EUROPE'S DYNASTIC SLAUGHTER HOUSE n 



placed by bastions and scarps and turrets of steel, these also before the 

 fire of colossal ordnance crumpled like parchment. In any new settle- 

 ment or alignment shall nations be invited, encouraged or permitted once 

 again to enter upon a ghastly rivalry of forces, to construct again so 

 called defenses incalculably stronger, but destined in some future war 

 to annihilation ? Such a settlement is unthinkable ; peace established at 

 a prospect of cost to our coming race would indeed be cruelty. 



Let us renew the query : when Germany lies prostrate and defenseless, 

 what will happen ? And let us add — not sentimentally or morally, but 

 practically, and "scientifically" — what ought to happen? To many 

 Americans, probably to a majority even of those not ill informed as to 

 matters of negotiation in the early days of our national existence, it 

 appeared singular that Great Britain consented with so little show of 

 reluctance (it was in fact with suppressed alacrity) to modify so seri- 

 ously the old Clayton-Bulwer treaty, by which modification we gained 

 a very practical control of the interoceanic waterway. In few words it 

 was because Britain's far-sighted diplomacy easily recognized in the 

 United States a prospect of profitable alliance, unwritten and un- 

 " entangling " though it were, by which the mistress of the seas shifted 

 upon America (on account of our "Monroe doctrine") the expensive 

 and disagreeable duty of policing the Western Hemisphere. With quiet 

 and well-founded confidence immediately after the ratification of this 

 treaty, Great Britain withdrew her war ships from American waters. 

 The value of this treaty — this " scrap of paper," — lay not at all in any 

 especial reliance by Great Britain upon American national righteousness 

 or friendliness, but upon that which in every exigency of human affairs, 

 with nations and individuals alike, is more trustworthy than all pro- 

 fessions of friendship, than all righteousness — enlightened self interest, 

 mutual benefit. 



Much has been written, and with very great ability and high sense 

 of the obligation of " ethical values," concerning the establishment here- 

 after of an international " posse comitatus," to the end of enforcing 

 peaceful relations, and of compelling acquiescence in the decrees of an 

 international court of arbitration. The weakness of such an arrange- 

 ment — most admirable if it could be assured in perpetuity — lies in this : 

 that its permanence would depend not solely upon mutuality, but largely 

 upon comity, upon a " scrap of paper," a contract voidable at any 

 moment by one or the other of the " high contracting powers." 



It is a military axiom that "one bad general is better than a dozen 

 good ones," and an axiom of very practical business that for utility and 

 prompt acceptance a novel invention must "utilize already existing 

 plants." These two sayings, axiomatic or merely aphoristic, as one 

 chooses to regard them, may find unexpected, but very practical applica- 

 tion in the future, near or remote. It is by no means impossible that 



