LEGAL AND POLITICAL INTERNATIONAL QUESTIONS 

 AND THE RECURRENCE OF WAR. 



By THOMAS WILLING BALCH. 

 (Read April is, 19 16.) 



A recourse to war in our day is such a terrible visitation not only 

 for the belligerent nations but also in the long run through its in- 

 direct effects for all neutral powers as well, that humanity of late 

 years has cried aloud more insistently perhaps than at any other 

 period of history for some way of avoiding the scourge of war. Un- 

 fortunately as yet it is not generally appreciated that the real causes 

 which produce war are deep-seated and not generally apparent on 

 the surface, while the events which as a rule actually precipitate war 

 are in themselves more or less of trifling importance. 



Though we cannot see the elimination from the world of all 

 war any more clearly than we can look for the complete eradication 

 of consumption or cancer, nevertheless, international publicists are 

 working to find a way to save the world from the woes inflicted by 

 war with as stout hearts and as much hope of success as the 

 surgeons, physicians, chemists and others who are working to guard 

 humanity from bodily disease and ailment. And how international 

 justice shall in all cases be substituted for war as arbiter between 

 nations, is as difficult a problem calling for solution as any knowm to 

 the human intelligence. 



To-day I shall present for your consideration especially one point 

 of this problem, to wit, that the causes of disagreement arising 

 between the members of the family of nations seem to divide 

 naturally into two great groups. Into one of these groups fall the 

 cases which can be settled by invoking jural rules, while to the 

 other group belong those problems which usually call for an appeal 

 sooner or later to war. To the former of those two groups of 

 cases belong all the cases of difference which, however they may be 

 decided in favor of one contestant or the other do not really affect 



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