First International

“ Our first object is, as I said before, supremacy, assured to us by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements. ”

“ In enlarging the scope of the United Nations operations in the field of economic development, we also strengthen its position and heighten its stature as an international force for the preservation of peace. ”

“ The fortunes of nations should not be left to the hazards of the unforeseen. Those who are responsible for guiding relations between States need a vast equipment in knowledge and in aptitude. They must know the resources, the constitution and manner of government, the treaty obligations, the character of the dominant personalities, the national temperament and national objects, both of their own State and of its connexions—sometimes unruly and suspicious connexions—in the Family of Nations. ”

“ But the real hope and faith that has sustained the American people in these great efforts was that victory for ourselves and our Allies would lay the basis for an ordered international relationship in Europe and would end the centuries of strife on this embattled continent. ”

“ Reorganization of Europe "guaranteed by a stable regime and founded as much upon respect of nationalities and full security and liberty of economic development, which all nations, great or small, possess, as upon territorial conventions and international agreements suitable to guarantee territorial and maritime frontiers against unjustified attacks." ”

“ Here are the enormous tasks of international relations, which the Great War has forced us to realize—the prevention of armed conflicts, the elimination of the irritant causes of war, the protection of the small nations which possess what the big nations covet, the freedom of the seas as the common highway of God, fair and free interchange in commerce without any effort to set up monopoly rights and the privilege of extortionate gain, the creation of an institutional basis for a great family of nations in days to come. ”

“ This and other practical examples of government between nations show that the great success, convenience, and benefit to all nations encourage the further development of international organizations. The difficulties and dangers predicted have not come to pass. International administration has come in the cases of railroads, ships, and automobiles. ”

“ The International Workingmen’s Association is one of many signs which gives us reason to hope for a continued growth of international relations; and this growth may terminate in that longed-for internationalism, which shall lead to the formation of a world-organization, guaranteeing to the nations of the earth perpetual peace. There are numerous evidences of this development, of which the following are a few examples; the international postal union, international congresses, international courts of arbitration, and the efforts to establish international factory legislation. ”

“ And it may be said without exaggeration that the great extent and rapid increase of international trade, in being the principal guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great permanent security for the uninterrupted progress of the ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race. ”

“ The founders of the United Nations, meeting in San Francisco 40 years ago, set forth in the U.N. Charter the fervent hope that humanity might experience peace and international cooperation in the era after the greatest and most costly war ever experienced. ”

“ Important as these things are, it may be affirmed at least that they are not everything; and that, great as has been the material progress of the century, the changes in international relations and relative importance, not merely in states of the European family, but among the peoples of the world at large, have been no less striking. ”

“ They compare experiences, seek answers to common problems and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies that increasingly in today's globalised world must form a web of even practice across nations. ”

“ The expansion of commerce and trade, the introduction of new and rapid means of communication, the diffusion of knowledge through books and travel, the establishment of permanent embassies, the making of many treaties containing the same general provisions, and the whole movement of modern civilization toward unifying the interests of states, has rapidly enlarged the range of international action and the scope of international law. ”

“ Fair play for the several advanced nations with their expanding trade and population, security for the interests of the backward peoples in areas thus opened to development and migration, and more broadly the utilization of the world’s economic resources for the equal benefit of all mankind — such was the practical ideal which a League of Nations or other international system should envisage and seek to attain. ”

“ If, on the other hand, some better form of international organization could be found through a League of Nations, however rudimentary, strategic considerations could drop into the background in favor of the economic convenience and the political desires of the people concerned. ”

“ And some day this country will be studied in its international relations, as an organic part of a larger organism now vaguely called the World State, but as surely developing through the operation of economic, legal, social, and scientific forces as the American Union, the German and British Empires are evolving into higher forms. ”

“ It is the view of the states of the globe as forming a great family of nations, united by a growing body of international law, creating institutions as they are needed to regulate international relations, bound together in community of interest by free commerce, communicating to one another the triumphs won by each in science and art, sharing their thoughts by a common literature in which the barriers of language are made as little effectual as possible, and thus creating one society of the enlightened nations independent of state boundaries. ”

“ At the beginning of the twentieth century, civilized nations acknowledge certain rules of national conduct called international law, but at the end of the eighteenth nothing of the kind had any real weight in regulating international affairs. ”

“ The work is an established and indispensable authority for an understanding of the diplomacy of the times of which it treats. It contains much that is of value bearing on internal politics both in Britain and in Continental States, and on the influence of the constitutional system and of domestic politics upon the conduct of foreign policy. ”

“ Now as regards the demands under 4 and 5, the settlement of most of them belongs rightly to an International Conference of all the nations. In their good and efficient regulation all are interested. They are also of the greatest concern to the future of mankind as a whole. ”

