The International Conference of American States on Conciliation and Arbitration, which met in Washington from December 10, 1928, to January 5, 1929, was characterized by one of the delegates to the conference as the Locarno of the New World. Shortly after the signing of the General Pact for the Renunciation of War, we find the nations of the Western Hemisphere taking the logical next step of providing machinery for the pacific settlement of all international disputes. “ It is quite obvious that it is not sufficient to renounce war, unless we are ready to have recourse to the processes of peace.” Here is concrete evidence of the good faith of the American Republics to provide a clean-cut substitute for war as an instrument of national policy. The necessity for the development of machinery for international pacific settlement has been demonstrated to the present generation by the fact that the whole nature of the institution of war changed whenman became a scientist, an engineer, and a mechanic. Mass production, under the stimulus of intensive research, has madepossible the production of instruments of destruction which threaten to destroy civilization, unless international social relations can be brought within the control of law. While President-elect Hoover was making his good-will, personal-relations tour in South America, eminent jurists from twenty of the American Republics were meeting in Washington to set up the framework for the stabilization of international relations.
The Evolution of International Policing in the Pacific: a Critical Analysis