If the United States has a mission, besides developing the principles of the brotherhood of man into a living, palpable force, it seems to me that it is to blaze the way to universal arbitration among the nations, and bring them into more complete amity than ever before existed.  It is known to the world that we do not covet the territory of our neighbors, or seek the acquisition of lands on other continents.  We are free of such foreign entanglements as frequently conduce to embarrassing complications, and the efforts we make in behalf of international peace can not be regarded with a suspicion of ulterior motives.  The spirit of justice governs our relations with other countries, and therefore we are specially qualified to set a pace for the rest of the world.

The principle and scope of international arbitration, as exemplified in the treaties recently negotiated by the United States with Great Britain and France, should commend itself to the American people.  These treaties go a step beyond any similar instruments which have received the sanction of the United States, or the two foreign Powers specified.  They enlarge the field of arbitrable subjects embraced in the treaties ratified by the three governments in 1908.  They lift into the realm of discussion and hearing, before some kind of a tribunal, many of the causes of war which have made history such a sickening chronicle of ravage and cruelty, bloodshed and desolation.

After years of patient endeavor by men of various nations, and despite many obstacles and discouragements, there has been established at The Hague a Permanent Court of Arbitration, to which contending governments may submit certain classes of controversies for adjudication.  This court has already justified its creation and existence by the settlement of contentions which in other days led to disastrous wars, and even in this enlightened age might have precipitated serious ruptures.  The United States Government, as represented by the National Administration, is ready to utilize this method of settling international disputes to a greater extent than ever before.  That is, we are willing to refer to this tribunal, or a similar one, questions which heretofore have been left entirely to diplomatic negotiation.

The treaties go further by providing for the creation of a Joint High Commission, to which shall be referred, for impartial and conscientious investigation, any controversy between this Government, on one hand, and Great Britain or France, on the other hand, before such a controversy has been submitted to an arbitral body from which there is no appeal.

And, assuming that governments, like individuals, do not always display, while a dispute is in progress, that calmness of judgment and equipoise which are so consistent with righteous deportment, provision is made for the passion to subside and the blood to cool, by deferring the reference of such controversy to the Joint High Commission for one year.  This affords an opportunity for diplomatic adjustment without an appeal to the commission.