evidence, which would come too late; but surely that is no reason for failure to make the attempt. We are not making a treaty among nations. We are merely putting forward a suggestion for reducing war, which seems to merit consideration.