[Footnote 65: See Fried, "Handbuch der Friedensbewegung," 2nd ed., 2 vols. (1911).]
[Footnote 67: The general arbitration treaties concluded in August 1911 by the United States with Great Britain and France have not yet been ratified, as the consent of the American Senate is previously required.]
[Sidenote: Six Lessons of the History of the Law of Nations.]
§ 51. It is the task of history, not only to show how things have grown in the past, but also to extract a moral for the future out of the events of the past. Six morals can be said to be deduced from the history of the development of the Law of Nations:
(1) The first and principal moral is that a Law of Nations can exist only if there be an equilibrium, a balance of power, between the members of the Family of Nations. If the Powers cannot keep one another in check, no rules of law will have any force, since an over-powerful State will naturally try to act according to discretion and disobey the law. As there is not and never can be a central political authority above the Sovereign States that could enforce the rules of the Law of Nations, a balance of power must prevent any member of the Family of Nations from becoming omnipotent. The history of the times of Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. shows clearly the soundness of this principle.[68]
[Footnote 68: Attention ought to be drawn to the fact that, although the necessity of a balance of power is generally recognised, there are some writers of great authority who vigorously oppose this principle, as, for instance, Bulmerincq, "Praxis, Theorie und Codification des Völkerrechts" (1874), pp. 40-50. On the principle itself see Donnadieu, "Essai sur la Théorie de l'Équilibre" (1900), and Dupuis, "Le Principe d'Équilibre et de Concert Européen" (1909).]
(2) The second moral is that International Law can develop progressively only when international politics, especially intervention, are made on the basis of real State interests. Dynastic wars belong to the past, as do interventions in favour of legitimacy. It is neither to be feared, nor to be hoped, that they should occur again in the future. But if they did, they would hamper the development of the Law of Nations in the future as they have done in the past.