These cases, which we cannot too carefully examine, show that what is here essential is that it should be possible to formulate a juridical statement of the conflicting claims. In Germany the _Bundestag_ had only power to decide questions of law. Other disputes were left to be fought out. Questions on which the existence and vital honour of a state depend—any question which nearly concerns the disputants—cannot be reduced to any cut and dry legal formula of right and wrong. We may pass over the consideration that in some cases (as in the Franco-Prussian War) the delay caused by seeking mediation of any kind would deprive a nation of the advantage its state of military preparation deserved. And we may neglect the problem of finding an impartial judge on some questions of dispute, although its solution might be a matter of extreme difficulty, so closely are the interests of modern nations bound up in one another. How could the Eastern Question, for example, be settled by arbitration? It is impossible that such a means should be sufficient for every case. Arbitration in other words may prevent war, but can never be a substitute for war. We cannot wonder that this is so. So numerous and conflicting are the interests of states, so various are the grades of civilisation to which they have attained and the directions along which they are developing, that differences of the most vital kind are bound to occur and these can never be settled by any peaceful means at present known to Europe. This is above all true where the self-preservation[92] or independence of a people are concerned. Here the “good-will” of the nations who disagree would necessarily be wanting: there could be no question of the arbitration of an outsider. [87] See “A Plan for a Universal and Perpetual Peace” in the _Principles of International Law_ (_Works_, Vol. II). One of the main principles advocated by Bentham in this essay (written between 1787 and 1789) is that every state should give up its colonies. [88] See his _Kleine Schriften_. [89] _Institutes of the Law of Nations_ (1884), Vol. II., Ch. XIV. [90] John Stuart Mill holds that the multiplication of federal unions would be a benefit to the world. [See his _Considerations on Representative Government_ (1865), Ch. XVII., where he discusses the conditions necessary to render such unions successful.] But the Peace Society is scarcely justified, on the strength of what is here, in including Mill among writers who have made definite proposals of peace or federation. (See _Inter. Trib._) [91] See what Lawrence says (_op. cit._, § 241) of neutralisation and the limits of its usefulness as a remedy for war. [92] Montesquieu: _Esprit des Lois_, X. Ch. 2. “The life of governments is like that of man. The latter has a right to kill in case of natural defence: the former have a right to wage war for their own preservation.”