“ International discussion is the most effectual means of insuring all people’s benefit—a real durable peace, above all, putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments.
“In the course of the last twenty years the longing for general appeasement has grown especially pronounced in the consciences of civilized nations; and the preservation of peace has been put forward as an object of international policy. It is in its name that great states have concluded between themselves powerful alliances. ”

“ What is the business of the Foreign Office of this country and of every other country in its aspect of an international machine? It does not pursue strange and secret aims. I think the British world perfectly understands and would thoroughly describe the broad ends for which British diplomacy works. ”

“ I first give you, gentlemen, what I think the right principles of foreign policy.
The first thing is to foster the strength of the empire by just legislation and economy at home, thereby producing two of the great elements of national power—namely, wealth, which is a physical element, and union and contentment, which are moral elements,—and to reserve the strength of the empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy occasions abroad. Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. ”

“ In like manner, there will be a determination on the part of the coöperating nations to stand together for the enforcement of international agreements and to discipline a law-breaking state that would needlessly resort to arms. The internationalism of commerce, of travel, of communication, of intellectual exchange and moral endeavor will continue to grow throughout the world, but in addition there will be the more definite, the more concrete internationalism of [xi] the nations that agree in making common cause for the attainment of specific ends. ”

“ I suggest we start from scratch in discussing international relations, and do so on the 'societal' pattern of mankind without using the traditional split into 'international law', 'international politics', 'world trade', 'history', etc. Let us regard - thus continuing the Utilitarian approach-the whole fabric of international human relation as producing human happiness and unhappiness. ”

“ Development of national education and culture. "In the international sphere the program stands for the revision of unequal treaties and an alliance with all democratic nations for the maintenance of peace. ”

“ The Foreign Policy of Great Britain shall not be aimed at creating Alliances for the purpose of maintaining the Balance of Power; but shall be directed to concerted action between the Powers, and the setting up of an International Council, whose deliberations and decisions shall be public, with such machinery for securing international agreement as shall be the guarantee of an abiding peace. ”

“ The troubles of the European Continent are an old, intricate story, and I believe the attitude ascribed here to the American Centre and West, the attitude of "let Europe solve her own international problems and not bother us with them," is a thoroughly sound and wise one. ”

“ It is earnestly to be hoped that the various governments of Europe, working with those of America and of Asia, shall set themselves seriously to the task of devising some method which shall accomplish this result. ”

“ The need first of all is for a continuation of the interest inspired by the war—an interest showing itself in the form of an universal interest in all history, and an intensive investigation of history. We need now, indeed, the most comprehensive study of the world that has ever been conceived or dreamed of by man. This is the duty of the historians. This new history must show us what nations are at heart, what they desire, what they can do. Such an understanding of nations is, we say, the real beginning of internationalism. ”

“ For such mastery as is attainable of problems of international policy at any point of time and contact in the relations of State to State particularity of knowledge is indispensable, and that must be sought in special works and in the sources that bear upon each problem. ”

“ All must know the power of organization. All must see that the international structures of our own day, however complete in [192] form, are but a beginning and basis of function, and that there must be put behind these forms all the energies of the people, young and old, made effective through organization for practical efforts.
It is through participation in activities that are international in scope that, in our opinion, the best education in the idea of internationalism will be obtained. ”

“ In the growth of international agreements, in the gradual advance of what might be called international litigation before courts of arbitration replacing the barbarous methods of slaughter and conquest, in the steady increase of that good understanding and mutual good-will promoted by travel and the interchange of products, by fellowship in the work of science and education and through the joys of sharing responsibility in the cause of philanthropy and religion—in these vast movements of thought and feeling lies the hope of that better day when peace shall hold an undisputed sway. ”

“ A plainer foreign policy than there has usually been may be possible. [110] But that any large number of men should ever be qualified, or that they should even seek, with good results, to qualify themselves, for the exercise of an initiative that shall be wise, and for a control that shall be well informed, in the conduct of foreign affairs, where the conditions are of necessity complex and the issues involved are momentous, no student of history and no honest mind will ever admit. ”

“ Appreciating that economic need, military security and political wisdom combine to suggest regional groupings of free peoples, we hope, within the framework of the United Nations, to help strengthen such special bonds the world over. ”

“ In the eighteenth century international relations consisted of diplomatic conversations and were regulated by an occasional treaty, but, owing to the very inadequate means of communication, few international relations were required. In the nineteenth century the change in international conditions was very great. When international organizations represent some actual phase of life, whether educational, commercial or scientific, they really regulate their relations between nations and are often organs of international government. ”

“ America, effect of Great War upon, 1; choice of foreign policies open to, 2; influences which will determine national trend, 2-3; attitude of pacifist idealists, 3; attitude of self-seeking individualists, 4; origin and character of demand in, for preparedness, 5-6; the ideal of a united, 7-8; interest of financial groups in preparedness and "united America" ideal, 8-9; question as to what purpose armament in, is to be used, 10; the group for defence and the group for establishment of proper international relations, 10-11; factors which will determine foreign policy of, 11-12 ”