cedure to be followed where the parties do not make different provisions. Recent history illustrates with equal force the need of other more drastic and efficient measures for the prevention of war than the facilities for arbitration afforded by the Hague tribunal. Only a short time before the meeting of the first Hague Conference there was war between China and Japan, 1894-1895. This was between Asiatic powers, who were not presumed by western nations to be familiar with this method of settling differences. But in 1898 there was war between the United States, which had been a party to so many arbitrations and was so thoroughly familiar with their uses and advantages, and Spain, the country with which it had made an arbitration agreement as early as 1795. In October of the year of the first Hague Conference, 1899, Great Britain, the other party to these most notable arbitrations, had the Boer war in South Africa, which was not finally settled until 1902. Then followed the war between Russia and Japan and the fighting in the Balkans. CHAPTER VII THE HAGUE CONFERENCES International coöperation seemed to be advancing by great strides during the last half of the nineteenth century. Conferences of diplomatic representatives of large numbers of the leading nations were held with great frequency for the purpose of making needed provisions in the interest of all. As results of these conferences governmental agencies acting in behalf of many and even of all the nations of the earth were established with various functions. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Paris gave exactness to the standard on which the metric system was founded and provided for prototypes by which the measures in use in the various countries could be tested. Though the use of this system was not universal it was most nearly so of any, and it was the most complete and scientific system ever adopted anywhere. The advantages of the convention are open to every nation not a party to it on the same terms as the signatory powers. The plan of formulating conventions applicable alike to the needs of all countries by the representatives of a considerable number of states and inviting the adhesion of those not represented at the conference appears to be a very modern and very excellent method of bringing about general agreements, and has come into quite general use. The Bureau is designed to be a permanent institution, available to all the nations. This was followed by the convention for the protection of submarine cables which dealt with the common property of all the nations, but did not establish any common governmental agency. The general act for the repression of the African slave trade dealt with a subject very different from either of the others just named, covering a very wide field of great importance. It established an international office at Zanzibar, and made a branch of the foreign office at Brussels an agency for the col lection of expenses and the exchange of documents and information connected with the operations provided for in the convention. It invited the adherence of the powers which were not parties to it. As the result of it the slave trade is substantially at an end. The convention providing for the publication of customs tariffs established an International Bureau at Brussels to translate and publish the customs tariffs of the various states of the globe and furnish them to the nations joining in the convention. Other powers are invited to accede to the convention and provision is made for a division of the expenses connected with the work of the bureau among all the powers taking advantage of the facilities it affords. The Union is to continue for seven years and if not denounced for succeeding periods of seven years. The International Postal Union with its permanent Bureau at Berne had become world-wide in its operations and a most gratifying success in every way. Through it all the nations. coöperated in facilitating commercial and social correspondence between their people. The conventions for the safety of life at sea resulted in great reduction of the perils of navigation and tended to close and intimate union of effort by the governments to formulate and enforce rules of common safety. No similar combinations for the general welfare of all had ever before been effected. Judged by the success of these international measures the task of uniting all the nations to promote their common interests appeared entirely practicable. But the primal purpose of government, protection from hostile aggression and preservation of peace, had not been provided for by any general international agreement. The very gratifying success achieved through resort to arbitration induced the belief by many earnest seekers of an alternative for war that arbitration could be made to furnish the needed relief. Though the world had advanced very rapidly in population and in the development of industries, though the discoveries. of rich mines of gold in Alaska, South Africa and elsewhere, and the vast productions of silver throughout the world had greatly increased the volume of metallic money in use, though the sentiment of mankind had become more and more opposed to war as a means of determining any question, militarism in Europe continued to increase and the resources of the nations were wasted in ceaseless preparation for war. Germany led in preparation for war on land. Its whole male population was subjected to thorough military discipline, and all its industries and means of communication were adjusted to the requirements of military operations. By far the greater part of all the public revenues were expended on the military and naval establishments. Neighboring nations made corresponding efforts to be prepared for the emergency of war. Great Britain expended vast sums to maintain its dominion of the seas, with but little attention to land forces. Russia with by far the greatest area of contiguous territory and the largest home population needed all its revenues and the energies of all its leaders for internal development, the promotion of new industries, the education of its vast multitudes of illiterate people, and the reformation of its governmental system. Though it had more men for its armies than any other European nation, it was not nearly so well equipped for the production of munitions as its German neighbors. Feeling the need of all its means for better uses than war the Czar and his advisers proposed an international conference to bring about concerted action of all the powers for the maintenance of peace between nations, the reduction of armaments and the amelioration of the hardships of war. This proposal was responded to by Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Roumania, Servia, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and Bulgaria, of the European nations, by China, Japan, Persia and Siam of the Asiatic nations, and by the United States and Mexico, of America. Central and South America were not represented. The conference assembled at The Hague on May 18, 1899; it was presided over by Baron de Staal of Russia and its sessions continued until July 29th, with one hundred delegates in attendance. No such gathering of diplomats had ever before been assembled, and great hopes were entertained of its ability to accomplish in the field of international pacification results similar to those already ther achieved in the lines above mentioned. The work of the conference resulted in the signing by all the nations represented of a general act consisting of three conventions, three declarations and six resolutions. The first of the conventions was for the pacific settlement of international disputes,' the second, for the adaptation to maritime warfare of the principles of the Geneva convention, and the third with respect to the laws and customs of war on land. The first and most important of these provided for the establishment of a Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague, with a Permanent Administrative Council, composed of the diplomatic representatives of the signatory powers accredited to the Hague and an International Bureau under its direction. The three declarations prohibit the use of projectiles or explosives from balloons for a period of five years; the employment of projectiles which diffuse asphyxiating or other deleterious gases; and the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body. The six resolutions express the opinion that the military burdens which now weigh so heavily on the world may be lightened, in the interest of the moral and material well-being of humanity; that the duties of neutrals, the inviolability of private property in maritime warfare, and the question of the bombardment of towns should be referred to a future conference, and that the questions of the types and calibres of maritime artillery and small arms and the size of naval and military budgets should be studied with a view to establishing uniformity in the former and a reduction of the latter. The Permanent Court of Arbitration was duly organized and the United States and Mexico were the first powers to resort to it for the settlement of a matter of difference between them in the summer of 1902. (1) It has since been resorted to by other nations on various occasions. All these conventions were superseded by others on the same subjects adopted at the second Hague conference. On October 1 Senate Documents, 2d Session, 61st Congress, 48, 2016. 2 Id. 48, 2035. 3 Id. 48, 2042. 4 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, XI, 371. |