deciding matters according to some already existing system of international law; it is necessary also that there should be a body capable of enacting international law, and this body will have to have the power of transferring territory from one state to another, when it is persuaded that adequate grounds exist for such a transference.  Friends of peace will make a mistake if they unduly glorify the status quo.  Some nations grow, while others dwindle; the population of an area may change its character by emigration and immigration.  There is no good reason why states should resent changes in their boundaries under such conditions, and if no international authority has power to make changes of this kind, the temptations to war will sometimes become irresistible.

[5] For detailed scheme of international government see “International Government,” by L. Woolf.  Allen & Unwin.

The international authority ought to possess an army and navy, and these ought to be the only army and navy in existence.  The only legitimate use of force is to diminish the total amount of force exercised in the world.  So long as men are free to indulge their predatory instincts, some men or groups of men will take advantage of this freedom for oppression and robbery.  Just as the police are necessary to prevent the use of force by private citizens, so an international police will be necessary to prevent the lawless use of force by separate states.

But I think it is reasonable to hope that if ever an international government, possessed of the only army and navy in the world, came into existence, the need of force to enact obedience to its decisions would be very temporary.  In a short time the benefits resulting from the substitution of law for anarchy would become so obvious that the international government would acquire an unquestioned authority, and no state would dream of rebelling against its decisions.  As soon as this stage had been reached, the international army and navy would become unnecessary.

We have still a very long road to travel before we arrive at the establishment of an international authority, but it is not very difficult to foresee the steps by which this result will be gradually reached.  There is likely to be a continual increase in the practice of submitting disputes to arbitration, and in the realization that the supposed conflicts of interest between different states are mainly illusory.  Even where there is a real conflict of interest, it must in time become obvious that neither of the states concerned would suffer as much by giving way as by fighting.  With the progress of inventions, war, when it does occur, is bound to become increasingly destructive.  The civilized races of the world are faced with the alternative of cošperation or mutual destruction.  The present war is making this alternative daily more evident.  And it is difficult to believe that, when the enmities which it has generated have had time to cool, civilized men will deliberately choose to destroy civilization, rather than acquiesce in the abolition of war.