The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1920. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 December 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1920. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE.

The conception of an international Court of Justice is an ideal quite in keeping with the spirit in which the League of Nations was' founded. The League itself is certainly the highest ideal and the greatest instrument the world has yet contrived for carrying out international peace and justice. The human race—whether primitive or highly civilised—is subject to scourges and afflictions much in the same way as its units, and the conditions which made the recent great war possible afford clear proof of the existence of a great, scope for the exercise of preventive and remedial medicinal skill. In one way, therefore, the League may be regarded as a congress of experts for the advancement of the health and wellbeing of the world at large, both corporeally and politically. Doctors do not always agree in their diagnosis and methods of treatment; neither can it be expected that the League members will see eye to eye with one another as to the causes and remedies for national disorders. Inevitably there must be much groping, theorising and experimenting; yet, complex as is the task, by unity of effort and a common determination to overcome nil difficulties the League should justify its existence and prove a world-wide benefit. Inasmuch as justice is the fundamental essential to all human activities, the establishment of an international Court of Justice may be regarded as rightly oiie of the first duties of the League. The only important noints in connection with the debate on this subject on which

<• -unions vre.rp divided were the question ~o£ .voluntary .orjwjsypul-

sory jurisdiction, and the enforcement of the Court's decrees. Ur,' VSalfour's claim thai; if the Courl ! ' was lo be successful it must bo al-' Mowed free grow)!', v.-idch was the • .'•cci'cl: of penu;'!:■;•:;, .success, un- ; doubtediy placed too. matter of \ ; juried;/.: : n;i in its true light, emphasised !>■/ his assertion , ; thf'.t : 'i': in a. lirutfy spirit they j i tried :■•> force nif.ions into the I ' League's mould the latter wordd I : break." The problem' of enforcing : ; ; the Courts decrees is one that! j face? the League in all its work, j | and must be left in rime, as well: i as statesmanship, to solve. In view ' of the fact that Labor unrest! ! threatens to bo the cause of inter- j national troubles, provision has; wisely been mad'e that when La- '■ bor questions oome before the; special Court of five .Judges, the! latter shall be assisted by four j technical advisers without the j right to vote. This should prove! a satisfactory arrangement, it be-! ing rerr inhered that the tribunal' is intended to administer justice, which is frequently a different j thing from law, or the conception' of law in the legal mind. Labor] is entitled to hive its views and: aims treated seriously, justly and impartially, but this claim involves the recognition by the workers of the right to justice for others as well as for themselves, and they have quite as much to i learn on iho subject of' true justice as till the other sections of the human race. r v> this connection a remark ma.de by Professor {' Hunter, nt the breaking-up cere- j tnony of the New Plymouth Boys'! High School on Tuesday, has ai ■■■.peciiil bearing. He asserted that, the school teachers' duty was not : to teach people what, to think, but ; how to think. The truth of that j : statement cannot fail to cai-ry '■ conviction. If the human race : throughout the civilised world is ; rightly taught iiow to think, there ' would speedily be an end to most , of the troubles with, which the : world has been afflicted. It is '• the perversion of the human in- ' teileet to base and selfish desires ,

that is ono of the chief causes of industrial, social ;\.v.A political nnrest. If people arc taught the riofht lines on which to think, injustice will disappear. There will always lie mental, an well as physical, unfits, but the time may come when science will be able to provide a remedy for both. Meanwhile the move made by the League in the direction of the interests of-justice is a step in the right direction.