I9-4-] A FACTOR IN WORLD POLITICS. 85 



acted the observance of the principle of equahty of treatment. It 

 would be a reflection on our country's reputation for fair dealing if, 

 after securing the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, we 

 were to repudiate the concessions, the making of which rendered 

 possible the ratification of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. 



It is fortunate for the world's peace that there is rapidly develop- 

 ing a body of international opinion to which the policy and conduct 

 of individual nations must conform. Violations of the standards 

 set by this opinion place the oftending nations under the ban of inter- 

 national disapproval. With each year the commercial and social 

 relations between nations are becoming closer. This increasing 

 interdependence means that national policy must be made subserv- 

 ient to international right and to international obligation. No 

 nation is a law unto itself, and it is evident that even our concept of 

 national sovereignty must be subjected to revision in order to con- 

 form more closely to those larger principles of international reci- 

 procity and fair dealing, upon which the maintenance of western 

 civiHzation so largely depends. Just as competition has gradually 

 given way to cooperation in the industrial world, so in international 

 affairs the concerted action of states and the idea of mutual obliga- 

 tion as between states are gradually taking the place of the more 

 primitive principle that every nation may formulate its national 

 policy on the basis of national interests regardless of the higher 

 standards of conduct now prevailing in the society of states. 



Fortunately, for the good name of the United States, the Presi- 

 dent has courageously taken a position which has not only aroused 

 the admiration of the civilized world but has placed our country 

 under a debt of obligation. In his address of March 5, 1914, to the 

 Congress of the United States he sounded a note which served to 

 impress upon the nation the sacredness of treaty obligations. Speak- 

 ing of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty he said : 



"We consented to the treaty; its language we accepted, if we did not 

 originate it; and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a nation 

 to interpret with a too-strained or refined reading the words of our own 

 promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them 

 as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do, 

 a voluntary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and mis- 



