The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER VII. 28
good as a majority of ninety per cent.?
{38}
In reality, the truth about these proposals for changing frontiers by some sort of international procedure is that
those who advocate them do not believe in them as a general proposition. An Englishman who believes in this
sort of thing, for example, believes in it as regards Macedonia or some such region; he does not for a moment
think that such a procedure should enable the people of British Columbia, say, to become part of the United
States. I do not mean to intimate that the people of British Columbia have any such idea; but how is it going to
be possible to give the privilege (if it be a privilege) to people along a few selected frontiers?
Another point, a fatal objection to such a scheme, is the inevitable uncertainty which it would set up.
It may be a better thing to live in Manitoba than in North Dakota, or to live in North Dakota than in Manitoba;
but worse than almost any conceivable place of residence would be a status which might change in the future,
so that one could not tell say five years ahead in what country he was going to live. A frontier is not merely a
line drawn on a map or demarcated on the ground; a frontier means a nexus of customs, of laws, of traditions
and of innumerable other things that directly affect the daily life and conduct of every inhabitant. Any lawyer
who has had any experience in the matter will realize the enormous difficulties that surround any transfer of
territory merely in connection with the drafting of the necessary papers[12]; and any student who wishes to
see how far-reaching the practical difficulties may be need only consider the present situation in
Alsace-Lorraine in its bearing upon the relations between France and the Vatican.
The impossibility and the undesirability of setting up any system for changing frontiers, such as has been
discussed, are equally evident.
There is another phase of this general question of the status {39} quo which is sometimes discussed by those
who seem to have a natural antipathy to the words and that is what I may call the "raw materials" phase. There
is, let us say, no coal in Switzerland, and yet Switzerland must have coal for her people to exist. There are no
oil wells in Norway, and yet in Norway there must be, if civilization is to continue, automotive engines. It is
obvious that there can be no physical change in such a status quo. People who live in the territory that is now
Switzerland must get their coal somewhere else, and motor transport in Norway must get its gasoline from
other lands.
What is the international phase of such situations as this? There are perhaps three possibilities. One is a war of
conquest commenced by a country in the situation of Norway in order to obtain dominion over foreign oil
lands; the second is some kind of agreement such as has been suggested in a vague way by the Italians and
others for some sort of an international supervision in such matters; and the third is that the situation shall
continue as it is now--a matter of bargain and sale, of supply and demand.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, among these three, the first would be as impossible as it
would be wicked; the second is wholly outside the realm of practical politics for centuries to come; the third is
the status quo, which has not in any case of world peace resulted in any serious injustice.
Of course, if we go beyond such cases as Norway and Switzerland and take countries much less favored, it is
always a mystery as to why people live in them. It is very difficult to understand, for example, why there are
settlers in Labrador, or why people are fond of Greenland as a home; none the less these things are so. And
under the existing system of exchange of commodities there has perhaps never been a time when even the
people who live in these countries without certain particular natural resources have not generally been able to
obtain sufficient of them as a result of their own efforts in the occupations which the character of those lands
permits.