THE REIGN OF LAW

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 5, 1 October 1918, Page 4

THE REIGN OF LAW

President Wilson's latest declaration in regard to the eetablish-me-nt of a League of Nations is a remarkably impressive pronouncement. It imperiously arrests attention. It sets up such a high and exacting standard_ of international morality that ono is at first inclined to ask: "Who is sufficient for these things?" It lays down principles which cannot fail to cause much heart-searching and to test tho sincerity of professed desires for universal peace. _ President Wilson is passionately in earnest. He is not content to regard the formation of a real family of nations merely as an attractive ideal which may possibly he realised in the far-distant future, but which is too Utopian for serious consideration by the present generation. He is convinced that the idea has now come within the region of practical politics. In his opinion such a League of Nations is not merely a possibility, but is an absolute necessity for the security of the world. He is convinced that the present war must be fought out to a righteous end. There must bo no compromise with the enemy. Until victory has been won the League* of Nations cannot be established. But its formation must be part of the peace settlement. "It is not likely," he says, "it could-be formed after that settlement. .Peace cannot be guaranteed as an afterthought." Pkesident . . Wilson's speech will compel every nation to ask itself whether it is really anxious for tho inauguration of a new era in which impartial justice* will be strictly meted out to all States great and small. It is not a light matter to accept fully and unequivocally tho principle that the rights of the weakest arc as sacred as the rights of the _ strongest. This involves the sotting up of a new moral standard for the regulation of tho relationships of States. Such a wide extension of the reign of law cannot be achieved without making sacrifices. The price must be paid. Are the nations prepared to pay it? It is quite, evident that President Wilson will use-all his great influence at the Peace Conference to secure the establishment of some supernational authority strong enough to provent war, Tho problem is a tremendously difficult and delicate one, but President Wilson is not the only responsible Btatesman who believes that it can and must be solved. This terrible war has compelled thoughtful people to seek for some way of settling international disputes by reason instead of by force, and President Wilson gives expression to the views of a great and growing number of men and women of all nations when he asserts that the only real peace would be an assurance which would make a recurrence of such a struggle of pitiless force- and bloodshed as that in which we are at present forever impossible in future. Cynics and pessimists may tell us that until men become angels war must be regarded as an incurable disease, but during the last four years we have learned many lessons, and a great change has come over our ideas as.to what is possible and what is impossible. We have actually done things which before the war would' have been regarded as quite impossible, and never in the history of the world has there been a more opportune time than the present for making great adventures,