The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER VII. 23
CHAPTER VII.
THE STATUS QUO.
In many recent discussions of international affairs these two originally innocent Latin words "status quo" have
attained a really malevolent significance. They seem to be regarded as meaning the same thing as the motto
"Whatever is, is wrong," and some who talk about the status quo appear to be in the same mind as Omar when
he longed
"To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire ............................. --and then Re-mould it nearer to the heart's
desire."
It may be well to give some critical examination to this question of the status quo and to see what, if anything,
is meant by the ideas which lie back of these criticisms.
In the first place, the thought of the critics usually relates to existing international frontiers and, in some
instances, to existing international conditions.
Now as to frontiers, if we look at the status quo historically, we find that it is practically universally the result
of changes in a previous status quo. The cause of these changes may have been war, may possibly have been
agreements and may have been something other than either of these.[1] I shall refer to them later. But here it
should be observed that there is hardly any region of the globe where the status quo does not result from some
one or more of these changes within times comparatively recent.
Of course there are some exceptions to this observation, the Arctic and Antarctic, for example; but in the
populated regions of the globe, the status quo, so far as frontiers are concerned, is a thing comparatively new.
If we look at this existing situation, this status quo of international frontiers, we find that under modern
conditions a {29} comparatively short period of time is all that is necessary to give to the status quo the
sanctity of universal consent, regardless of its origin. Let me give an instance or two of this.
The Southern frontier of the United States, for part of its extent is the direct result of a war between the United
States and Mexico, a war which by many, and I am among them, is considered to have been a war of
aggression. Now no one but a madman would believe that there ought to be a change in the status quo of the
communities now existing in New Mexico, which in 1850 was uninhabited country, by delivering them over
to Mexican rule. It is true that, during the World War, Germany proposed to Mexico in the celebrated
Zimmerman note[2] that this should be done; but that incident only emphasizes the truth of my remark.
One of the most recent instances of a change in the status quo, so far as the United States is concerned, is the
case of the Virgin Islands, which were bought from Denmark in 1916.[3] There was a change made by
agreement, made for a purchase price which was satisfactory to the ceding country and made after a plebiscite
of the inhabitants, who voted almost unanimously for the change. Here, again, for reasons differing from those
of the foregoing instance, no one in his senses would consider that the existing status quo was not one of
justice and common sense.
Now, if we take the situation generally, we will find, in accordance with the instances that I have mentioned,
that the international situation as to frontiers the world over[4] is, as to perhaps 99%, either consecrated by
usage which is the equivalent of common consent or at least of common sense, or else is the result of
agreement which contains in it both elements.
The fact is, as any realist will admit, that every frontier, no matter how absurd originally or even now,
contains, in the very fact of its existence, elements of stability and of reason which to some extent justify its