(5) Practical steps in the direction of peace may be mentioned.  Most important are arbitration treaties.  They must be made binding, and made to apply to all matters; the loophole which permits a nation to refuse to arbitrate a matter which it believes to involve its “honor” practically invalidates the treaty altogether, as every matter in dispute may be so construed.  Alliances in which one country agrees to help another if the latter has agreed to arbitrate a matter and its enemy has refused, may be of great value.  Treaties that guarantee existing boundaries and bind a nation not to extend its territory are useful, even if there is no adequate method as yet of enforcing such guaranties.  The question whether we shall increase or decrease our army and navy is hotly disputed.  The United States might well lead the way in disarmament, since the oceans that separate us from Europe and Asia are a better protection than forts or fleets, and no nation has enough to gain by fighting us to make it worth the cost.  With the great European nations the case is different, and disarmament will probably have to come by mutual agreement.  The only valid reason for an American army and navy lies in the power they give us to protect our citizens abroad, or to protect our weaker neighbors against foreign aggression.  Perhaps until there is formed an international army and navy, it will be necessary for the most civilized and pacific nations to keep armed, since the less scrupulous nations would remain armed and acquire the balance of power.  But the contention that a great armament is the best guaranty of peace is untrue, for two reasons:  it is an inevitable provocation to other nations to match it with other great armaments; and the very existence of battleships and weapons creates a temptation to use them.  The professional soldier is always eager to see active service, to prove his efficiency, have excitement, win glory and advancement.  As the Odyssey puts it, “The steel blade itself often incites to deeds of violence.”

(6) The ultimate solution for international difficulties must, of course, be world organization.  The beginnings of an international court we have already, the outcome of the first two Hague Conferences, in 1899 and 1907.  It must be given greater powers, and backed up by an international executive, legislature, and police.  Perhaps the police will be the combined armies of the world put at the service of international justice.  This “parliament of nations, federation of the world” is not a Utopian dream; it is hardly a greater step than that by which savage tribes, or the thirteen States of North America, or the South African and Australian States, became welded into nations.  It is to be remembered that the wager of battle was the original method of settling private disputes; and even when trial by jury was authorized, the older form of settlement persisted long-being legally abolished in England only as late as 1819.  Similarly, the peaceful settlement of international disputes will doubtless before many generations become so universal that it will be difficult for our grandchildren or great-grandchildren to realize that as late as early in the twentieth century the most civilized nations still had recourse to the old and barbarous wager of battle.