THE STATUS QUO.
In many recent discussions of international affairs these two originally innocent Latin words "status quo" have attained a really malevolent significance. They seem to be regarded as meaning the same thing as the motto "Whatever is, is wrong," and some who talk about the status quo appear to be in the same mind as Omar when he longed
"To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire
............................. —and then
Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire."
It may be well to give some critical examination to this question of the status quo and to see what, if anything, is meant by the ideas which lie back of these criticisms.
In the first place, the thought of the critics usually relates to existing international frontiers and, in some instances, to existing international conditions.
Now as to frontiers, if we look at the status quo historically, we find that it is practically universally the result of changes in a previous status quo. The cause of these changes may have been war, may possibly have been agreements and may have been something other than either of these.[[1]] I shall refer to them later. But here it should be observed that there is hardly any region of the globe where the status quo does not result from some one or more of these changes within times comparatively recent.
Of course there are some exceptions to this observation, the Arctic and Antarctic, for example; but in the populated regions of the globe, the status quo, so far as frontiers are concerned, is a thing comparatively new.
If we look at this existing situation, this status quo of international frontiers, we find that under modern conditions a comparatively short period of time is all that is necessary to give to the status quo the sanctity of universal consent, regardless of its origin. Let me give an instance or two of this.
The Southern frontier of the United States, for part of its extent is the direct result of a war between the United States and Mexico, a war which by many, and I am among them, is considered to have been a war of aggression. Now no one but a madman would believe that there ought to be a change in the status quo of the communities now existing in New Mexico, which in 1850 was uninhabited country, by delivering them over to Mexican rule. It is true that, during the World War, Germany proposed to Mexico in the celebrated Zimmerman note[[2]] that this should be done; but that incident only emphasizes the truth of my remark.
One of the most recent instances of a change in the status quo, so far as the United States is concerned, is the case of the Virgin Islands, which were bought from Denmark in 1916.[[3]] There was a change made by agreement, made for a purchase price which was satisfactory to the ceding country and made after a plebiscite of the inhabitants, who voted almost unanimously for the change. Here, again, for reasons differing from those of the foregoing instance, no one in his senses would consider that the existing status quo was not one of justice and common sense.