It is
clear that nations must in the future be governed by the same high code
of honor that we demand of individuals.
We must, indeed, in the very same breath with which we avow this
conviction admit that we have ourselves upon occasion in the past been
offenders against the law of diplomacy which we thus forecast; but our
conviction is not the less clear, but rather the more clear, on that
account. If this war has accomplished nothing else for the benefit of
the world, it has at least disclosed a great moral necessity and set
forward the thinking of the statesmen of the world by a whole age.
Repeated utterances of the leading statesmen of most of the great
nations now engaged in war have made it plain that their thought has
come to this, that the principle of public right must henceforth take
precedence over the individual interests of particular nations, and that
the nations of the world must in some way band themselves together to
see that that right prevails as against any sort of selfish aggression;
that henceforth alliance must not be set up against alliance,
understanding against understanding, but that there must be a common
agreement for a common object, and that at the heart of that common
object must lie the inviolable rights of peoples and of mankind.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263