The Geneva Protocol, by David Hunter Miller

CHAPTER XVIII. 69
CHAPTER XVIII.
SECURITY AND THE PROTOCOL.
For me to discuss the bearing of the Protocol of Geneva upon the security of States means that I go outside my
brief.
No technical juristic reasoning is applicable to a feeling which lies at the heart of national sentiments,
sentiments of patriotism and of devotion to country, which are as deep rooted in the souls of millions as are
the love of family and the belief in religion.
This matter of security is in verity a matter of national feeling, a state of mind in the truest sense. For no
human agency, no belief, no will, outside of the country concerned, can alter or affect it. Ourselves alone must
say, we and our rulers, whether or not we are in fact secure--if we say yes, that is enough; but if we say no, it
is not for any one else to question, much less for any one else to seek to argue the matter.
So I shall merely seek to state the theory of the Protocol in regard to this matter of security. That theory is
this: if the nations of the world will agree to outlaw war, if they will agree to substitute law for force, to settle
by pacific means all disputes among them, if they will agree to unite against any people which so agrees but
then betrays humanity by tearing up its own agreement, then we may develop intra-nationally a belief in
security, a confidence in a settled order, a hope for the future, which will slowly but inevitably disarm the
forces for war and lift the curtain on a new day.
Such is the theory of the Protocol of Geneva.
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