THE ARBITRATION TREATIES 
arbitration, composed of intelligent ju- 
rists of an impartial mind, the question 
whether our national honor has been at- 
tacked, and if so, what the reparation of 
the injuring nation ought to be, than I 
would to go to war about it. 
What would war settle? If we wiped 
our enemy off the map, it would settle 
the fact that we were the stronger na- 
tion, and if we were wiped off the map, 
it would settle the tact that they were— 
and that ‘s all it would settle! 
Napolecn said that the Lord was on 
the side of the stronger battalions. Of 
course, if we wiped the enemy off the 
map, we would at once claim that the 
Lord wes with us, and that would be a 
‘satisfactory arrangement. But it is a 
little diffcul: to explain our relations to 
the Lord if we are wiped off he map. 
Yhat was exactly the principle of the 
code duello. J‘f I claimed to be a gentle- 
man and was insulted by a gentleman— 
of course, we all had to be gentlemen in 
those days in order that the code should 
work—if I were insulted by a man who 
called himself a gentleman, the code 
duello required that I should go out and 
make myself a target for him because he 
had insulted me. Cf course, the reverse 
was true—that he had tc make himself 
a target for me; and if I hit him, the 
arrangement seemed fcr the time to be 
satisfactory to me; but if he hit me—and 
being a larger mark, I think that would 
be more probable—it would take a good 
deal longer than the two months, or four 
months, of convalescence, for me _ to 
reason out the satisfactoriness of the 
arrangement dy which my honor was 
satisfied by his shooting me. 
Now at common law, if one man sued 
another on a promissory note or a bond, 
and the defendant came into court and 
was a little short of witnesses, and the 
issue raised was whether he had ever 
made the note; or, if he had made it, 
whether he had paid it, the defendant 
could demand wager of battle. Then the 
judge handed out, or had somebody hand 
out for him, two swords, and the defend- 
ant and the plaintiff went at each other ; 
and if the defendant cut off the head, or 
the hand, or the arm, or in any way ren- 
dered helpless the plaintiff, that proved 
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either that the defendant had never made 
the note; or, if he had made it, that he 
had paid it. 
They discontinued that several hun- 
dred years ago; but I should like to have 
you take home with you the question, in 
what regard that method of settling the 
issues in a court of law differs from the 
method of settling issues now between 
the nations? If the analogy is not exact, 
I do not know what an analogy is. We 
ought to find some way to avoid resort to 
the ridiculous method we now have of 
settling international controversies. 
Certainly when reference to the old 
way of settling an issue in court awakens 
our ridicule, it ought at the same time to 
awaken our shame that we have not, up 
to now, found some wiser method of 
settling international controversies which 
present precisely the same kind of issues. 
THE TREATIES THAT MAKE WAR 
IMPOSSIBLE 
Now the treaties are alike; they are so 
much alike that I can take one as an ex- 
ample of both. 
Let me take the English treaty. It 
recites that we have not had war with 
England for nearly 100 years; that we 
do not intend to have war with England 
ever, and that we have made treaties of 
arbitration which have exceptions that 
we wish to eliminate, and that we pro- 
pose to make a treaty that will render 
war impossible. We then proceed to 
agree, first, that we will submit, either to 
The Hague Tribunal or to some other 
tribunal to be agreed upon by the parties, 
all differences hereafter arising between 
the two nations which are justiciable; 
that is, as defined by the clause, which 
can be settled by the application of the 
rules of law or cquity. Then the clause 
provides for a special agreement, to be 
initiated by the President and approved 
by the Senate, submitting to arbitration 
the question which has arisen. 
The second clause provides—perhaps 
I ought to take the second. and third 
clauses together—the second clause pro- 
vides for the organization of what is 
called a joint high commission. ‘That 
consists of three Englishmen and three 
Americans, unless they agree to select 
