Peace

Peace as an international term denotes the normal conditions which prevail among civilised nations, and which are for the most part secured by treaties, such treaties, however, being terminable when any party to them has the desire, accompanied by the power, to put an end to them. Thus Russia took an opportunity to declare her intention to disregard the provisions of the Treaty of Paris so far as they referred to her right to keep a fleet in the Black Sea. International peace can only be put an end to by a formal declaration of war. The public peace is also a term applied to the attitude of the members of a community to each other; and in most countries, as in England, a breach of the peace is a punishable act, and may be dealt with by justices of the peace, who, indeed, are empowered to prevent an intended or expected breach of the peace by calling on the person suspected to provide security, or to enter into his own recognisances to preserve the peace, under pain of imprisonment in default. This process, which is called the "exhibition of Articles of Peace," may be entered upon by justices either upon complaint, or of their own motion. Religious Peace is the term applied to the convention which, after the Reformation, secured to the Protestant states of Germany the enjoyment of religious freedom. Peace Society, a society formed with the object of introducing the principle of arbitration as a substitute for war to settle disputes between1 nations.