there are any limits to the right of might, but arising out of quite a different order of considerations. It may be owing to the fear of driving the foe to desperation—or to exhaustion or to views of future policy-or to deference to the feelings and opinions of the world, which the summum jus, the plenary exercise of crushing power, might shock and scandalise. But it is not owing to the tender mercies of the war principle.

3. The effect of the prevailing tendency towards democratic institutions. In proportion as the governments of the world shall more faithfully represent, and therefore be themselves more swayed by, public opinion, in that proportion will the probability of future wars be lessened. Democratic states,

such as England (which is substantially a republic with hereditary presidents), the United States of America, republican France, Switzerland, Belgium, &c., are becoming more and more averse to any disturbance, through war, of finance, of commerce, of political improvements, and of the arts of peace; and were their material interests more closely interwoven with each other by means of free commercial intercourse, they would still more ardently seek to avoid the evils of war. What is the direction which political changes are taking? Despotic and semi-despotic states are in a transitional state towards constitutionalism; while, in constitutional states, in which the people's representatives possess a share, larger or smaller, of political power, the tendency is to a still increasing infusion of the popular or democratic element. The movement is both hastened and regularised by

THE DEMOCRATIC ELEMENT.

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the quickening yet restraining influence of a free press. Quickening, because inquiry and discussion are prompted-restraining, because extreme antisocial theories are rendered harmless by full and open examination and analysis. Their worth or worthlessness stands revealed under the fierce light of free public scrutiny. It is in despotic countries that they are repressed and compressed into secret conspiracies.

As the democratic element shall more strongly prevail in the larger and more powerful states of Europe, so will the personal ambition, the personal interests, and the personal caprices of princes and rulers (those most fertile sources of political provocations and strife) lose their influence, and gradually sink into powerless insignificance. The masses of one country have no quarrel with, or enmity towards, the masses of other countries. It is governments, and chiefly irresponsible governments, which hate, fear, envy, taunt, intermeddle, become embroiled with, and finally declare and wage war against, other governments. Indeed, hostile manifestos are constantly proclaiming that the war which is waged is not against the people, but against their rulers.

As long as the power of making war or peace is vested in a person or in a few persons, to whom the assent of the people beforehand is unnecessary, and to whom their censure, after the event, is a matter of indifference, so long is a nation exposed to be dragged into war, without wishing it, without expecting it, and almost without knowing it. The last provocation of diplomacy that precedes the

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first act of war is delivered in secret, and is only made known to the public, if ever it is at all, when too late. The fatal blow is struck, and all that remains to the people is to grumble and fight. But all this will be changed when, as political knowledge becomes more widely spread, the executive as well as the legislative branches shall, in all or most countries, be thoroughly leavened with the democratic spirit. This infusion of the democratic element by no means implies organic changes in such constitutions as ours; but it does imply the ready continuance of that flexible adaptation of old institutions to new requirements that has been acted upon in England for nearly two centuries.

It is to such continuous progress that we hopefully look to avert the possibility that a few men may "with a light heart" plunge a helpless nation into the horrors of a needless war. It is true that even in democracies there will always be a few thoughtless, excitable, and, perhaps, interested persons, who will shout loudly about "honour and glory;" but it is not they, the noisy hundreds, it is the silent millions who constitute the nation. And when the time comes that it shall be the suffrage of these silent millions by which the question of peace or war will be decided, we confidently hope that international wars among civilised countries will become rarer and rarer as matters of fact, until they gradually dwindle into matters of history.

But let us now inquire whether there may not be some shorter and speedier way to put an end to the baneful war-system.

CHAPTER XII.

The Principle of Arbitration-Possible Federation of European States for Settlement of International Disputes-Suggested Council of the United States of Europe-Hero-worshipPseudo-Patriotism.

4. THE principle of arbitration. There are three ways in which men in private life settle their disputes (1) by compulsory arbitration through legal tribunals; (2) by voluntary arbitration; and (3) by personal combat or duelling. Of these three ways the last is the most illogical, absurd, and idiotic, and has almost fallen into disuse. No one will surely, in the present day, argue that the most proper mode of settling a dispute between two persons as to their respective rights to a piece of land, or to a sum of money, is that they should fight, and that the matter in dispute should be adjudged to the conqueror. And yet of the three ways named, the last, being by far the most preposterous, is the only one that is used in the settlement of international disputes. It is not that any one professes to admire it. It is universally condemned as irrational, clumsy, cruel, barbarous, and productive of infinite misery to mankind; but still it is the only mode resorted to. Any other, it is said, would be preferable, but unfortunately there is no other! What an opprobrium to man's heart and brain should this be true! He has pressed the mystic forces of nature into his service, and yet he is impotent to improve on the barbaric internationalism of the Goths and Vandals! Truly, a marvellous incongruity!

But let us see. Of the two other modes in which private disputes are adjusted, the first, viz., compulsory arbitration through a legal tribunal, is inapplicable to international disputes, for there is at present no tribunal which can compel nations to resort to it, or even if they did, could enforce its decisions. But the second, viz., voluntary arbitration, is quite open to those national litigants who, only seeking what is right and fair, are willing not to be judges in their own cause, but to leave it to the adjudication of disinterested third parties. In a few instances, mostly of recent date, this rational, speedy, and inexpensive mode of settling international differences has been adopted with satisfactory results. Of course, as is always the case, the losers have grumbled. But even they must admit that a defeat, through the arbitrament of able and impartial men, is a thousand-fold preferable to a victory through the arbitrament of a ruinous and sanguinary war.

It may appear strange that so simple, cheap, and speedy a solution of "difficulties" between nation and nation should not hitherto have been resorted to with more frequency. But a variety of circumstances explain this. Supposing a dispute to arise between a powerful and a comparatively weak nation, it is quite intelligible that the former, confident of victory from superior military force, will hardly forego that advantage and accept arbitration which places both parties on a precisely equal footing. Again, supposing the disputants to be, or to fancy that they are, of equal military strength, one of them, at least, may be