The War ix Tripoli and Arbitration. 



455 



ihe conferences at the Hague. It is laid down in 

 the Treaty of Paris, but it was cynically set aside by 

 ihc Italian Government when it declared war on the 

 'i'urUish Government at such short notice as to render 

 mediation imjiossibie. We now come to the third 

 verse which sugj^ests the boycott :^ 



" And if he shall negiect to hear them tell it 

 unto the Church, and i( he sluill ncylect to hear 

 the Church alsci, let him be unto thee as a 

 heathen man and a publican. 



The praciical ai>plication of this verse to the 

 present circumstances is quite clear. If mediation 

 has failed, an appeal must be made to the Hague 

 Tribunal. 



Christ uses the word Church in an obviously non- 

 ecclesiastical sense, lor at the time that he spoke the 

 Church, as we now know it in its ecclesiastical sense, 

 did not e.\ist. 



What is the idea of a Church ? It is that of a 

 community of believers in the Prince of Peace who 

 organise themselves for the purpose of realising what 

 they believe to be the will of God in all parts of the 

 world. When we come to look into it there is no in- 

 stitution existing in the world today which corresponds 

 to that ideal, or nearly so, but the Tribunal of the 

 Hague. At the Hague Conferences, mankind, in the 

 representatives of the forty-three organised States of 

 the world, assembled on a footing of equality in order 

 to frame regulations and make recommendations with 

 the object of securing the peace of the nations. The 

 Hague Conference was universal and catholic, as no 

 Church can claim to be, and its chief object is the 

 . realisation of peace on earth. If, therefore, mediation 

 fails, all disputes must be referred to the Church, 

 which being interpreted means — Appeal to the Hague 

 Tribunal ! ^ 



If appeal is made to the Church or to the Hague 

 by one disputant and the other refuses to listen, then 

 we have the clear direction that the obstinate recalci- 

 trant brother must henceforth be to us as a heathen 

 man and a publican. 



Here, therefore, we have the Plan of Campaign of 

 the pacifist set out in a few and simi)le words. 



If any Power reluses. to appeal to the Hague 

 Tribunal, or which, having appealed, refuses to abide 

 by the award, boycott him--" let him be as a heathen 

 man and a |)ublican.'' 



Now a heathen man and a publican in the time of 

 Jesus Christ was one with whom the devout Israelite 

 woukl not have anything to do. He did not 

 drink with him, eat with him, or have anything 

 whatever to do with him. He simply left him alone. 

 If that policy were pursued today resolutely by all 

 the nations towartls anyone of their neighbours which 

 would not settle its dispute by aibitration instead 

 of by war there would be no more war between 

 civilised Stales. With the enornious growth of inter- 

 communication 1 ctw( i-n nations, every modern Slate 

 is dependent ui)on its neighbour for the necessities of 

 life. Suppose, for in-^tance, Germany and England 



were to have a dispute. If mediation failed, and 

 Germany offeied to go to arbitration while England 

 refused, if all the other nations of the world were to 

 boycott England, Germany would have no need to 

 fire a shot to reduce England to submission. For 

 England is the workshop of the world, and two-thirds 

 of her food supplies reach her from abroad. She lives 

 by taking in the raw materials from various countries 

 and working them up into manufactures and reselling 

 them. Universal boycott would immediately reduce 

 her to submission, and the same result would follow 

 the application of a boycott against Germany if the 

 cases were reversed. In fact, in relation to the two 

 great European Powers, the enforcement of a strict 

 boycott in the case of war by only three Powers, the 

 United States of America, the Argentine Republic, 

 and Russia, would be sufficient to starve the outlawed 

 nation into submission. 



It is remarkable that the Christian law of settling 

 disputes has never been applied by any Christian 

 State, but that it has been reserved for the Chinese 

 and the Turks to submit to the world an object lesson 

 as to the efficiency of this method of coercion. In 

 both cases the boycott was applied spontaneously by 

 the action of private individuals acting, no doubt, 

 with the approval of the Government. The Chinese 

 employed it with great effect in their disfmtes with 

 .\merica and Japan. The Turks first made it famous 

 by their using it in their dispute with Austria, and 

 afterwards, with less eftect and much less wisdom, in 

 the dispute with the Greeks. Neither China nor 

 Turkey by their Governments as a whole have under- 

 taken to wield the weapon of the pacifist. It has 

 been left to private individuals. The same course 

 will undoubtedly be followed in the present dispute 

 between civilisation and the Italian Government. 



U'HY WE MUST BOYCOTT ITALY. 



The war which the Italian Government is waging 

 against Turkey for the purpose of sei<-.ing Tripoli is 

 a crime which ought not to be tolerated by a 

 world which calls itself civilised. It ought to have 

 been prevented by the other Powers. But as they 

 failed in doing their iluty, this atrocious crime has 

 been committed, is being committed, and will con- 

 tinue to be committed until it is stopjied. It ought 

 to be stopped and stopped at once. If it is not 

 stopped it will breed more crimes. More plunder- 

 wars will be waged, not only against Turkey, but 

 against other nations, until at last this wicked war 

 for 'Tripoli may involve the whole world in the 

 catastrophe of a general war, in which civilisation 

 itself may disappear. 



" It is all very well," the reader may reply — " it is 

 all very well to say that the war ought to be stopped, 

 but who is to stop it ? Who is to bell the cat ? 

 Where is the gendarme of the nations who can be 

 summoned to arrest this international criminal, and 

 to compel him to keep the pjocc ? " 



'The objection is just. There is as yet unfortunately 



