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
One road lies through the development of what is known as International,
but should more properly be called _Inter-State Law_, through the
revival, on a firmer and broader foundation, of the Concert of Europe
conceived by the Congress of Vienna just a hundred years ago—itself
a revival, on a secular basis, of the great medieval ideal of an
international Christendom, held together by Christian Law and Christian
ideals. That ideal faded away forever at the Reformation, which grouped
Europe into independent sovereign States ruled by men responsible
to no one outside their own borders. It will never be revived on an
ecclesiastical basis. Can we hope for its revival on a basis of modern
democracy, modern nationality, and modern educated public opinion? Can
Inter-State Law, hitherto a mere shadow of the majestic name it bears,
almost a matter of convention and etiquette, with no permanent tribunal
to interpret it, and no government to enforce it, be enthroned with the
necessary powers to maintain justice between the peoples and governments
of the world?
Such a Law the statesmen of Great Britain and Russia sought to impose on
Europe in 1815, to maintain a state of affairs which history has shown to
have been intolerable to the European peoples. There are those who hope
that the task can be resumed, on a better basis, at the next Congress.
“Shall we try again,” writes Professor Gilbert Murray, “to achieve
Castlereagh’s and Alexander’s ideal of a permanent Concert, pledged to
make collective war upon the peace-breaker? Surely we must. We must, at
all cost and in spite of all difficulties, because the alternative means
such unspeakable failure. We must learn to agree, we civilized nations
of Europe, or else we must perish. I believe that the chief counsel of
wisdom here is to be sure to go far enough. We need a permanent Concert,
perhaps a permanent Common Council, in which every awkward problem can be
dealt with before it has time to grow dangerous, and in which outvoted
minorities must accustom themselves to giving way.”
[Sidenote: Peace will be based on Law.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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