Such obstacles may prove to be insurmountable; but provided the Latin-Americans can be convinced of the disinterestedness of this country, they do not look insurmountable.  Acquiescence in a permanent American international system would, of course, imply a certain sacrifice of independence on the part of the several contracting states; but in return for this sacrifice their situation in respect to their neighbors would receive a desirable certification.  They would renounce the right of going to war in return for a guarantee of their independence in other respects, and for the consequent chance of an indefinite period of orderly economic and social development.  Whether they can ever be brought to such a renunciation will depend, of course, on the conception of their national interest which the more important Latin-American states will reach.  As long as any one of them cherishes objects which can only be realized by war, the international situation in the Western hemisphere will remain similar to that of Europe.  An actual or latent aggressiveness on the part of any one nation inevitably provokes its neighbors into a defiant and suspicious temper.  It is too soon to predict whether the economic and political development of the Latin-Americans during the next generation will make for a warlike or a peaceful international organization; but considering the political geography of South America and the manifest economic interests of the several states, it does not look as if any one of them had as much to gain from a militant organization as it had from a condition of comparative international security.

The domestic condition of some of the Latin-American states presents a serious obstacle to the creation of a stable American international system.  Such a system presupposes a condition of domestic peace.  The several contracting states must possess permanent and genuinely national political organizations; and no such organization is possible as long as the tradition and habit of revolution persists.  As we have seen, the political habits of the more important states have in this respect enormously improved of late years, but there remain a number of minor countries wherein the right of revolution is cherished as the essential principle of their democracy.  Just what can be done with such states is a knotty problem.  In all probability no American international system will ever be established without the forcible pacification of one or more such centers of disorder.  Coercion should, of course, be used only in the case of extreme necessity; and it would not be just to deprive the people of such states of the right of revolution, unless effective measures were at the same time taken to do away with the more or less legitimate excuses for revolutionary protest.  In short, any international American political system might have to undertake a task in states like Venezuela, similar to that which the United States is now performing in Cuba.  That any attempt to secure domestic stability would be disinterested, if not successful, would be guaranteed by the participation or the express acquiescence therein of the several contracting states.