place, makes more or
less temporary diplomatic settlements, but in no way affects a
judicial settlement.

"However, then, international society may be organized for the future
and whatever machinery may be set up to minimize the possibilities of
war, I believe that the agency which may be counted upon to function
with certainty is that which develops and applies legal justice."

Every other agency, regardless of its form, will be found, when
analyzed, to be diplomatic in character and subject to those impulses
and purposes which generally affect diplomatic negotiations. With a full
appreciation of the advantage to be gained for the world at large
through the common consideration of a vexatious international question
by a body representing all nations, we ought not to lose sight of the
fact that such consideration and the action resulting from it are
essentially diplomatic in nature. It is, in brief, the transference of a
dispute in a particular case from the capitals of the disputants to the
place where the delegates of the nations assemble to deliberate together
on matters which affect their common interests. It does not--and this we
should understand--remove the question from the processes of diplomacy
or prevent the influences which enter into diplomacy from affecting its
consideration. Nor does it to an appreciable extent change the actual
inequality which exists among nations in the matter of power and
influence.

"On the other hand, justice applied through the agency of an
impartial tribunal clothed with an international jurisdiction
eliminates the diplomatic methods of compromise and concession and
recognizes that before the law all nations are equal and equally
entitled to the exercise of their rights as sovereign and independent
states. In a word, international democracy exists in the sphere of
legal justice and, up to the present time, in no other relation
between nations.

"Let us, then, with as little delay as possible establish an
international tribunal or tribunals of justice with The Hague Court
as a foundation; let us provide an easier, a cheaper, and better
procedure than now exists; and let us draft a simple and concise body
of legal principles to be applied to the questions to be adjudicated.
When that has been accomplished--and it ought not to be a difficult
task if the delegates of the Governments charged with it are chosen
for t