"1st. A Diplomatic Congress, to assemble every year.
"2d. No war to be declared until two months after the incident which gave rise to it." (Here the difficulty lies in determining the nature of the incident that kindled the war—that is, every declaration of war is caused by several circumstances, and it would be necessary to determine from which one the two months are to be reckoned.)
"3d. No war shall be declared until the vote of the people shall have been taken.
"4th. Hostilities must not begin until a month after the declaration of war."
"No war shall be declared ..." etc. But who is to prevent hostilities beginning? Who will compel men to do this or that? Who will compel governments to wait a certain stated time? Other nations. But all the other nations are in the very same position, requiring to be restrained and kept within bounds, in other words, coerced. And who will coerce them? And how is it to be done? By public opinion. But if public opinion has sufficient influence to force a nation to postpone its action until a stated time, this public opinion can prevent it from waging war at any time.
But, it is said, there might be a balance of power, which would oblige nations to restrain themselves. This very experiment has been and is still being tried; this was the object of the Holy Alliance, the League of Peace, etc.
But all would agree to this, it is said. If all would agree to this, then wars would cease, and there would be no need of Courts of Appeal or of Arbitration.
"A Court of Arbitration would take the place of war. Disputes would be decided by a Board of Arbitrators, like that which pronounced on the Alabama claims. The Pope has been requested to decide the question concerning the Caroline Islands: Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, and Holland have declared that they prefer the decision of a Court of Arbitration to war."
I believe Monaco has expressed a similar wish. It is a pity that Germany, Russia, Austria, and France have thus far shown no sign of imitating their example.