SECRET DIPLOMACY.

Professor Coolidge's publication of the Austro-Hungarian secret treaties in English is of very great importance not only to historians but to all men who are interested in public and international affairs. From these documents it will be possible accurately to trace the development of that web of secret diplomacy which lay behind the activity of the Central Powers in precipitating the world war. We learn, for example, that Austria had been granted the right by Germany and Russia to annex Bosnia and Herzogovina as early as 1881, and this shows us why Russia was obliged to withdraw her protest against the seizure o these territories in 1908 We see how Germany and Austria were able to convince each other that a general European War in 1914 could not but be an advantage to both.

These disclosures must throw discredit on the old system of European diplomacy. The secret treaties are not to be regarded as interesting historical curiosities. They are of importance today, and they can teach us much about the future. For, in spite of promises of "open covenants openly arrived at," we have not been suddenly issued into an age of good-fellowship among nations. The compromises which President Wilson was forced to make at Paris furnish abundant evidence that European methods of diplomacy are still a force with which we must contend.

But just because our highest ideals have not been realized is no excuse for sinking back in slothful lethargy and telling our neighbors: "This is the same old world and always will be." That is nothing more nor less than an "After me the Deluge" philosophy.

For war and secret diplomacy are closely interlocked. Secrecy always breeds misunderstandings between individuals, and, so far as diplomatic relations between nations are concerned, we are dealing with individuals: the diplomats. The Crimean War is a salient instance in which England went to war because of the individual distrust of her minister to Russia for the Czar Nicholas.

One of the chief aims of the proposed League of Nations is to lay bare to the scrutiny of public opinion the relations between nations, so that the world may pronounce a moral judgment. But before secrets between nations are laid on the table, public opinion must crystallize against the old methods of diplomacy and must substitute some new means of handling international affairs. At present constructive methods are lacking. The old order is constantly attacked; but thunderous onslaughts are apparently made without a persistent guiding policy behind. Publishing the secret treaties ought to forcus attention on better methods of diplomacy.