310 BALCH — THE PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL [Mays, 



we may reasonably expect that through such tribunals, through their 

 proceedings and decisions, and not through empirical codes, we may 

 ultimately arrive at some more tangible and better ordered system 

 of International Law ; one to which the assent of civilized peoples 

 may be given greatly to the benefit and peace of mankind." 



In this series of cases the disputing nations thought that the 

 questions at issue were not of sufficient importance to make it worth 

 their while to dislocate all their national wealth and prosperity in 

 resorting to the drastic and uncertain arbitrament of war. But in 

 an international quarrel over the possession of vast territory, such 

 as the war between Russia and Japan for the control of Northern 

 China, different interests much more difficult to deal with are in- 

 volved. In that case the bone of contention seemed to both sides 

 so rich and also so fundamental to their national interests that neither 

 would agree to give way in the least particle, and war had to result. 



The many international questions submitted to arbitration since 

 the United States and England agreed to arbitrate the Saint Croix 

 River boundary in 1794 prove that some international difficulties 

 can be arranged by peaceful means, and that fimeric Cruce was not 

 altogether visionary in his ideas. Though the changes wrought in 

 recent years by force of arms in the affairs of the world prove that 

 war has lost little of its influence upon human affairs and that it 

 remains the last resort in settling international quarrels, yet the 

 Alabama Claims, the Bering Sea Fur Seal Fisheries, and the cases 

 that have been settled by The Hague Tribunal since it was estab- 

 lished, give hope and encouragement for the future peace of the 

 world. 



In the evolution of international peace fimeric Cruce played 

 an important part; he deserves to be much better known than he 

 is ; and his name should be given a high place among those of the 

 men who have helped to settle, in some measure, international dis- 

 putes by judicial instead of martial means. For in the early part 

 of the seventeenth century fimeric Cruce's proposal for setting up 

 at Venice an International Court to judge between the sovereigns 

 of the world was a rough sketch of The Hague Permanent Tribunal 

 instituted in 1899. Probably, not until long after 1623, did any 

 irenist, to use the happy word coined by the Abbe de Saint Pierre 



