The Arbitration Treaties: an Inventory-Mr. Hay's Second Note on the Proposed New International Conference - War The Treaties of Arbitration - The Nobel Peace Prize - Port Arthur- International Peace Bureau-Interparliamentary Let Our Banner Be Thine. Poem. Julia S. Tutwiler. the treaty as it is is a very important convention, seeing that it is one of a group the signers of which include nearly all the important powers. of other treaties between our government and others When these treaties will be sent in to the Senate 1-6 probably have been handed in by the time this paper reaches our readers. If so, every influence ought to be brought to bear at once, by personal letter and otherwise, for their prompt ratification. Unexpected opposition to them is reported to have arisen among Senators. Some criticise them because they are too limited in scope and mean nothing; others because 6-8 The Neutralization of Zones on the Ocean. Edward Atkinson.. The Grounds of our Faith in the Ultimate Triumph of Peace. 10-11 The Responsibilities and Duties of Women in the Cause of How Shall we Get Rid of the Great Armaments? Rev. Charles Proceedings of the Thirteenth Universal Peace Congress (Con- The Arbitration Treaties: an Inventory. Some of the journals of the country, accustomed to summarize at its close the chief events of the have given a prominent place in their recent reviews to the arbitration treaties signed during 1904; others have passed them by with little or no notice, as if they had but small significance. It is indeed a most happy circumstance that we are able to begin the new year with so many of these conventions actually signed and so many more in process of negotiation. What has been done in this direction has marked the year 1904 as one of the most important in the entire history of the interna- Since our December issue Mr. Hay has signed two further treaties, namely, with Great Britain and We cannot yet believe that this opposition will point of view of the Monroe doctrine, etc., are still The most serious ground for fear that some have Not only has the negotiation of treaties gone 101268 b' Norway and Sweden, Great Britain and Germany, Great Britain and Austria, Russia and Belgium, the United States and France, the United States and Germany, the United States and Switzerland, the United States and Portugal, Switzerland and Great Britain, Switzerland and Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, Switzerland and France, the United States, and Great Britain, and the United States and Italy. This list we are sure is not complete, though it contains all the treaties that we have seen reported in the press as actually signed. There are at least a dozen others under way; but it is a splendid array as it is — twenty-four treaties which cross and recross among thirteen of the important civilized powers and unite them together into a bond of friendship and peace, which we may with real reason believe will never be broken again. There is certainly ground for entering on the New Year's work with unusual confidence and rejoicing. Mr. Hay's Second Note on the Proposed New International Conference. The second note of Secretary Hay to the powers, in regard to the proposed new intergovernmental conference at The Hague, which our readers will find on another page of this paper, seems to have given rise to a good deal of misconception on the part of not a few persons. Some have interpreted it to mean that the proposal for the Conference has been virtually withdrawn, and that the United States government has abandoned its initiative in the matter. What has given rise to this misconception is Mr. Hay's statement that the Conference will probably have to be deferred for a time, on account of the war in the East, and also the method which he has suggested for its organization. But that our government has in any sense withdrawn the proposition, and that the project will go no further, is a very erroneous interpretation. Mr. Hay's note first recites the general favor with which his suggestion of the holding of the Conference was received by the powers. In this respect the answer to the invitation was all that could have been expected or even desired, with at most two exceptions. Japan had answered that, while favoring the Conference, she desired that it might not in any way affect the present war. Russia had replied, not that she opposed the Conference, but that she could not take part in it until after the close of the war. That of course made it unadvisable to push the work of preparing for the meeting too rapidly forward, as the holding of it without the participation of Russia would have been most inexpedient. But the general favor with which the first note of our government was received makes the holding of the Conference certain at the earliest practicable date. The course which Mr. Hay has suggested as to the preparation of the program and the selection of the date of the meeting, etc., is an eminently wise and statesmanlike thought. It was done in part with the view of avoiding any appearance of a wish or purpose on the part of our government to attempt to dominate or control the Conference, and that all the governments, small as well as great, might feel that they were to enter its deliberations on an equality with the rest, and with an opportunity to have their fair share of influence. Mr. Hay has suggested, therefore, in the present note, that the arrangements for the Conference, the preparation of the program, etc., shall be made through the Bureau of the Administrative Council of the Hague Court, who shall act as an international committee on behalf of all the powers. If this suggestion proves acceptable to the powers, as it certainly will, then the members of this Administrative Council, which consists of all the Foreign Ministers accredited to The Netherlands government, thirty or more in number, will be instructed by their several governments to proceed together to perfect the plans for the Conference. They will, on suggestions and instructions received from their several governments, prepare the details of the program, the subjects, that is, to be considered, the date of the meeting, and will then arrange with The Netherlands government to issue the formal invitation to the powers to send delegates, as was done in 1899. The course suggested by the Secretary of State shows great political sagacity. There exists in this Administrative Council, whose members reside at The Hague, the nucleus of a world organization, and the utilization of it as an International Committee to prepare for the