greements, or, in other words, to the enforcement of
treaty obligations, until new treaties were made.

The present alliance is of good promise in three important
respects--its members refuse to make any separate peace, they
co-operate cordially and efficiently in military measures, and the
richer members help the poorer financially. These policies have been
hastily devised and adopted in the midst of strenuous fighting on an
immense scale. If deliberately planned and perfected in times of
peace, they could be made in the highest degree effective toward
durable peace.

The war has demonstrated that the international agreements for the
mitigation of the horrors of war, made by treaties, conferences, and
conventions in times of peace, may go for nothing in time of war;
because they have no sanction, or, in other words, lack penalties
capable of systematic enforcement. To provide the lacking sanction and
the physical force capable of compelling the payment of penalties for
violating international agreements would be one of the best functions
of the international council which the present alliance foreshadows.
Some years would probably be required to satisfy the nations concerned
that the sanction was real and the force trustworthy and sufficient.
The absolute necessity of inventing and applying a sanction for
international law, if Europe is to have international peace and any
national liberty, will be obvious to any one who has once perceived
that the present war became inevitable when Austria-Hungary, in
violation of an international agreement to which she was herself a
party, seized and absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina, and became general
and fierce when Germany, under Prussian lead, in violation of an
international agreement to which she was herself a party, entered and
plundered neutralized Belgium.

A strong, trustworthy international alliance to preserve the freedom
of the seas under all circumstances would secure for Great Britain and
her federated commonwealths everything secured by the burdensome
two-navies policy which now secures the freedom of the seas for
British purposes. The same international alliance would secure for
Germany the same complete freedom of the seas which in times of peace
between Germany and Great Britain she has long enjoyed by favor of
Great Britain, but has lost in time of war with the Triple Entente.
This security, with the general acceptance of the policy of the "open
door," would ful