353. Arbitration and an International Court.—Experiments have been tried at settling international disputes without resort to war. Great Britain and the United States have led the way in showing to the world during the last one hundred years that all kinds of vexatious differences can be settled peacefully by submitting them to arbitration. These successes have led the United States to propose general treaties of arbitration to other nations, and advance has been made in that direction. It was possible to establish at The Hague a permanent court of arbitration, and to refer to it really important cases. Such a calamity as the European war, of course, interrupts the progress of all such peaceful methods, but makes all the plainer the dire need of a better machinery for settling international differences. There is reasonable expectation that before many years there may be established a permanent international court of justice, an international parliament, and a sufficient international police force to restrain any one nation from breaking the peace. Only in this way can the dread of war be allayed and disarmament be undertaken; even then the success of such an experiment in government will depend on an increase of international understanding, respect, and consideration.

354. Intercommunication and Its Rewards.—The gain in social solidarity that has been achieved already is due first of all to improved communication between nations. In the days of slow sailing vessels it took several weeks to cross the Atlantic, and there was no quicker way to convey news. The news that peace had been arranged at Ghent in 1814 between Great Britain and the United States did not reach the armies on this side in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans. Even the results of the battle of Waterloo were not known in England for several days after Napoleon's overthrow. Now ocean leviathans keep pace with the storms that move across the waters, and the cable and the wireless flash their messages with the speed of the lightning. Power to put a girdle around the earth in a few minutes has made modern news agencies possible, and they have made the modern newspaper essential. The newspaper requires the railroad and the steamship for its distribution, and business men depend upon them all to carry out their plans. These physical agencies have made possible a commerce that is world-wide. There are ports that receive ships from every nation east and west. Great freight terminal yards hold cars that belong to all the great transportation lines of the country. Lombard Street and Wall Street feel the pulse of the world's trade as it beats through the channels of finance.

Improved communication has made possible the unification of a great political system like the British Empire. In the Parliament House and government offices of Westminster centre the political interests of Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and India, as well as of islands in every sea. Better communication has brought into closer relations the Pan-American states, so that they have met more than once for their mutual benefit.

Helpful social results have come from the travel that has grown enormously in volume since ease and cheapness of transportation have increased. The impulse to travel for pleasure keeps persons of wealth on the move, and the desire for knowledge sends the intellectually minded professional man or woman of small means globe-trotting. In this way the people of different nations learn from one another; they become able to converse in different languages and to get one another's point of view; they gain new wants while they lose some of their professional interests; they return home poorer in pocket but richer in experience, more interested in others, more tolerant. These are social values, certain to make their influence felt in days to come, and by no means unappreciable already.

355. International Institutions.—These values are conserved by international institutions. Societies are formed by like-minded persons for better acquaintance and for the advancement of knowledge. The sciences are cherished internationally, interparliamentary unions and other agencies for the preservation of peace hold their conferences, working men meet to air their grievances or plan programmes, religious denominations consult for pushing their campaigns. The organizations that grow out of these relations and conferences develop into institutions that have standing. The international associations of scholars are as much a part of the world's institutional assets as the educational system is a recognized asset of any country. They are clearing-houses of information, as necessary as an international clearing-house of finance. The World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the International Young Men's Christian Association are moral agencies that bring together those who have at heart the same interests, and when they have once made good they must be reckoned among the established organizations that help to move the world forward. Not least among such institutions are the religious organizations. The closely knit Roman Catholic Church, that has held together millions of faithful adherents in many lands for centuries, and whose canon law receives an unquestioning obedience as the law of a nation, is an illustration of what an international religious institution may be. Protestant Churches, naturally more independent, have moved more slowly, but their world alliances and federations are increasing to the point where they, too, are likely to become true institutions.

356. Missions as a Social Institution.—Those institutions and movements are most useful that aim definitely to stimulate the highest interests of all mankind. It is comparatively simple to provide local stimulus for a better community life, but to help move the world on to higher levels requires clear vision, patient hope, and a definite plan on a large scale. Christian missionaries are conspicuous for their lofty ideals, their personal devotion to an unselfish task, their persistent optimism, and their unswerving adherence to the programme marked out by the pioneers of the movement. It is no argument against them that they have not accomplished all that a few enthusiasts expected of them in a few years. To socialize and Christianize half the people of the world is the task of centuries. With broad statesmanship missionary leaders have undertaken to do both of these. Mistakes in method or detail of operation do not invalidate the whole enterprise, and all criticism must keep in mind the noble purpose to lift to a higher level the social, moral, and religious ideas and practices of the most backward peoples. The purpose is certainly no less laudable than that of a Chinese mission to England to persuade Great Britain to end the opium traffic, or a diplomatic mission from the United States to stop civil strife in Mexico.

357. Education as a Means to Internationalism.—Internationalism rests on the broad basis of the social nature of mankind, a nature that cannot be unsocialized, but can be developed to a higher and more purposeful socialization. As there are degrees of perfection in the excellence of social relations, so there are degrees of obligation resting upon the nations of the world to give of their best to a general levelling up. The dependable means of international socialization is education, whether it comes through the press, the pulpit, or the school. Every commission that visits one country from another to learn of its industries, its institutions, and its ideals, is a means to that important end. Every exchange professor between European and American universities helps to interpret one country to the other. Every Chinese, Mexican, or Filipino youth who attends an American school is borrowing stimulus for his own people. Every visitor who does not waste or abuse his opportunities is a unit in the process of improving the acquaintance of East and West, of North and South. Internationalism is not a social Utopia to be invented in a day; it is rather an attitude of mind and a mode of living that come gradually but with gathering momentum as mutual understanding and sympathy increase.

READING REFERENCES

Strong: Our World, pages 3-202.

Foster: Arbitration and the Hague Court.