of special and urgent importance": labor is not to be regarded as a commodity; the right of association for all lawful purposes by the employed as well as by the employers; a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of life as understood in their time and country; the 8-hour day or 48-hour week as the standard to be aimed at; a weekly rest of at least 24 hours, including Sunday when practicable; the abolition of child labor and such limitation on the labor of young persons as will permit the continuation of their education and ensure their proper physical development; equal pay to men and women for work "of equal value"; the legal standard of conditions of labor to have due regard to the equitable economic treatment of all workers lawfully resident there; and an inspection system for labor laws and regulations, a number of the inspectors to be

women.

A General Conference, composed of four representatives from each member state,-two to be government delegates, one to represent the employers and one the employed-meets once a year to consider proposals and make recommendations or propose international conventions for ratification by the states. A state must bring the recommendation or proposed convention to the attention of the proper authorities in its government within one year, or at the utmost eighteen months, after the Conference; if no legislative action is taken, or if the convention is not ratified, the state is under no further obligation.

PART IV

PRESENT TENDENCIES IN

INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHAPTER XVIII

THE REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS AND THE EXTENSION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF JUDICIAL SETTLEMENT

The most widespread and significant tendency in international relations today is the disposition in many governments to consider methods for satisfying the determination of their citizens or subjects for a reduction in armaments. One motive behind this determination is the popular realization of the enormous cost of the World War-its financial cost, still evidenced seven years after the armistice by high taxes and commodity prices, and its cost in human life and in spiritual values. Another is the slow recognition that the "war to end war" may not have deserved its name. Another is the feeling that large armies and navies are likely to be used, if in existence or at least that a nation without them is more likely to insist on peaceful adjustments than one with them, and that makers of armament have often been accused of troubling the waters in order that they might fish in them. The contrasting pictures of what might be done with army and navy

appropriations, if spent on education, technical training, sanitation, and good roads have been held up before the citizens of many lands.

Add to this the moral and spiritual significance of the feeling that war is wrong, held by thousands of citizens who nevertheless do not see what to do but support their government when once it has declared

war.

The results of the Washington Conference for the limitation of naval armament, welcome though they were so far as they went, left unrestricted many naval instrumentalities of warfare. And none of the powers has ratified the agreements prohibiting the use of submarines as commerce destroyers and the use of noxious gases and similar materials.

This desire for reduction of armaments, however, is necessarily met by the stern fact that it is not safe to disarm, unless other nations do the same, before some other method than force for settling international differences has won general acceptance. Hence the great strength of the movement for judicial settlement, as a substitute for war. This movement tends not only to demand the compulsory submission to arbitration or judicial settlement of all legal differences, but also to challenge the validity of the distinction between legal questions, recognized as suitable for such submission, and political questions, not so recognized. Some observers go so far as to suggest that if a dispute is not legal, it must be illegal.

There is a marked tendency at present to look beneath the label of vital interests or national sovereignty in search of the economic cause that may lie hidden, and to question whether war may be the most effective method of amending the geographical distribution of natural resources which puts iron ore on one side of a boundary line and the coal with which to turn it into steel on the other side. This tendency is leading to a thoughtful examination to ascertain what after all the vital essence of sovereignty is, and whether it may not be possible to reconcile that essential quality with a wide measure of cooperation, without breaking down the conception or the fact of nationality on which alone genuine internationalism can be based.