forts. It may also be desirable to consider and adopt a procedure by which States non- signatory to the original Act of The Hague Conference may become adhering parties.

"You will explain to his Excellency the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the present overture for a second Conference to complete the postponed work of the first Conference is not designed to supersede other calls for the consideration of special topics, such as the proposition of the Government of the Netherlands, recently issued, to assemble for the purpose of amending the provisions of the existing Hague Convention with respect to hospital ships.1 Like all tentative Conventions, that one is open to change in the light of practical experience, and the fullest deliberation is desirable to that end.

"Finally, you will state the President's desire and hope that the undying memories which cling around The Hague as the cradle of the beneficent work which had its beginning in 1899, may be strengthened by holding the second peace Conference in that historic city.

President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress of December 5, 1905, returned to the subject. As regards the arrest of the growth of armaments and the diminution of military and naval expenditure, he denounced the "demagogues of peace" "who advocate peace at any price." He hoped "the Conference may be able to devise some way to make arbitration the customary way of settling disputes in all save a few classes of cases which should themselves be as sharply defined and rigidly limited as the present governmental and social development of the world will permit." "Neutral rights and property should be protected at sea as they are protected on land." There should be an "agreement defining contraband of war." The creation of something like an organisation of the civilised nations" should be aimed at. "As the world becomes more highly organised, the need for armies and navies will diminish," but "disarmament can never be of prime importance," there being "more need to get rid of the causes of war than of the implements of war."

On the 21st of December 1905 the British Prime Minister, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, in his Albert Hall speech, following more or less on the same lines, defined the Liberal policy towards peace in the following terms:

“I rejoice that . . . the principle of arbitration has made great strides, and that to-day it is no longer counted weakness for any of the Great Powers of the world to submit those issues which would once have been referred to the arbitrament of self-assertion and of passion to a higher tribunal. . . . I hold that the growth of armaments is a great danger to the peace of the world. A policy of huge armaments keeps alive and stimulates and feeds the belief that force is the best, if not the only, solution of international differences. It is a policy which tends to inflame old sores and to create new

1 See p. 198, and text of new Convention, p. 257.

"The special operations of naval warfare, such as the bombardment of ports, towns, and villages by a naval force, the laying of mines, etc.

66

'The transformation of commercial vessels into warships.

"The private property of belligerents at sea.

"The delay to be accorded to commercial vessels in leaving neutral ports or those of the enemy after the outbreak of hostilities.

"The rights and duties of neutrals at sea, among other questions that of contraband, the treatment to which the ships of belligerents should be subjected in neutral ports, destruction by force majeure of neutral ships of commerce as prizes.

"In the said Convention should be introduced arrangements relative to land warfare, which should be equally applicable to naval warfare.

"Additions to be made in the Convention of 1899 for the adaptation to naval warfare of the principles of the Geneva Convention of 1864.

"As at the Conference of 1899, it should be understood that the deliberations of the proposed Conference shall deal neither with the political relations among States, nor with the order of things established by treaties, nor with any general interests which were not directly included in the programme adopted by the Cabinets.

"The Imperial Government desires to emphasise that the issue of this programme, and its eventual acceptance by the various States, must not be held to prejudice any opinion which might be formulated in the Conference regarding the solutions to be given to the questions submitted for discussion. Equally, it should belong to the projected Conference to determine the order of questions for discussion and the form to be given to its decisions, according as it may be considered preferable to include certain of them in new conventions, or to add them as supplements to existing conventions.

"In formulating the above programme the Imperial Government has taken into account, as far as possible, the desires expressed by the first Peace Conference, notably in regard to the rights and duties of neutrals, private property of belligerents at sea, the bombardment of ports, towns, etc. It expresses the hope that the Government will see in the points proposed, taken as a whole, an expression of the desire to approach that lofty ideal of International Justice which is the constant goal of the entire civilised world."1

The chief cause of adjournment of the Conference was the meeting of the Pan-American Congress at Rio-de-Janeiro fixed already for the month of July,-a Congress with which most of the North and South-American experts available for The Hague Conference would be occupied. It was decided at this Congress to add to the questions for discussion at The Hague Conference that of the enforcing by arms of commercial and financial obligations.2

1 The following is, according to the Vienna Neue Freie Presse, the text of the circular despatch addressed on April 3rd, 1907, by M. Isvolsky, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the Russian representatives abroad :

"Before the summoning of the second Peace Conference, the Imperial Government considers it its duty to lay the present situation before the Powers who have accepted its invitation. All the Powers to whom the Imperial Government, in April 1906, communicated its outline of the programme for the labours of the new Conference have assented to it. The following observations, however, have been made with reference to this programme :"The Government of the United States has reserved the right to submit to the second Conference two supplementary questions, one relating to the reduction or limitation of armies, and the other relating to the securing of an obligation to observe certain limitations in the employment of force for the collection of ordinary public debts arising out of treaties. "The Spanish Government has expressed the wish to discuss the question of the limita tion of armaments, and has reserved to itself the right to treat this question at the next Hague meeting.

"The British Government has communicated the fact that it attaches great importance to the discussion at the Conference of the question of expenditure upon armaments, and it has reserved the right to raise this question. It has also reserved the right to abstain from participating in the discussion of any articles in the Russian programme which, in its opinion, would not lead to useful results.

"Japan is of the opinion that certain questions, not specially enumerated in the programme, might advantageously be taken up among the matters which are to be examined, and has reserved the right to abstain or to withdraw from any discussion which may take a direction or show a tendency which, in its judgment, would not conduce to a useful result.

"The Governments of Bolivia, Denmark, Greece, and the Netherlands have likewise in general reserved the right to submit to the judgment of the Conference other matters which exhibit an analogy with those expressly adduced in the Russian programme.

