Page 39 - All India Magazine Oct-2025

it be an indubitable or a perfect remedy. It is often asserted that
this is what is needed; just as in the nation Law has replaced and
suppressed the old barbaric method of settling disputes between
individuals, families or clans by the arbitration of Might, a similar
development ought to be possible in the life of nations. Perhaps
in the end; but to expect it to operate successfully at once is to
ignore both the real basis of the effective authority of Law and the
difference between the constituents of a developed nation and
the constituents of that ill-developed international comity which
it is proposed to initiate.
CWSA 25: 391

Authority and law
The authority of Law in a nation or community does not really
depend on any so-called "majesty" or mystic power in man-made
rules and enactments. Its real sources of power are two, first, the
strong interest of the majority or of a dominant minority or of the
community as a whole in maintaining it and, secondly, the posses-
sion of a sole armed force, police and military, which makes that
interest effective. The metaphorical sword of justice can only act
because there is a real sword behind it to enforce its decrees and
its penalties against the rebel and the dissident. And the essential
character of this armed force is that it belongs to nobody, to no
individual or constituent group of the community except alone to
the State, the king or the governing class or body in which sov-
ereign authority is centred. Nor can there be any security if the
armed force of the State is balanced or its sole effectivity dimin-
ished by the existence of other armed forces belonging to groups
and individuals and free in any degree from the central control or
able to use their power against the governing authority. Even so,
even with this authority backed by a sole and centralised armed
force, Law has not been able to prevent strife of a kind between
individuals and classes because it has not been able to remove the

All India Magazine, October 2025 39