The postulates of our foreign policy were determined by the ideals of liberty. The dominant motive was the security of the Republic; it was a policy of “live and let live,” with no imperialistic designs or thought of aggression. There was a deep-seated conviction that the opportunities of a hard-won freedom would be threatened by the ambitions of European Powers constantly seeking their own aggrandizement by the forcible imposition of their will upon weaker peoples, and that the peaceful aims of the new nation could be achieved only by keeping clear of the toils of European politics and strife. It was this conviction of the necessity of maintaining an independe it position which led to the declaration of neutrality in 1793 despite the treaty of alliance with France, which had sprung from the exigencies of the Revolutionary struggle. The words of the Farewell Address were more than a solemn admonition of the foremost American patriot—they set forth principles which those who established our foreign policy held to be its corner stone.

During the Conference on the Limitation of Armament at Washington nearly two years ago a resolution was passed establishing a “Commission of Jurists to consider amendment of the laws of war” covering the use of new agencies of warfare.

Several of the treaties concluded after the World War contain clauses dealing with the protection of minorities. This protection is placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. By minorities are meant groups of persons who differ in race, religion or language from the majority of the inhabitants of the country. But such persons may be further subdivided into two quite distinct classes: (a) nationals of a foreign Power; (b) nationals of the country concerned. The protection of minorities may also be regarded from two points of view: (1) it may be granted by the laws of the country and therefore be guaranteed by the state; (2) it may be dependent on treaties and be guaranteed by foreign Powers.

Regardless of what we may think of the Treaty of Versailles, we must admit that it contains indications of farsightedness and broad vision. Among these I include the Covenant of the League of Nations and the clauses relating to international rivers and international labor laws. But even apart from these groups of laws and regulations, the provisions of the treaty which aim to submit disputes arising out of an especially important part of the treaty to international arbitration constitute, from the point of view of international law and considered in an abstract way—that is, only with reference to their creation and their significance for the development of international law and international arbitration—a real accomplishment, the fulfilment of wishes expressed even before the war by such scholars as von Bar, Meurer, Wehberg and Ludwig Wertheimer. At the same time the creation of the arbitral courts in the sense of Part X, Section VI, confirms the fact that the tendency toward arbitral settlement of such disputes even as arise from treaties of peace, to which I already called attention before the war, has not been abandoned on account of the war. This was proved by the German treaties with the Eastern countries and is now again indicated by the Treaty of Versailles.

“The mandatory system,” said M. Rappard, director of the mandates section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations to the mandates commission at its first session, “formed a kind of compromise between the proposition advanced by the advocates of annexation, and the proposition put forward by those who wished to entrust the colonial territories to an international administration.” Compromises are apt to raise knotty problems for the lawyer and the present instance is no exception. From the practical point of view perhaps it is unnecessary to solve these problems. The United States Government was able to function successfully for years with the divided sovereignty devised by Madison and Hamilton in spite of the insistence of legal purists that divided sovereignty is impossible. The British Commonwealth of Nations seems able to do business in spite of the doubt as to whether sovereignty has or has not passed to the self-governing dominions. So the mandatory system may work without ascertaining whether sovereignty resides in the mandatory, the mandated community, the League of Nations, or elsewhere.

To understand aright the modern concept of neutrality as it existed on the eve of the World War, it is necessary to inquire into its relationship to the society and law of nations. Neutrality, as is well known, was a status almost unknown to the ancient world in the period previous to the establishment of the pax Romana. Once almost universal dominion had passed into the hands of Rome, the possibility of maintaining an impartial attitude as between the Roman Empire and its enemies virtually ceased to exist, and the tribes and peoples bordering the lands where Roman authority was exercised became either hostes or socii et amici. When the Roman imperator was succeeded as a temporal authority by the pontifex maximus of the Christian church, the Mediaeval Empire, embodying in theory the whole of Latin Christendom, went forth against Moor or Saracen alike, conquering and to conquer in the name of the church militant. The foes of the church were the foes of every Christian potentate, and there could be no lukewarmness, no neutrality, in the perennial conflict against the Infidel.