"The Imperial Government deems it its duty to declare that Russia, on its part, adheres to the programme of April 1906 as the basis for the deliberations of the Conference, and in turn reserves the right to abstain from any discussion which does not appear to it to tend to a practical result.

"Observations analogous to these last have been made by the Governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary, which likewise have reserved the right to abstain from the discussion of any question which does not appear to them to tend to practical results.

"The Imperial Goverument, while bringing these reservations to the knowledge of the Powers, and expressing the hope that the labours of the second Peace Conference will result in fresh securities for a good understanding among the nations of the civilised world, has at the same time addressed a request to the Government of the Netherland, to summon the Conference for the early part of June."-(Translation given in Herald of Peace, May 1907.)

2 See Chap. XIX.

3 Whether Mr. Alfred Stead's proposed International Pilgrimage of Peace will have any direct effect in obtaining recognition of the articles of faith he suggests it should advocate (Review of Reviews, April, p. 374) or not, such work sets the general public thinking on a subject it can no longer afford to neglect.

subjects for discussion, as it was at the Conference of 1899,1 either by the Russian Government or by President Roosevelt. The British Government, on the contrary, has steadfastly maintained the necessity of keeping this subject in the front. A serious controversy on the advisability of including it in the programme in fact threatened to disturb the harmony of the Governments at the outset, and caused the British Prime Minister to publish a remarkable statement on the subject in the Nation of March 2, 1907, protesting vigorously against the suggestion that the discussion of the subject "would be fraught with danger." 2

1 See p. 123.

2 The text of Sir H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN'S statement is as follows:"The disposition shown by certain Powers, of whom Great Britain is one, to raise the question of the limitation of armaments at the approaching Hague Conference, has evoked some objections both at home and abroad, on the ground that such action would be ill-timed, inconvenient, and mischievous. I wish to indicate, as briefly as may be, my reasons for holding these objections to be baseless.

"It should be borne in mind that the original Conference at The Hague was convened for the purpose of raising this very question, and in the hope that the Powers might arrive at an understanding calculated to afford some measure of relief from an excessive and everincreasing burden. The hope was not fulfilled, nor was it to be expected that agreement on so delicate and complex a matter would be reached at the first attempt; but, on the other hand, I have never heard it suggested that the discussion left behind it any injurious consequences. I submit that it is the business of those who are opposed to the renewal of the attempt, to show that some special and essential change of circumstances has arisen, such as to tender unnecessary, inopportune, or positively mischievous, a course adopted with general approbation in 1898.

"Nothing of the kind has, so far as I know, been attempted, and I doubt if it could be undertaken with any hope of success. It was desirable in 1893 to lighten the burden of armaments; but that consummation is not less desirable to-day, when the weight of the burden has been enormously increased. In 1898 it was already perceived that the endless multiplication of the engines of war was futile and self-defeating; and the years that have passed have only served to strengthen and intensify that impression. In regard to the struggle for sea power, it was suspected that no limits could be set to the competition, save by a process of economic exhaustion, since the natural checks imposed on military power by frontiers, and considerations of population, have no counterpart upon the seas; and again, we find that the suspicion has grown to something like a certainty to-day.

"On the other hand, I am aware of no special circumstances which would make the submission of this question to the Conference a matter of international misgiving. It would surprise me to hear it alleged that the interests of the Powers in any respect impose on them a divergence of standpoint so absolute and irreconcilable that the mere discussion of the limitation of armaments would be fraught with danger. Here, again, it seems to me that we do well to fortify ourselves from recent experience. Since the first Hague Conference was held, the points of disagreement between the Powers have become not more, but less acute; they are confined to a far smaller field; the sentiment in favour of peace, so far as can be judged, has become incomparably stronger and more constant; and the idea of arbitration and the peaceful adjustment of international disputes has attained a practical potency, and a moral authority undreamt of in 1998. These are considerations as to which the least that can be said is that they should be allowed their due weight; and in face of them, I suggest that only upon one hypothesis can the submission of this grave matter to the Conference be set down as inadmissible: namely, that guarantees of peace, be they what they may, are to be treated as having no practical bearing on the scale and intensity of warlike preparations.

"That would be a lame and impotent conclusion, calculated to undermine the moral position of the Conference, and to stultify its proceedings in the eye of the world. It would amount to a declaration that the common interest of peace, proclaimed for the first time by the community of nations assembled at The Hague, and carried forward since then by successive stages with a rapidity beyond the dreams of the most sanguine, has been confided to the guardianship of the Admiralties and War Offices of the Powers.

"Let me in conclusion say a word as to the part of Great Britain. We have already given earnest of our sincerity by the considerable reductions that have been effected in our naval and military expenditure, as well as by the undertaking that we are prepared to go further, if we find a similar disposition in other quarters. Our delegates, therefore, will not go into the Conference empty-handed. It has, however, been suggested that our example will count for nothing, because our preponderant naval position will still remain unimpaired. I do not believe it. The sea power of this country implies no challenge to any single State or group of States. I am persuaded that throughout the world that power is recognised as non-aggressive, and innocent of designs against the independence, the commercial freedom, and the legitimate development of other States, and that it is, therefore, mistake to imagine that the naval Powers will be disposed to regard our position on the sea as a bar to any proposal for the arrest of armaments, or to the calling of a temporary true. The truth appears to me to lie in the opposite direction. Our known adhesion to those two dominant principles-the independence of nationalities and the freedom of trade-entitles us of itself to claim that if our fleets be invulnerable, they carry with them no menace across the waters of the world, but a message of the most cordial goodwill, based on a belief in the community of interests between the nations."

(The Prime Minister's suggestions are marked in italics.)