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Never before, after viewing the great havoc wrought, the enormous debts that will have to be paid for between fifty and a hundred years to come, the tremendous disruptions and losses in trade, the misery and degradation stalking broadcast over every land engaged in the war—scarcely a family untouched[Pg 215]—never before have nations been in the state of mind to consider and to long to act upon some sensible and comprehensive method of international concord and adjustments. If this succeeds, the world, including ourselves, is the gainer. If this does not succeed, though the chances are overwhelmingly in its favour, then we can proclaim to the assembled nations that as long as a state of outlawry exists among nations, that then no longer by chance but by design, we as a nation will be in a state of preparedness broad and comprehensive enough to defend ourselves against the violation of any of the rights of a sovereign nation. It is only in this way that we can show a due appreciation of the struggles and the sacrifices of those who gave us our national existence; it is only in this way that we can, retain our self-respect, that we can command the respect of other nations while things are as they are; that we can hope to retain any degree of influence and authority for the diplomatic arm of our Government in the Council of Nations.
Every neutral nation has suffered tremendously by the war. Every neutral nation will suffer until a new world-order among nations is projected and perfected.
We owe a tremendous duty to the world in connection with this great world crisis and[Pg 216] upheaval. Diligently should our best men and women, those of insight and greatest influence, and with the expenditure of both time and means, seek to further the practical working out of a World Federation and a permanent World Court. Public opinion should be thus aroused and solidified so that the world knows that we stand as a united nation back of the idea and the plan.
The divine right of kings has gone. It holds no more. We hear now and then, it is true, some silly statement in regard to it, but little attention is paid to it. The divine right of priests has gone except in the minds of the few remaining ignorant and herdable ones. The divine right of dynasties—or rather of dynasties to persist—seems to die a little harder, but it is well on the way. We are now realising that the only divine right is the right of the people—and all the people.
Never again should it be possible for one man, or for one little group of men so to lead, or so to mislead a nation as to plunge it into war. The growth of democracy compelling the greater participation of all the people in government must prohibit this. So likewise the close relationship of the entire world now must make it forever impossible for a single nation or a group of nations for any cause to plunge a whole world or any part of it into[Pg 217] war. These are sound and clear-visioned words recently given utterance to by James Bryce: "However much we condemn reckless leaders and the ruthless caste that live for war, the real source of the mischief is the popular sentiment behind them. The lesson to be learned is that doctrines and deep-rooted passions, whence these evils spring, can only be removed by the slow and steady working of spiritual forces. What most is needed is the elimination of those feelings the teachings of which breed jealousy and hatred and prompt men to defiance and aggression."
Humanity and civilisation is not headed towards Ab the cave-man, whatever appearances, in the minds of many, may indicate at the present time. Humanity will arise and will reconstruct itself. Great lessons will be learned. Good will result. But what a terrific price to pay! What a terrific price to pay to learn the lesson that "moral forces are the only invincible forces in the universe"! It has been slow, but steadily the world is advancing to that stage when the individual or the nation that does not know that the law of mutuality, of cooperation, and still more the law of sympathy and good will, is the supreme law in real civilisation, real advancement, and real gain—that does not know that its own welfare is always bound up with the[Pg 218] welfare of the greater whole—is still in the brute stage of life and the bestial propensities are still its guiding forces.
Prejudice, suspicion, hatred, national big-headedness, must give way to respect, sympathy, the desire for mutual understanding and cooperation. The higher attributes must and will assert themselves. The former are the ways of periodic if not continuous destruction—the latter are the ways of the higher spiritual forces that must prevail. Significant are these words of one of our younger but clear-visioned American poets, Winter Bynner:
The teaching of hatred to children, the fostering of hatred in adults, can result only in harm to the people and the nation where it is fostered. The dragon's tooth will leave its marks upon the entire nation and the fair[Pg 219] life of all the people will suffer by it. The holding in contempt of other people makes it sometimes necessary that one's own head be battered against the wall that he may be sufficiently aroused to recognise and to appreciate their sterling and enduring qualities.
The use of a club is more spectacular for some at least than the use of intellectual and moral forces. The rattling of the machine-gun produces more commotion than the more quiet ways of peace. All of the powerful forces in nature, those of growth, germination, and conservation, the same as in human life are quiet forces. So in the preservation of peace. It consists rather in a high constructive policy. It requires always clear vision, a constantly progressive and cooperative method of life and action; frank and open dealing and a resolute purpose. It is won and maintained by nothing so much in the long run as when it makes the Golden Rule its law of conduct. Slowly we are realising that great armaments—militarism—do not insure peace. They may lead away from it—they are very apt to lead away from it.
Peace is related rather to the great moral laws of conduct. It has to do with straight, clean, open dealing. It is fostered by sympathy, forbearance. This does not mean that it pertains to weakness. On the contrary it is[Pg 220] determined by resolute but high purpose, the actual and active desire of a nation to live on terms of peace with all other nations; and the world's; recognition of this fact is a most powerful factor in inducing and in actualising such living.
Our own achievement of upwards of a hundred years in living in peaceable, sympathetic and mutually beneficial relations with Canada; Canada's achievement in so living with us, should be a distinct and clear-cut answer to the argument that nations need to fortify their boundaries one against another. This is true only where suspicion, mistrust, fear, secret diplomacy, and secret alliances hold instead of the great and eternally constructive forces—sympathy, good will, mutual understanding, induced and conserved by an International Joint Commission of able men whose business it is to investigate, to determine, and to adjust any differences that through the years may arise. Here we have a boundary line of upwards of three thousand miles and not a fort; vast areas of inland seas and not a war vessel; and for upwards of a hundred years not a difference that the High Joint Commission has not been able to settle amicably and to the mutual advantage of both countries.
