Towards an enduring peace : $b A symposium of peace proposals and programs 1914-1916
History
Towards an enduring peace : $b A symposium of peace proposals and programs 1914-1916
Peace; World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace
The chief problem then of a League of Peace is this: Shall the members
of the League “not only keep the peace themselves, but prevent by force
if necessary its being broken by others,” as ex-President Roosevelt
suggested in his Nobel Peace Address delivered at Christiania, May 5,
1910? Or shall its force be exercised only within its membership and thus
be on the side of law and order and never on the side of arbitrary will
or tyranny? Or shall it never be used at all? Whichever one of these
conceptions finally prevails the Great War has conclusively demonstrated
that as long as War Lords exist defensive force must be maintained.
Hence the League must be prepared to use force against any nations which
will not forswear force. Nevertheless a formula must be devised for
disarmament. For unless it is a law of nature that war is to consume all
the fruits of progress disarmament somehow and some way must take place.
How then can the maintenance of a force for defense and police power be
reconciled with the theory of disarmament?
[Sidenote: The principles for a League of Peace.]
In this way: Let the League of Peace be formed on the following five
principles:
First. The nations of the League shall mutually agree to respect the
territory and sovereignty of each other.
Second. All questions that cannot be settled by diplomacy shall be
arbitrated.
Third. The nations of the League shall provide a periodical assembly to
make all rules to become law unless vetoed by a nation within a stated
period.
Fourth. The nations shall disarm to the point where the combined forces
of the League shall be a certain per cent. higher than those of the most
heavily armed nation or alliance outside of the League. Detailed rules
for this pro rata disarmament shall be formulated by the Assembly.
Fifth. Any member of the League shall have the right to withdraw on due
notice, or may be expelled by the unanimous vote of the others.
The advantages that a nation would gain in becoming a member of such
a league are manifest. The risk of war would be eliminated within the
League. Obviously the only things that are vital to a nation are its land
and its independence. Since each nation in the League will have pledged
itself to respect the territory and the sovereignty of every other, a
refusal to do so will logically lead to expulsion from the League. Thus
every vital question will be automatically reserved from both war and
arbitration. All other questions are of secondary importance and can
readily be arbitrated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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