nature of the ference. Chapter VIII to grasp an essential characteristic of the Peace ConDiplomatic ference, to wit: its diplomatic nature. The gatherPeace Con- ing at The Hague was the lineal descendant, so to speak, not of the innumerable Peace Congresses held in various quarters of the globe, but of the diplomatic assemblies called for the purpose of solving a present problem, and of furnishing guarantees, more or less permanent, for peace between the Powers represented, beginning with the Conferences of Münster and Osnabrück in 1648, including those of Utrecht in 1713, of Paris in 1763, and, above all, the Congress of Vienna in 1815, and that of Berlin in 1878. Differences between it and the Congresses of and Berlin. The vital distinction between these gatherings and the Peace Conference at The Hague is, that all of Vienna, Paris, the former were held at the end of a period of warfare, and their first important object was to restore peace between actual belligerents; whereas the Peace Conference was the first diplomatic gathering called to discuss guarantees of peace, without reference to any particular war, past, present, or prospective. All of the other gatherings above mentioned also had the object of affording guarantees for as permanent a peace as seemed possible at the time, and this is notably true of the Congress of Vienna, held at the close of the Napoleonic convulsion. That Congress, it should be remembered, fixed the general outlines of the boundaries between European nationalities in a manner which has scarcely been disturbed, the one important exception being the annexation of AlsaceLorraine to the German Empire. The problem fol equilibrium attained. lowing the fixing of these general lines was that of Chapter VIII national consolidation under the freest possible institutions, and the struggle for this object fills the history of the sixty years immediately following that historic gathering. When national unity and liberty had been gained by Germany and Italy, the most of Europe was able to contemplate what certainly seems to be a stable equilibrium of international relations; A stable and this equilibrium is only slightly affected by the shifting of the Franco-German frontier on the Vosges and the Rhine. The more immediate and historic causes of friction having thus been removed, no insuperable obstacle remained to a federation of the civilized Powers, definitely organized for purposes of international justice. The time had come to make the expression "International Law" a reality, instead of the cover for a miscellaneous collection of moral precepts and rules of intercourse. of The chief obstacle to the attainment of this object No impairwas for many years the fear that it implied an im-National pairment of national power, especially for defence. Defence. This conviction was based upon a curious confusion between cause and effect. It was the absence of anything worthy to be called International Law which made universal military service and the highest possible efficiency in warlike preparations necessary, not militarism and all that it implies which prevented the establishment of International Law. During the lifetime of Prince Bismarck the system of universal military service which, under his guidance, had achieved such brilliant successes, Chapter VIII seemed impregnable even so far as scientific discussion was concerned. To doubt its efficiency in Germany almost involved an accusation of treason, and other Continental countries followed the lead of the German Empire both in practice and in theory. In the introduction to this volume reference has been made to the extreme timeliness of the rescript of the Russian Emperor-coming after the death of Prince Bismarck and after the end of the Spanish-American war, and at a time when the shadow of a most tremendous problem in the Far East was darkening the horizon of all commercial nations. The Magna Law. The application of historic terms or definitions to International different ideas is generally hazardous, but it is difficult to find any valid objection to the use of the term Magna Charta of International Law for the treaty of The Hague for the Pacific Adjustment of International Differences. The significance of the Magna. Charta of England lies not so much in what it contained, as in what it signified. It was the basis of all future development of English civil liberty, which up to that time had been without any satisfactory legal foundation. In the words of its greatest historian "the whole of English Constitutional History is little more than a commentary on Magna Charta."1 It is not necessary, for the purpose of exalting the Peace Conference and its work, to depreciate the value of the science of International Law as previ ously understood; but every student has long been well aware of the fact that in the absence of any 1 Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, 532. ultimate legal or judicial method for the adjustment Chapter VIII of international differences, the science itself was bound to remain fragmentary and ineffective. It was almost as though municipal law had contained only rules of action and principles of justice, but had provided no method by which these principles could be vindicated or the rules carried into effect. The keystone to the arch must ever be the provision for a peaceable method of procedure, however incomplete or unsatisfactory, for the establishment of rights and the imposition of duties. in method of Here is the true bearing of the work of the Peace A peaceable Conference upon International Law. The provisions procedure. of the latter regarding the sovereignty of States, the inviolability of their chief executives and representatives, the rights and duties of aliens and citizens, the provisions regarding national territory and the high seas, and those regarding treaties and contracts, other words, the entire body of International Law in peace and war, are all bound together by the new treaty, under which a violation of rights no longer need necessarily lead to war, but can be litigated and settled, no less efficiently because peaceably. Whatever fault may be found with the particular provisions of the treaty, the latter itself must remain the nucleus around which, by discussion and adjudication, a more perfect body of law is sure to be framed. A text-book of International Law without a careful discussion of The Hague Treaty for the Peaceful Adjustment of International Differences is hereafter quite as unthinkable as a history of Eng Chapter VIII lish Constitutional Law containing no reference to Magna Charta or the Bill of Rights. The voluntary feature of the treaty. Objection may be made to this analogy on the ground that inasmuch as all the proposed substitutes for war in the treaty are left entirely to the voluntary choice of the belligerents, no real advance has been made. It may be argued, and it will perhaps be said with a sneer, that there never was any obstacle in the way of governments wishing to arbitrate rather than to fight, and that the mere qualifying phrases" as far as possible," "as far as circumstances allow," etc., practically nullify the value of the articles in which they are contained. Objections such as these are equivalent to a denial of the possibility of any advance in International Law. Brief reflection will convince even the severest critic that the only other alternative to a voluntary system of arbitration must necessarily include a sanction, in the shape of an executive power or authority with sufficient force to compel adherence to an agreement for arbitration. A few advocates of the idea have even gone so far as to suggest the establishment of an international army, to act as an executive force of the proposed international court. compelling obedience to its mandates. This would, of course, mean a vital impairment of the sovereignty of all States agreeing to such a plan, and it would lead directly to a cosmopolitanism, than which nothing could have been farther from the ideas of the framers of The Hague Treaty. They were careful to leave the sovereignty of each State absolutely unimpaired, and |