The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1910-05-06
As Practical Man.

As Practical Man
."Now, having freely admitted the
limitations to our work, and the quail
ifeations to be borne in mind, feel
.Rat l have the right to have my words
taken seriously when point out where,
in my judgment, great advance can be
made in the cause of international
peace. ] speak as a practical man, and
whatever l now advocate 1 actually
tried tc do when was for the time
being the head of a great nation, and
keeniy jealous of its honor and inter
est. l ask other nations to. do only
what I should be glad to see my own
nation do.
''The advance can be made along
several lines. First of all there can
be treaties Of arbitration. There are,
of course, states so backward that q
civilized community ought not to enter
into an arbitration treaty with them,
at least until we have gone much further
than at present in securing some kind
of international police action. But all
really civilized communities should have
effective arbitration treaties among
themselves. I believe that these trea-
ties can cover almost all questions liable
to arise between such nations, if they
are drawn with the explicit agreement
that each contracting party will respect
the others territory and its absolute
sovereignty within that territory, and
the equally explicit agreement that
| (aside from the very rare cases where
the nation IS honor is vitality concerned)
all other possible subjects of contTo-
versy will he submitted to arbitration.
Such treaty would insure peace unless
one party deliberately violated it. OF
eourse, as yet there is no adequate safe.
guard against such deliberate violation,
but the establishment Of a sufficient
number of these treaties would go a
long way towards creating world opin-
ion which would finally find expression
/ in the provision of methods 10 forbid
or punish any such violation.
Magma Charta for Nations.
"Secondly, there is the further de.
velopment of the Hague Tribunal, OF
the work of the conferences and courts
at The Hague. 1t has been well said
that the first Hague Conference framed
a Magma Charta for the nations; it sci
before us an ideal which has already tt
some extent been realized, and towards
the full realization of which we can al
steadily strive. The second Conference
made further progress; the third should
do yet more. Meanwhile the American
government has more than once tenta
lively suggested methods for completing
the Court of Arbitral Justice, consti
tuted at the second Hague Conference
and for rendering it effective. 1t il
earnestly to be hoped that the various
governments of Europe, working witt
those of America and of Asia, will sci
themselves seriously to the task of de
vising some method which shall accom-
plish this result. If may venture th'
suggestion, it would be well for thu
statesmen of the world, in planning TO
the erection of this world court, t.
study what has been done in the United
States by the Supreme Court cal
not help thinking that the constitution
of the United States, notably in tn
establishment of the Supreme Court anC
in the methods adopted for securing
peace and good relations among and be
tween the different States, offers certain
valuable analogies to what should b.
striven for in order to secure, through
the Hague courts and conferences,
species of world federation for inter
national peace and justice. There are
of course, fundamental differences be
tween what the United States constitu
ton does and what we should even at
tempt at this time to secure at TIL