A WORLD COURT DEMANDED BY A NEW WORLD LIFE
BY
JOSIAH STRONG
There is, I think, a widespread impression that great world events of profound importance are now preparing. The break-down of time-honored theories of international relations based on armed force would seem to mark the end of the present war as a favorable time for the reconstruction of the political relations of the nations on a higher plane.
Since the beginning of the simplest form of life on this planet, there has been down through all the ages, a stream of tendency toward increasing diversity, and toward a more complex and more highly organized form of life. This biological law is also the great law of social progress, that is, first, differentiation, and then, coördination and integration. Or, in other words, there is, first, the development of diversity, and then, the organization of these diverse elements into a social unity.
For thousands of years nations and races became increasingly unlike until within the memory of living men, when this time-long stream of tendency, having accomplished its work, was reversed; and now, for nearly a century, there has been an increasing tendency toward oneness—the coördination and integration of different peoples into one great world life. This new tendency was caused by the application of steam to transportation by land and sea. In the first stage of international commerce transportation by caravans and row boats was so costly that only luxuries, such as gems, precious spices, and silks, were articles of commerce. This concerned only the few. The second stage was introduced by the application of sails and the discovery of the mariner’s compass, which made it possible to transport many of the conveniences of life, which affected increasing numbers. The third, and present, great stage of commerce began when railways brought the produce of continents to the seaboard, and the triple expansion engine made great merchant vessels possible. As a result, the necessaries of life are now transported in immense quantities, which fact vitally affects the entire people. These conditions have created an interdependence of the nations from which there is no escape. If a nation is agricultural, it is dependent on others, both for markets and for manufactures; if it is a manufacturing nation, it is dependent on others, both for markets and for food.
When an agricultural people attempt to make themselves independent of other nations by establishing their own manufactures, they soon discover that by a sort of mechanical Malthusianism machinery inevitably increases several times as fast as population; hence the nation no sooner becomes independent of those who wish to sell than it becomes dependent on those who wish to buy. The only possible way to avoid such national interdependence is to adjure modern civilization.
The differentiation and organization of a world industry, which necessitates an ever-increasing international dependence, has created this new world life. In earlier ages, when nations were economically independent, political independence was natural and inevitable. Of course there could be no world-consciousness when a common world life did not exist, and each sovereign nation was sufficient unto itself. But as the world’s economic life becomes more nearly one—as it certainly will under the quiet compulsion of economic law—the increasing interdependence of nations places the well-being of each increasingly in the keeping of others; and their relations to each other become more and more vital until their mutual service becomes a matter of life and death. If, for instance, all other peoples should make and enforce a declaration of non-intercourse with Great Britain, that nation would literally perish in a few months.
Evidently, the increasing interdependence of the nations is creating new international rights and duties, but there is no World Legislature to recognize and legalize them; there is no World Court to interpret and apply them; and there is no World Executive to enforce and vitalize them. Precisely here appears one of the most obscure and, at the same time, one of the most potent causes of the war.
The economic and industrial organization of the world has far outgrown the political organization of the world. And in spite of all efforts to keep the peace, this will continue an active cause of war until there has been provided for the new world life an adequate body politic. Until then governments will undertake, by military power, to make, interpret, or enforce a law of nations to please themselves; and this seizure of civil functions on the part of armed force is war; it is an attempt to make might right; it is the law of the jungle; it is the abnegation of civilization; it is anarchy between nations.
Now that the world is coming to self-consciousness, it must accept the responsibility of its future, and take intelligent direction of it. The new tendency toward world integration is permanent because it is due to new conditions which are permanent. This cosmic movement toward coördination and integration is the very essence of the new civilization which is reshaping the world. Nations and individuals have unconsciously, and, therefore, unintelligently, and slowly adapted themselves to these changed and changing conditions. Now is the accepted time to undertake a readjustment which shall be conscious and, therefore, intelligent—a broad-minded “coöperation with the real tendency of the world.” which Carlyle called the “insight of genius.”
The new world life means, sooner or later, a world consciousness, a world conscience, a world ethics, and a World Court, together with the other departments of an organized political life embodied in a Federation of the World.