Conference will further habituate the governments to moving together in important matters which concern them all. This body of over thirty men, most of whom are diplomats of long experience, and many of whom were at The Hague and took part in the Conference of 1899, will be able to work out a more practicable and satisfactory program for the Conference than the State Department of any one country could possibly do. Diplomatic considerateness and courtesy will, without doubt, under the circumstances, give to the United States Minister at The Hague a prominent place in the work of the Council, and will also insure the putting upon the program of practically all the important subjects mentioned in Mr. Hay's note of October 21 last. The arrangements will also, we are sure, include an invitation to all the governments of Central and South America to send representatives to the Conference. These governments all have diplomatic representatives at Washington, as they did not have at St. Petersburg in 1898, and the mention of them in Mr. Hay's call for the Conference will make it practically impossible for them to be left out this time. We shall await with great interest the response of the powers to our government's Second Note, and shall expect in due time to see the definite arrangements for the meeting completed. War as an Argument for Peace. In an editorial written while the peace meetings following the Boston Congress were going on, the assertion was made by a daily paper in one of our leading cities that war itself is the best argument for peace. The utterance was inspired by the murderous fighting which had just taken place in Manchuria, as contrasted with the urgent moral appeals being made at the time by the Peace Congress delegates for the abolition of war and the establishment of permanent concord among the nations. The belching, spitting guns at Liaoyang, mowing down men "like oats and rye," seemed to the author of the quoted words to outdo in convincing eloquence the men and women who based their arguments against war upon reason, humanity, economy and common sense. It must be confessed that there is a good deal of truth in the paper's declaration. No other argument No other argument against war than war itself ought to be necessary. A battlefield, during and after the fighting, is about the most appalling, loathsome and mournful sight ever witnessed on the face of the earth. It would be considered incredible, if it were not so common, that a man should look for a single time on so grewsome and utterly inhuman a spectacle, or even read a description of it, and not be turned at once and forever into an irreconcilable enemy of war. That men can look on it and then condone it, and even glorify it, is more incomprehensible still. Not a few of the leading advocates of peace of the past century were driven into their open arraignment of war, and their efforts to suppress it, by what they had witnessed on the field of carnage. It is most discreditable to humanity that the number was not much larger. It argues a very low state of moral perception and purpose on the part of the average masses of men that they can be cognizant of such deeds as those which have been done recently about Port Arthur and not flock by tens of thousands to the standards of peace. But powerful as this argument is in itself, or would be, if men were morally at themselves, we do not rate it as high as is done by the newspaper to which we have referred. Its force is purely incidental. The writer of the sentiment would certainly not advise the getting up of a great and desolating war in order to convince a lot of intellectual and moral dullards that war is a miserably bad business, below the worthiness of beings claiming to be possessed of conscience and intelligence. He would doubtless allow that history has furnished proof enough of the soundness of his thesis, without the necessity of any further development of the argu ment. No, the greatest argument for peace is not war, but peace itself, just as the strongest argument for soberness is not the intoxicated man lolling in the corner of a street car, hiccoughing and gibbering, but the sober man by his side, sitting upright and decent, and carrying home in his pocket his hardearned wages to his happy wife and children. There is nothing more beautiful and noble in this earthly habitation of ours than two strong, healthy men, two families, living side by side on the same street, or on two adjoining farms, in entire friendliness and confidence, each seeking always to contribute to the other's prosperity and happiness and good reputation. No number of miserable duels fought openly or in some hidden spot, no number of despicable street fights or saloon brawls could prove so effectively as these two families living in peace that men ought not to curse and beat each other, but to live together in friendship and goodwill. One might make the same observation with even greater emphasis in regard to two great cities like New York and Philadelphia, or London and Paris, bound together by innumerable ties of travel, commerce and friendly social intercourse, so that their lives and interests become in important respects one. The active cooperative peace that exists between two such cities is one of the finest attainments of our civilization, surpassed only by that of the larger national or international community of which they constitute a part. Dr. E. E. Hale has often declared the United States to be the greatest peace society ever formed. Peace society is hardly the right word; it is more than that, it is a great pacific union of states and cities and communities and men and women living together in concord and trust and fellowship. This United States, this civilized community of eighty millions of people living together in comparative harmony, over a territory greater than the Roman empire ever covered, furnishes a mightier argument for universal and perpetual peace than all the bloody wars that have been fought since the days. of Cain. Japan and Russia at war for eleven months, during which they have killed and wounded two hundred thousand of their citizens, made countless widows and orphans, and squandered on death and ruin nearly seven hundred millions of their people's money, have indeed given us a distressingly weighty argument in behalf of peace. It is some satisfaction to know that it has been heard, and that it seems likely to be heeded. But during the same period, England and France have been making an argument for peace in an infinitely nobler form and of an altogether different |