CHOCO INDIAN OF SANBU VALLEY
This was more plausible. At first glance the questions seem answerable in only one way. But consideration weakens their force. There is a Latin copy-book maxim, “Inter armas silent leges”—“In time of war the law is silent”. It is cynically correct. International agreements to maintain the integrity or neutrality of a territory last only until one of the parties to the agreement thinks it profitable to break it. It then becomes the business of all the other parties to enforce the pact, and it is usually shown that what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business. Consider a partial record:
THE RISING GENERATION
The independence of Korea was guaranteed by four Great Powers in 1902. Inside of two years the Japanese Admiral Uriu violated the independence of the Korean port of Chemulpo by sinking two Russian cruisers in it, and shortly thereafter Japan practically annexed the country. None of the Powers that had “guaranteed” its independence protested.
Austria-Hungary in 1908 annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the fact that seven Powers, including Austria-Hungary herself, had fixed the sovereignty of those provinces in Turkey. The signatory powers grumbled a little, but that was all. Mr. W. E. Hall, recognized as the greatest living authority on international law, observes cynically, and truthfully, that “treaties are only permanently obeyed when they represent the continued wishes of the contracting parties”.
Prussia once guaranteed the independence of Poland, and in two years took the leading part in blotting it off the roll of nations.
ANCON HILL, WHERE AMERICANS LIVE IN COMFORT
Illustrations of the failure of nations to observe the rights of neutrals are common. Turkey and Korea afford recent illustrations of nations that have entrusted their national integrity to international agreements. Nothing remains of Korea’s nationality but a name, and the Allies are rapidly carving Turkey to bits while the Great Powers that guaranteed her integrity look on in amazed and impotent alarm. The United States itself has not been wholly without share in such high-handed proceedings. In the event of a general war Panama Canal would be kept neutral just so long as our military and naval power could defend its neutrality and no longer.