The Days of a Man 



1910 



Efforts for 

 a world 

 court 



Practical 

 arbitra- 

 tion 



harm." Yet the project might possibly have 

 served some useful purpose, and nothing could 

 have been worse than the turn world affairs actually 

 took. 



Knox showed me with some pride a pile of letters 

 in which, as he said, every country except Germany 

 was represented. These were in response to identical 

 notes to all the great powers, " asking them to set up 

 and support an international court of justice at 

 The Hague, to have jurisdiction of practically all 

 questions arising between countries." At that time 

 he had great faith in the extension of arbitration as a 

 means of preventing war. In the Secretary's judg- 

 ment the establishment of an international court 

 would reduce armaments, and "its decrees and pro- 

 visions would be carried into effect merely by the 

 force of the enlightened public opinion of the world." 

 Such "a court would speedily build up a code of 

 law applicable in all cases by its own decisions based 

 on fundamental principles of international law and 

 equity." For Knox, as Villard says, "believed in 

 international justice and he wanted war outlawed 

 now, and not a hundred years hence." 



While we were in his office, he related an incident 

 to illustrate the ease with which boundary and like 

 disputes may be adjusted if both parties are willing 

 to do what is fair. In Passamaquoddy Bay, to the 

 east of the Maine coast, lie a number of islands the 

 national ownership of which had never been clearly 

 adjusted. So the representatives of Britain and the 

 United States, Mr. Bryce and Knox himself, met 

 to arrange for arbitration. After an examination 

 of the map, one of the two remarked: "It looks 

 as if the line ought to run here." Upon which his 



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